Module related communications

How can I contact students?

There are several ways to communicate with students online.

Email

Email is the main channel of communication with students. All students are given an @myport.ac.uk email and they are advised that this should be their main digital method of communication with the University. It is not advisable to communicate with a student using other email addresses as it is impossible to verify the authenticity of the sender. Email is perfect for a one-to-one or one-to-many communication tool. If you are sending emails to many students at once, it is advisable to use the BCC field to include their email addresses. This prevents them from knowing other recipients of the email and their addresses and also eliminates the problem of students intentionally or unintentionally clicking "Reply all" and spamming their colleagues.

Moodle forums

Moodle forums are excellent for both disseminating information and encouraging discussion.

News forums

Each Moodle module has a news forum by default. This type of forum allows only lecturers to start new discussion topics, although students can post responses. By default, all students are automatically subscribed to posts, meaning that emails will be generated and sent out to all users who have not explicitly chosen to block email notifications. The news forum is a good choice for making announcements.

Discussion forums

Discussion forums can be added throughout Moodle and allow a more flexible area for discussion. New topics can be created by students and you can control subscription settings to tailor notifications to your needs. Elsewhere on this website you can find more information about setting up discussion forums.

Moodle messaging

Moodle offers a private messaging function to allow one-to-one or one-to-many messaging. Elsewhere on this website you can find more information about Moodle Messaging.

Staff portal

It is possible to use the staff portal located at https://portal-webapps.port.ac.uk/staff/ to send email to students. Go to:

"My Services -> Email Students" to email by course or module code.