[Anonymisation of survey responses]We may combine or correlate the responses in the feedback survey with
the responses in the pre-course survey to understand the influence of
different factors on course participation. However, in doing any such
analysis, we will be using anonymised numeric
identifiers and not real names. Further, for reporting purposes we may
use anonymised data or quotes from this survey. (You can also look at our privacy policy to learn how we use the data we collect.) While we ask you to
complete this survey to meet the completion criteria for the course,
your actual responses will not have any bearing
on your course completion status. |
Acknowledging AuthorAID courses in your publicationsIf you would like to give credit to an AuthorAID online course in any of your manuscripts (eg, in the "acknowledgements section"), we suggest this wording: "<your name> gained useful knowledge on research writing from an AuthorAID online course run by INASP". Please note the correct way to write AuthorAID with "AID" capitalised (it is not "AuthorAid"), and please make sure you mention INASP too because this is AuthorAID's parent organisation. Thank you :) |
ALERT: Upcoming events block is not yet activatedAfter you complete the pre assessment quiz, the course material will become available to you and therefore the upcoming events block will be activated. If you haven't yet completed the pre assessment quiz, whatever message you see in the upcoming events block (eg, "no deadlines in the next 10 days") may not be correct. So please complete this quiz as soon as possible! |
Automatically generated certificatesFor many courses on INASP Moodle we award certificates that are generated automatically based on the relevant course completion criteria. If you're eligible for such a certificate, you'll be notified when your certificate is ready for downloading. Please note the following:
Related tip: Verification code on the certificate |
Being part of the AuthorAID communityThere's more than one way to be part of the large AuthorAID community!
AuthorAID is run by INASP, an international development charity in the UK, and we work in the areas of research access, research production, research uptake, and so on, all with a focus on developing countries. If you're interested in INASP's work...
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Check your submissionWhenever you upload a document on a website - whether it is a journal submission system, INASP Moodle, or something else - it's always a good idea to try to download and open that document to make sure it has been uploaded properly. Errors sometimes happen during the uploading stage because of which your document may have been uploaded incompletely or may not have been uploaded at all! |
Check/edit your profileTo edit your profile, click your name or photo in the top right hand corner of this site, click "Profile" and then "Edit profile". We recommend that you add a photo of yourself in your profile and write
something about yourself in the "description" field. This way you'll contribute to making the course a friendly learning environment :) When editing your profile, you can also change your personal details (including your password), set your time zone, etc. |
Checking or editing your own entry in a database activityOnce you have added an entry, you can check or edit it if you'd like to. To do this, you have to
first search for your entry by putting your name in the search box in
the database. You should then be
able to see your entry. To edit your entry, click the icon that looks like this: |
Checking your submission in a peer assessment activity
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Completing a peer assessment activityThe completion check mark for an activity that includes a peer assessment phase will appear once the activity is closed. It will NOT appear immediately after the submission and assessment phases.
Once the above two phases are completed, the course facilitator will close the activity. You will see a completion check mark after the closure phase IF (1) you have submitted your work and (2) you have received at least one assessment. If you have submitted your work but you have not received any assessments, you will not see a completion check mark, but the course moderator will ensure that you get credit for this activity -- as long as you have assessed all the works allocated to you. Remember: To receive completion credit for a peer assessment activity, you should take part in BOTH the submission and assessment phases. |
Completion check mark for a peer assessment activityA peer assessment activity consists of three phases, explained below. The completion check mark for this activity will appear at the end of the third phase. It will NOT appear immediately after the submission and assessment phases.
Also see: Completion credit for a peer assessment activity |
Completion check mark for lessonsOnce you see all the pages in a lesson, you will see a check mark
inside the box next to the lesson name on the homepage, indicating that
you have completed this lesson. If you think you've
gone through a lesson but you don't see the check mark, it means you may
have skipped one or more pages in between. |
Confidentiality statement: INASP MoodleThe information you provide in the background information survey and your activity metrics in the course will be held in confidentiality by INASP. If you are taking an online course as part of a sponsored group, we may share this information with the sponsoring
organisation. Otherwise, only overall data, such as the number of course completers, are shared in the public domain.
