Moodle Content & Activities
Embedded Files
This page covers resources for managing content and activities in your course Moodle. You can use the link navigation to the right to quickly jump to a specific section. Use the bar at the top of this page to go to a different page topic.
Sections
Sections
⤷ Reopening Assignments
⤷ Locking Assignments
⤷ Extending Assignments
⤷ Rubrics
⤷ Grading Guides
⤷ Checklists
⤷ Audio / Video Feedback
⤷ Allowing Multiple Submissions
⤷ Downloading Submissions in Bulk
⤷ Turnitin
⤷ Multiple Choice Questions
⤷ True or False Questions
⤷ All or Nothing Questions
⤷ Essay Questions
⤷ Scenario Questions
⤷ Random Questions
⤷ Importing from Respondus
⤷ Removing Questions
⤷ Categorizing Questions
⤷ Grading MC Questions
⤷ Grading Essay Questions
Assignments
Assignments
Creating Dropboxes
Creating Dropboxes
Moodle’s Assignment activity allows instructors to create digital dropboxes where students can submit their work; These resources support a wide range of file types, including documents, PDFs, audio, and video files. Instructors can set due dates, submission types (file upload, online text, or both), grading methods (simple direct grading, rubrics, or grading guides), and whether late submissions are accepted.
To create a dropbox, navigate to your Course Page and turn on Edit Mode. Click + Add an Activity or Resource, and select Assignment. Enter the relevant information, content, and settings. Once complete, select Save & Return to Course.
We've also included a video with a step-by-step guide to adding Assignments to your Moodle course.
Changing Assignment Status
Changing Assignment Status
After an assignment has been created, instructors can update its Availability and Submission settings to accommodate changing needs or individual student circumstances. This includes locking assignments, reopening submissions, and extending due dates. Refer to the subsections below to learn more about updating an assignment's status.
REOPENING AN ASSIGNMENT
Assignments that are listed as Submitted for Grading cannot be updated by the student; Faculty can allow students to edit their submission by Reopening the Assignment and updating the status Draft, which will allow students to edit their submission.
To reopen an assignment, navigate to its Submissions page. Locate the student whom you wish to return the assignment to, and click the ⋮ Menu icon under the Status column. Select Revert the Submission to Draft (see Figure 1).
Note: You can also complete this process for multiple students at once by utilizing the Select column.
LOCKING AN ASSIGNMENT
Assignment submissions displaying Draft status are still editable by students; Submitted Assignments are not eligible for edits unless returned by the instructor. Instructors have the ability to lock draft submissions to prevent further changes and/or edits.
To lock an assignment, navigate to its Submissions page. Locate the student whose draft you wish to lock, and click the ⋮ Menu icon under the Status column. Select Prevent Submission Changes (see Figure 1a).
Note: You can also complete this process for multiple students at once by utilizing the Select column.
EXTENDING AN ASSIGNMENT
Students who have yet to complete or submit their assignment(s) are eligible for an Extension, should the instructor choose. This allows a student to continue working on their assignment and removes the Overdue status.
To grant an assignment extension, navigate to its Submissions page. Locate the student for whom you wish to grant an extension, and click the ⋮ Menu icon under the Status column. Select Grant Extension (see Figure 1b).
Note: You can also complete this process for multiple students at once by utilizing the Select column.
Figure 1
Figure 1a
Figure 1b
Grading Assignments
Grading Assignments
Moodle offers flexible grading tools that allow instructors to evaluate student work directly within the platform. Submitted assignments can be graded using simple numeric or letter scales, as well as more structured tools like rubrics and checklists. Instructors can also leave written comments or record audio/video feedback to support students with personalized responses. Once students submit their work, instructors can begin the grading process through Moodle's built-in PDF annotation tool.
To access submissions, navigate to the Assignment and select Submissions. This will display each assignment per student, as well as given grades, student information, and instructor feedback (see Figure 2).
Figure 2
Grading an assignment can be done using the In-Line Annotation Tool, which allows you to efficiently review and grade student submissions from within Moodle. This process displays the submitted document in a viewing panel and provides options for adding annotations, which will then be automatically returned to the student as a Feedback file.
To grade submissions, navigate to the Assignment and click the Grade button (see Figure 2a). Refer to the key below to learn more about the features of the In-Line Annotation Tool (see Figure 2b) and the sections below for more information on using rubrics and/or checklists to grade, as well as providing video/audio feedback.
Figure 2a
Figure 2b
ANNOTATION TOOL KEY
A. | Moodle Navigation
Linked options that will take you back to your course page, the assignment page, or the submissions page.
B. | Student Information
Information for the student whose assignment you are grading, as well as the due date.
C. | User Navigation
Choose which student whose assignment you want to grade.
D. | Page Navigation
Navigate through the document/assignment, and the option to search or expand all comments.
