FAQs for moodle

What is moodle?

Moodle is an Internet tool that allows the classroom to extend onto the web. It is not a program to replace face-to-face teaching, but to support it with a range of flexible online tools, as well as providing a place to upload resources for courses. Moodle course site designers have many options available to them when setting up the Moodle environment for a course. They may choose to provide tools so you may interact with the students in your course, upload assignments, access resources and much more.

Why use moodle?

This is a good question "Why use Moodle at all?" Classes have been running for thousands of years without the use of computers and the Web. While traditional face-to-face lectures and tutorials can still be highly effective, supporting this teaching with a range of online tools opens up new possibilities for learning. Moodle's 'tool set' includes discussion forums, wikis, quizzes, tools to upload and share resources. Whilst these tools exist elsewhere as separate programs, Moodle conveniently packages them into an single, integrated, user-friendly environment. Currently there is a lot of research into how to effectively combine online learning and face-to-face lectures in what is called "blended learning".

Moodle is also "open source", which simply means that users have access to the source code of the software. You can look inside and see how it works, tinker with it, or use parts of the code for your own projects. Why is this important? Well, just as one can download Moodle for free, users can also write new features, fix bugs, improve performance, or simply learn from looking at how other people solved a problem. As we already have plenty of the expertise within the School of Computer Science, we are in a position to write new tools or modify existing tools to suit our own teaching requirements and provide a better learning experience for our students.

Who else uses moodle?

The Moodle community is growing fast across the world with the number of known Moodle sites growing exponentially. In the UK Moodle is used at all levels, including universities, adult education centres, colleges, secondary schools, primary schools, private individuals and companies. Most recently the Open University, which is the UK's only university dedicated to distance learning, has started a new programme which will see the largest use of Moodle in the world.

Which web browser should I use with moodle?

Moodle will work in any modern web browser, however, moodle works best in a a range of specific browser types (see below). Your browser should also have both cookies and javascript enabled. These are typically enabled by default, but if you think these settings might need enabling, check the documentation for your particular browser for how to do these.

To make best use of what moodle has to offer, it is recommended that uses choose a browser that supports moodle's in-line HTML editor. This is a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor with an interface much like you would see in most word processing packages.

This in-line HTML editor will only appear if you use one of a specific range of browser types that knows how to start the editor. If you do not use one of these browser types, you can still use moodle just fine, but without the luxury of a WYSIWYG editor. Luckily, there is a supported browser that will work on all major operating system types. The list of supported and not supported browsers is shown below:

Browsers that support the HTML editor Browsers that do not support the HTML editor
Recent versions of:

Internet Explorer (v5.5 or later)
Firefox (all versions)
Mozilla (v1.7 or later)
SeaMonkey (all versions)
Netscape (v7 or later)

Any versions of:

Opera
Safari
Camino

How do I log into moodle?

  1. To get to the moodle login screen, point your web browser at:
    https://moodle.cs.man.ac.uk/

  2. Your username and password is the same as your School UNIX account username and password. Staff should ensure they use their teaching domain passwords. Enter these into the login box and select the Login button. If you had problems logging in, check that the caps lock key on your computer keyboard is off and that you use the correct combination of lower case and capital letters in both your username and your password.

  3. After successfully logging into moodle for the first time, you will be presented with a web form to complete the details of your moodle profile.

    • Add you first and last names;
    • your email address;
    • the city/town where you live (for most people this will be Manchester);
    • and add a short description of yourself.
    • You can also (optionally) upload a small photograph to personalise your moodle account.
    • Select the Update profile button to complete your moodle registration.

How does moodle authenticate?

Moodle authenticates users from the School of Computer Science using their UNIX login ID and password. The set up of School UNIX accounts is managed by the duty office. When you became a member of the School of Computer Science you should have received your School login details. You username is usually the first 6-7 characters from your last name, plus you first name initials appended to the end or front. Student also often have a number tagged on to the end to represent the year they joined the School.

I've forgotten or don't know what my moodle username is, how can I find out what it is?

Although duty office are responsible for creating and managing School UNIX accounts, you may be able to save time (theirs and yours!) by finding out what your username is for yourself. To do this, you will need to find a friend/colleague whom can already successfully log into a LINUX or Sun workstation. Ask them to type the following:

-> csinfo <your last name>


Where <your last name> should replaced by your last name. You can also search by first name too, but you will most likely get too many results. You may get back a list of possible matching records. In most cases you should be able to work out which record represents you, but if not just select each number one-by-one until you see your own record. Within the information of each record look for the field "UNIX account". Immediately after that is your UNIX account ID.

Failing this contact dutyoffice@cs.man.ac.uk letting them know your full name and degree programme if applicable.

I've never logged in before, what will my password be?