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Creative Commons licenseCreative Commons licenses allow material to be shared and reused under terms that are flexible and legally sound. There are 6 types of creative commons licenses. See https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-types-examples/ |
Deadline reminders in upcoming events or calendar blockIf there's an upcoming events block or calendar block on your course homepage, you can see upcoming deadlines in this block. By default, deadlines occurring in the next 10 days are shown. When you complete an activity, the deadline message related to this activity may persist on the upcoming events or calendar block. It won't disappear until the deadline has passed. Please don't be concerned by this. To check whether you have completed an activity, go to the activity page to check if your work has been submitted or see whether a completion check mark has appeared against that activity. (For peer assessment activities, see this: Phases of a peer assessment activity) |
Email copies of forum postsPosts made on forums within a course are sent as email copies to people who have subscribed to those forums. You may be subscribed by default to the forums in the courses you are participating in. If you don't wish to receive the email copies, you can unsubscribe from any or all the forums. Just click the "unsubscribe from this forum" or "unsubscribe from all forums" link in any email copy of a forum post. You can also visit the forum and click "unsubscribe from this forum" in the "forum administration" block on the left. If you unsubscribe from the forums, please make sure you visit your course regularly to check the forum posts, for there might be a lot of great discussions going on! If there is a "news forum" in your course, you might not be able to unsubscribe from this forum because important announcements are made here by the course facilitator. |
Expiry of courses on INASP MoodleAny course on INASP Moodle will remain open for at least one month after the end of the course. This is a "read only" period and you cannot participate in course activities. Facilitators or moderators will not be available to provide support, and discussion forums may be closed. However, in this one-month period, you will be able to access the course material and save what you'd like to, such as the course content, results of quizzes, and evaluations you may have received. Beyond one month after the course end date, the course may be deleted or reset and will not be available. If we plan to delete or reset a course, we will give advance notice of at least 2 weeks by making a post on the news forum of the course. If you remain subscribed to the news forum after the end of the course, you'll get a copy of this notification by email. Still, we recommend that you save the course material within one month of the course ending. |
Forum etiquette - Don'tsYou should NOT:
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Forum etiquette - Dos
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Having trouble enrolling in a course?If you receive enrollment instructions for a particular course, you'll need to follow the instructions carefully. Don't rush through this process. In particular, you have to locate the right course (and the right batch number, if relevant) and enter the enrollment key exactly as given in the instructions. It's a good idea to copy the key from the instructions and paste it in the box where you have to enter it. After entering the enrollment key, you can "unhide" it to see if it matches the key given to you. Make sure there are no extra spaces or other inessential characters. If you can't join your course AND you're absolutely sure that you have tried enrolling in the right course with the right enrollment key, you may email the course facilitator to seek help. Please mention in your email the full name of the course you tried to join and the enrollment key you used. Related: Enrollment deadline |
How grades are calculated for a peer assessment activityThere are 2 grades for a peer assessment activity: grade for submission and grade for assessment. In many cases, a full score is awarded for both if you submit your work and assess at least one submission allocated to you. The grades don't matter in a peer assessment activity, unless stated otherwise. It is important to submit your work and assess all the submissions allocated to you. If you do this, your work in the activity will be considered complete. |
How pre/post assessment data helps usYour score in the pre and post assessment quizzes will help
us learn what impact the workshop has had on your knowledge of the key
concepts. And you have something to gain as well: after you take the
post assessment quiz, you can see the answer key and thus validate your
knowledge of the key concepts. |
How to be a good peer assessorFollow the Golden Rule. Treat the people you assess as you would like to be treated yourself. Would you be happy with brief remarks in the assessments you get from your course colleagues, or would you like to see detailed comments and suggestions that actually help you improve? We assume it's the latter -- so please give such assessments to others :) |
How to bookmark a webpageWe recommend that you bookmark INASP Moodle or your active learning spaces on INASP Moodle. In most web browsers, you can quickly bookmark a webpage by pressing the Control and D keys together when you're on that webpage. When you do this, you'll see a small dialog box asking you to confirm. In the Google Chrome browser, bookmarks are normally added to the bookmarks bar by default, which is right under the address bar. So you can always see your bookmarked pages. In Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer, you can make a webpage appear in the bookmarks bar. Just change the bookmark location after pressing Control and D. |
How to check if you have assessed the submissions allocated to youTo check whether you have indeed completed the assessments, go to the activity page and scroll down to view the submissions assigned to you. If you see the phrase 'Already graded' under a submission, it means you have assessed that submission. You can click on the 'Re-assess' button in case you'd like to change anything in your assessment. |
How to edit an entry you have added in a databaseTo see or edit your own entry in an activity that is set up as a database, you have to first search for your entry, for example, you can put your name in the search box and click search. You should then be able to see your entry. Then click the gear-shaped icon alongside your entry. |
How to mark this quiz as completeAfter you take this quiz, please click inside the solid box next to the title of the quiz above so that you see a check mark. You must do this to receive credit for this quiz activity. |
How to reset your password
You will then receive an email with instructions to reset your password. |
How to save your own blog entriesIf you have written blog entries as part of a course, you may want to keep a record of all your entries to read them later on (for example, when you wish to remind yourself of what you learnt in the course). You can look at your own blog entries by going to your profile and clicking Blog entries (under the Miscellaneous heading). Then use the save or print feature in your web browser to save a copy of the page that you see. This page shows a maximum of 10 entries. If you have written more than 10 entries, you will see links to access the other pages with your entries and you can save/print all the pages one by one. |
How to search forumsWhen you visit any forum, you'll see a "search forums" box at the top of the forum. Enter one or more keywords and do a search. Go through the results and click the "advanced search" link under the "search forums" box if you wish to refine your search. If your keywords don't show any results, you'll see a form to do an advanced search. In general, start with one or two simple keywords and then refine your search if you get too many results. |
How to subscribe to the site news forumWe post announcements of our upcoming online courses on the site news forum. You can subscribe to this forum to receive email alerts whenever we make posts. To subscribe,
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Managing forum subscriptionsIf your course has discussion forums, you may be subscribed to them initially -- or you may not be. If you are subscribed to a forum, it means you'll receive an email with any new post made on that forum. This way, you can keep in touch with the forum discussions without actually logging into INASP Moodle. If you are not subscribed, you will not receive email copies of posts. But you're still part of the forum and you can engage in discussions. To check your subscription status for a forum, visit that forum and look at the "forum administration" menu (usually on the left hand side). If you see "subscribe to this forum", it means you are not currently subscribed. You can click this link to subscribe. If you see "unsubscribe from this forum", it means you are subscribed and you can click this link if you wish to not receive email copies of posts made on that particular forum. If a course has many forums, you'll need to subscribe to or unsubscribe from each forum individually. See also: Subscription to the news forum |
Message on homepage about quizzes that are dueOn your homepage on this site, you may see a message such as "you have quizzes that are due" if there are quizzes in the course you are taking. This message will appear if there's any quiz that has a deadline sometime before the end of the course. It could well be that the quiz is not yet available for you to attempt, but the message will still appear on your homepage. In this case you can ignore the message. Just focus on completing the lessons and activities for the current week or unit of the course you are taking. |
Need help? Please read this first.