E. | Annotation Toolbar
Undo, redo, comment, sticky note, drag, select, and notation features.
F. | Submission Information
Assignment status, grade, comments, and feedback information.
G. | Assignment
PDF view of the assignment.
H. | Save Options
Save your changes, save and view the next assignment, or reset your changes.
I. | View Options
Split view the Submission Info and Assignment, or just view one of them.
RUBRICS
Rubrics provide a clear breakdown of performance levels across multiple criteria. When grading, instructors select the appropriate level for each criterion, and Moodle automatically calculates the grade.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on setting up and using a grading rubric.
GRADING GUIDES
Grading Guides allow instructors to define custom criteria for grading without the structured point levels used in rubrics. Instructors manually enter scores for each criterion and can optionally select from pre-written feedback comments to streamline the grading process.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on setting up and using a grading guide.
CHECKLISTS
Checklists offer a simple yes/no evaluation for each grading criterion. Instructors mark which components were completed successfully, and Moodle totals the score based on the values assigned to each item.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on setting up and using a grading checklist.
Using Rubrics to Grade in Moodle
Using Grading Guides to Grade in Moodle
Using Checklists to Grade in Moodle
Figure 3
AUDIO / VIDEO FEEDBACK
Instructors can offer personalized feedback by recording audio or video comments directly in the grading interface.
To offer audio/video feedback when grading, scroll down to the Feedback Comments in the Grading Annotation Tool. Click the ⋯ Menu icon, and select the Record Audio or Record Video buttons (see Figure 3).
Note: Media posts when grading are limited to 5 minutes.
Allowing Multiple Submissions
Allowing Multiple Submissions
Moodle allows instructors to control how many times a student can submit to an assignment, making it easy to support drafting, peer review, or revision-based work. By default, Moodle accepts only one submission per student unless Multiple Submissions are enabled.
To allow multiple submissions, navigate to the Assignment and select Settings. Scroll down to the Submission Settings, and set the Allowed Attempts to Unlimited or >1. Click the Grant Attempts dropdown to choose from Manually, Automatically, or Automatically Until Pass (see Figure 4). Once complete, select Save & Return to Course.
Figure 4
Figure 5
Downloading Submissions in Bulk
Downloading Submissions in Bulk
Moodle makes it easy to download all student submissions for an assignment at once, allowing for offline review, annotation, or backup.
Note: For file submissions, all uploaded documents, PDFs, images, or other files will be included.
To download submissions in bulk, navigate to the Assignment and select Submissions. Click the Action ⌵ button, and select Download All Submissions (see Figure 5).
Video Assignment Options
Video Assignment Options
When creating the assignment, instructors should enable Online Text as the only submission method, and disable File Submissions. Students can then upload their video to a hosting platform such as YouTube (set to “unlisted”) or Google Drive, and paste the shareable link into the text box when submitting. This method streamlines the submission process, minimizes technical problems, and allows instructors to view video content more efficiently without needing to download large files.
To set this up, navigate to the Assignment and select Settings. Scroll down to the Submission Types, and toggle Online Text on and File Submissions off (see Figure 6). Once complete, select Save & Return to Course.
Figure 6
Figure 7
Turnitin
Turnitin
Turnitin is a plagiarism detection and writing integrity tool that checks student work for originality by comparing it against a vast database of internet sources, academic publications, and previously submitted papers. It generates a Similarity Report, highlighting matching text and potential citation issues.
In Moodle, Turnitin is integrated directly into the Assignment activity. To use it, navigate to the Assignment and select Settings. Scroll down to the Turnitin Plagiarism Plugin Settings section, and toggle Enable Turnitin to Yes (see Figure 7). Sort through and customize all of the options available within the section. Once complete, select Save & Return to Course.
Turnitin supports most common file types, and works best with text-based assignments. It’s an excellent tool for writing-intensive courses and helps reinforce academic integrity standards in your classroom.
Quizzes
Quizzes
Creating a Quiz
Creating a Quiz
The Quiz activity in Moodle allows instructors to build and deliver timed assessments, practice tests, or self-checks using a wide variety of question types. Moodle supports multiple choice, true/false, short answer, essay, matching, drag-and-drop, calculated questions, and more. It's highly customizable, making it useful for both high-stakes testing and low-pressure formative assessments.
To create a quiz, navigate to your Course Page and turn on Edit Mode. Click + Add an Activity or Resource, and select Quiz. Enter the relevant information, content, and settings. Once complete, select Save & Return to Course.
We've included a walkthrough tutorial from the Moodle team for a more in-depth explanation on creating a quiz. You can refer to the sections below for more information as well.
Adding Questions
Adding Questions
Once a quiz has been created, instructors can add a variety of question types to assess knowledge, promote critical thinking, or reinforce course content. Questions can be added manually or imported from a question bank or external tool such as Respondus. Moodle supports both automatically graded question types and open-ended formats that require manual grading. Refer to the following subsections to learn more about each question type.