Typically all new accounts are set up so that the initial password is your date of birth in the format YYYYMMDD, for example if you are born on 2nd September 1974, you would enter "19740902". It is strongly recommended that you change your initial password to something more secure.

If this fails to work, and you are sure that you are using the correct username, please contact dutyoffice@cs.man.ac.uk as this is not a problem that moodle admins will be able to solve.

I've forgotten or don't know what my moodle password is, how can I get it reset?

If you are very new to the School of Computer Science your password might never have been changed from that it was initially assigned with. Typically all new accounts are set up so that the initial password is your date of birth in the format YYYYMMDD, for example if you are born on 2nd September 1974, you would enter "19740902". It is strongly recommended that you change your initial password to something more secure.

Passwords are not directly handled inside moodle. Instead passwords are checked via querying the Schools mail IMAP server, which in turn uses your UNIX username and password. This essentially means that you/moodle admins cannot get your password reset from within moodle, but must instead ask a School UNIX system administrator to do this for you.

To get your password reset, in the first instance ask someone in the Resource Centre on the lower floor to do this. If they are busy or unable to do this for you, contact dutyoffice@cs.man.ac.uk letting them know your full name and degree programme if applicable.

How do I change my password?

Passwords are not directly handled inside moodle. Instead passwords are checked via querying the Schools mail IMAP server, which in turn uses your UNIX username and password. This essentially means that you/moodle admins cannot change your password from within moodle. Instead this can be done from any LINUX or Sun workstation or you can remotely login from outside the School (discussed shortly). Duty office have provided instructions on how to go about this on the following page: http://intranet.cs.man.ac.uk/csonly/php/services/software/log+pass.php.

Please note that if you cannot easily get into the School (for example you are on an industrial placement) to change your password you can also do so remotely. The above page also discusses logging into School machines remotely. Windows users should download the Putty software to provide command line access to School servers for changing their password. If you find any of these instructions unclear and need further help, or if you experience problems logging into moodle after changing your password, please contact moodlesupport@cs.man.ac.uk.

Can my password be anything I like?

The most important this is that you choose a strong UNIX password. However, certain characters have been known to cause problems when moodle authenticates against the IMAP server. In particular any of the following symbols £^#&%.

Important: The only known black listed password is "changeme". Not only is this a weak password, but will cause problems when you log into moodle. Moodle will continually forward you to this page until you change your password. It has been known for resource centre staff to reset passwords to this.

How do find my course unit area?

To find any course site you may be able to locate it simply by browsing the categories and course listing directly. However, the fastest way to find a specific course is to use the Search courses tool located at the bottom of the course listing page (see screen shot below). This generally does an excellent job at returning sensible results, especially if you use a very specific term such as a course code e.g. COMP10900. (Note that not all Computer Science course unites are using moodle, but if you are sure a course unit should be there and still can't find it, then seek help from your course unit tutor.)

Another way to find a course you are enrolled on is to may use of moodle's my moodle feature. My Moodle is a customisable "dashboard" page for providing users with links to their courses and activities within them, such as unread forum posts and upcoming assignments. Therefore if you are enrolled on a course, it will be listed here.

I have a problem with an aspect of my course unit, who do I contact?

If your query is academic related then you should direct your query to your course lecturer(s). To contact them using moodle, select the "Participants" list on your moodle course site and search for the lecturer in the list of participants on the course unit. Then select the link to your lecturers name to view their moodle profile. This will usually contain a link to their contact email address. Alternatively, below their profile details, you will also see a button labelled "Send message" which allows you to contact your lecturer using moodle's internal messenger.

I have a problem relating to a technical aspect of using moodle, who do I contact?

Technical queries relating to moodle should be emailed to moodlesupport@cs.man.ac.uk.

Where can I find help documentation about using moodle?

Help documentation on moodle is available in the "Help and Support" section on front page of the moodle site. Inside this section you should select the moodle area "Student Guide to Using Moodle". This moodle area provides information about using many of the tools used in your own courses. It also provides information about general features of moodle and how you can personalise it.

Why is this course unit using moodle and not Blackboard?

Blackboard was officially launched by the University of Manchester at the start of the 2008/2009 academic year and is now the officially supported University wide system across the University. Prior to this, the School of Computer Science was supporting many course-units using moodle which they were running and administering within the School itself. Though Blackboard is the officially supported University system, the School of Computer Science will continue to run and support the moodle service whilst there is a compelling reason to carrying on using it (for example, to use features not available in Blackboard) and also to allow time for moodle course-units to be gradually migrated over to Blackboard when it is seen fit to do so.

What if I have a problem relating to a technical aspect of using Blackboard (not moodle), who do I contact?

Please do not email Blackboard related queries to the moodlesupport email address. All Blackboard related support queries should be emailed to elearning@manchester.ac.uk.

Last modified: Thursday, 17 July 2008, 1:58 PM