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
Multiple Choice questions allow students to choose one or more correct answers from a list of options. Instructors can set a single correct answer or multiple correct answers with customizable feedback and scoring for each option.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on adding multiple choice questions.
Note: Multiple choice questions begin at 3:05.
TRUE OR FALSE QUESTIONS
These are simple statements that students evaluate as either true or false. They are quick to create and grade automatically, making them useful for quick knowledge checks, especially when combined with immediate feedback.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on adding true or false questions.
ALL OR NOTHING QUESTIONS
This variation of multiple choice requires students to select all and only the correct options to receive full credit. Partial credit is not awarded, it's either all correct or no points. These are useful when you want to reinforce precision and full understanding of a concept.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on adding all or nothing questions.
Adding Multiple Choice Questions to a Moodle Quiz
Adding True or False Questions to a Moodle Quiz
Adding All or Nothing Questions to a Moodle Quiz
ESSAY QUESTIONS
Essay questions allow students to respond with longer, open-ended answers. These responses must be graded manually and are ideal for assessing critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, or reflection. You can provide a response box with formatting tools, and even allow file attachments if needed.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on adding essay questions.
SCENARIO QUESTIONS
Scenario-based questions are built around a case study, prompt, or detailed context. While Moodle doesn’t offer a specific “Scenario” question type, you can use a combination of Description items and follow-up questions to create a series of related prompts based on the same scenario.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on adding scenario questions.
RANDOM QUESTIONS
Random questions allow Moodle to pull from a selected category in the question bank, presenting a different question to each student, or to the same student on repeated attempts. This helps reduce the risk of academic dishonesty and adds variety to practice quizzes or repeated assessments.
We've included a video guide below for more in-depth information on adding random questions.
Adding Essay Questions to a Moodle Quiz
Adding Scenario Questions to a Moodle Quiz
Adding Random Questions to a Moodle Quiz
IMPORTING FROM RESPONDUS
If you use Respondus 4.0, you can create and format quizzes offline and then upload them directly to Moodle. Respondus supports rich formatting, embedded media, and bulk question creation.
We've included a full video tutorial and walkthrough that dives deeper into the step-by-step process of formatting quiz content and importing it into Respondus, and then into Moodle.
Managing Questions
Managing Questions
Once you’ve added questions to a quiz, Moodle gives you flexible options to reorganize, categorize, or remove them as needed. This is especially helpful when refining your assessments, building reusable question banks, or keeping your course organized. Please refer to each of the subsections below for more information.
REMOVING QUESTIONS
To remove a question, navigate to the Quiz and select Questions. Locate the question you wish to remove, and click the 🗑 Delete icon (see Figure 8). Confirm removal by clicking Yes.
Note: Deleting a question from a quiz does not remove the question from your Question Bank.
If a question has already been attempted by students but you still wish to remove it, you can reset its point value to 0 to exclude it from the quiz scoring. To do so, navigate to the Quiz and select Questions. Locate the question you wish to exclude, and click the Point Value field. Set the number to 0 (see Figure 8a). Press Enter to confirm.
Note: The question will be preserved and remain part of the quiz, but will not affect grades.
Figure 8
Figure 8a
CATEGORIZING QUESTIONS
To better organize your questions, Moodle allows you to create Categories within the Question Bank. This helps with long-term course management and makes it easier to build randomized quizzes or pull from topic-specific pools.
To set up a category, select More ⌵ from the toolbar below your course title, and click Question Bank. Click the Questions dropdown, and select Categories; Select Add Category.
From here, you can create a hierarchy of categories, and can simply assign questions to their appropriate category using the dropdown at the top of the question editing page.
We've included a step-by-step video tutorial on creating and using a question bank for you to follow along with.
Grading a Quiz
Grading a Quiz
Moodle’s Quiz activity automatically grades most objective question types, while also allowing for manual grading of open-ended responses like essays. After students complete a quiz, instructors can review responses, adjust grades, and leave feedback directly within the quiz grading interface.
To begin grading a quiz, navigate to the Quiz and select Results from the toolbar below your course title.
Figure 9
Multiple choice, true/false, matching, and other structured question types are graded automatically by Moodle as soon as a student submits the quiz. Each option is scored based on how the question was configured (e.g., full credit, partial credit, or all-or-nothing). You can review student responses by clicking into their quiz attempt and scrolling through each question.
If you discover an issue with a question, you can adjust grades manually on each student's attempt or regrade the quiz by first revising the Question settings (i.e., correct answer, points, etc.) then forcing a regrade. To complete a regrade, navigate to the Results tab. Scroll down, click Regrade Attempts, and click Regrade Now (see Figure 9).
Essay questions must be graded manually. These are not scored automatically, even if the quiz includes a total grade.
To grade essay questions, navigate to the Results tab. Click the Grades dropdown and select Manual Grading.
You’ll see a list of questions that require manual review. Click Grade under the To Grade column.
For a more in-depth explanation and a step-by-step tutorial you can follow along with, we've included a video on grading essay questions.
Grading Essay Questions in Moodle
Other Activities & Content
Other Activities & Content
Discussion Forums
Discussion Forums
Moodle's Discussion Forums are one of the most versatile and commonly used activities, allowing for structured class discussions, peer interaction, reflection, and community building. Instructors can create forums for whole-class conversations, small group collaboration, or weekly check-ins, and posts can include text, images, links, and even multimedia content.
Moodle offers several forum types, each suited to different teaching goals. The Standard Forum allows open-ended discussion where students can post and reply freely. For more structured participation, the Q&A Forum is a great option, in which students must first post their own response to a question before they can see or reply to others’ posts.
Forums are ideal for extending class discussions or supporting asynchronous learning. We've included a video from the Moodle team that covers a more in-depth look.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires
The Questionnaire activity in Moodle allows instructors to create custom surveys to collect feedback, reflections, or other non-graded input from students. Unlike quizzes, questionnaires are not meant to assess student learning, instead, they’re designed for gathering information. This can include mid-semester feedback, pre-course surveys, interest checks, or anonymous reflections.
Instructors can choose from a variety of question types, such as multiple choice, open-text responses, and more, and responses can be set to anonymous or identifiable, depending on the purpose.
We've included a video tutorial that walks you through how to add a Questionnaire to your course, as well as goes over all of the settings and details involved.
Books
Books
Book resources in Moodle allow instructors to create multi-page content, organized into chapters and subchapters, similar to a digital textbook. It’s ideal for presenting structured information like lesson content, reading materials, weekly overviews, or handbooks in a clean and scrollable format.
Each chapter appears as a separate page in a left-hand navigation menu, making it easy for students to move between sections. Chapters can include text, images, links, videos, or embedded content using the Moodle text editor. Subchapters can also be added for further organization within a topic.
For a more in-depth look at Books and the features they offer, we've added a video from the Moodle team.
Wikis
Wikis
A Wiki in Moodle is a collaborative space where students and instructors can create and edit a collection of linked pages, much like a simplified, course-specific version of Wikipedia. Wikis are useful for group projects, research sharing, glossary creation, or collaborative note-taking.
Moodle allows you to set up a single wiki for the whole class, or create individual or group wikis so that each student or group has their own editable space. The editing tools are similar to Moodle’s standard text editor, and a full revision history is available, allowing instructors to track contributions and restore previous versions if needed.
The Moodle team has a complete walkthrough video tutorial on Wikis, so we've included that for you here.
Certificates
Certificates
Custom Certificates allow instructors to award learners for work completion based on specific criteria. This is typically used in training courses. For example, if a learner needs to read or view material and pass a quiz, a certificate can be auto-generated upon a passing grade of the quiz.
Certificates will not be automatically emailed to learners. They will need to enter the certificate activity to view and download their certificate. There are four Nazareth-provided templates for certificates; you can select one of these, should you prefer not to make your own. These pre-made certificates have a custom size, therefore you should not change the width or height of your certificate.
We've included a YouTube tutorial that covers the step-by-step process of creating a Certificate.
Note: The linked video covers creating a certificate from scratch, however, you may find it easier to use the provided templates.
Workshops
Workshops
Workshop activities in Moodle are a powerful tool for managing peer assessment. It allows students to submit their own work and then evaluate their peers’ submissions using a structured grading form provided by the instructor. This two-phase process helps students engage more deeply with course material, reflect on evaluation criteria, and develop critical feedback skills.
Workshops are ideal for writing assignments, project proposals, designs, or any task where peer feedback enhances learning. While more complex to set up than a standard assignment, they provide a structured, scalable way to facilitate meaningful peer-to-peer interaction.
For a more in-depth look at Workshops from the Moodle team, we've included a video walkthrough.
External Tools
External Tools
Moodle supports a variety of External Tools through the LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) standard, allowing instructors to integrate third-party platforms directly into their course. These tools extend Moodle’s core functionality by embedding services like video conferencing, lecture capture, portfolios, and more into the course workflow. Common external tools include:
━ Zoom, which allows you to schedule or launch Zoom meetings directly from your Moodle course page
━ Echo360, which provide access to lecture recordings, interactive video content, and engagement tools
━ ePortfolio, which connects students to uploading reflections, artifacts, or academic progress materials
To learn more about adding external tools, TLT has created an in-depth video tutorial for you.
Having trouble? Contact the Technology & Media Service Desk at 585-389-2111 or tmsd@naz.edu
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