If your doubt or query persists after you've done the above, please make a post on the technical queries forum. |
Open peer assessment activityIn an open peer assessment activity, the people getting assessments can see the names of their assessors. So when you do an assessment, you need to keep in mind that your name will be seen by the person receiving the assessment. Please do not let this affect your objective assessment of their work. Note: Peer assessors can always see the names of the people whose work they assess. Related: Single-blind peer assessment activity |
Percentage completion figure in Moodle Mobile appIf you use the Moodle Mobile app on your mobile device to access a course, you may see a percentage completion figure under your course on the app homepage (after you've logged in). This figure may be inaccurate in some cases -- this is a shortcoming of the Moodle app and not something we at INASP can control. Please do not use this figure to determine your progress in the course. You may as well ignore it. What is important is to check the completion criteria for the course and any other information given in the course on how to track your progress. |
Phases of a peer assessment activity1. Submission phase: This is the phase in which you have to prepare and submit your work. 2. Assessment phase: The system will randomly allocate some of your course colleagues' submissions to you, and you have to evaluate these using an assessment form. 3. Closure: Once the above two phases are completed, the course moderator will close the activity. You can then view the assessments you have received from your course colleagues. Related: Completion credit for a peer assessment activity |
Printing/saving quiz reviews and peer assessmentsYou can print or save quiz reviews (ie, quiz questions and answers) and peer assessments you've received. For quiz reviews, visit the quiz page, click 'Review' next to any of the attempts you have made, and use the print or save feature in your browser. If you have a PDF writer installed (such as CutePDF), you can print the review as a PDF file. For peer assessments, visit the peer assessment activity page, view the assessments you've received, and use the browser print or save feature. Alternatively, you can manually copy and paste the assessments into a document. Also see: how to view the assessments you have received |
Saving course materials after the end of a courseOnce a course comes to an end, you will have access to the course materials for at least one month after the end date. While our courses are usually not deleted from this site, we cannot guarantee that our courses will be indefinitely available. We strongly recommend that you save the course materials once the course you have taken comes to an end. Instructions are given below.
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Seeing the peer assessments you've receivedIf you've submitted your work as part of a peer assessment activity, visit the activity page after the assessment phase to read the assessments you've received. When you visit the activity page, you can view your assessments by clicking the link to your submission. This link appears before the links to the assessments you have given to others. Once you click the link to your submission, you will see a page with a list of all the assessments you have received. Make sure you read all your assessments closely, and make notes on how you can improve your work. |
Single-blind peer assessment activityIn a single-blind peer assessment activity, the people getting assessments cannot
see the names of their assessors. Note: Peer assessors can always see the names of the people whose work they assess. Related: Open peer assessment activity |
Subscription to the news forumYour course may have a "News" forum, which normally appears at the top of the course homepage. This is a special forum where the course administrator or facilitator make announcements. You may be subscribed to this forum by default as we would like everyone to be notified whenever a post is made here. If you would like to unsubscribe from the News forum, visit this forum and click on "Unsubscribe from this forum". We however suggest that you remain subscribed to the News forum because the announcements made here are important. |
Time zone for deadlinesThe default time zone on this site is West Africa Time (WAT). Why the time zone mattersIn your online course, there may be events that are time-based (such as live sessions) and activities that have deadlines (such as writing activities). For such events and activities, your Dashboard on this site and the time alerts on activity pages show times in WAT by default. Changing the time zoneTo see mentions of times in your local time zone, edit your profile and change the time zone in the Timezone field. We also suggest you add reminders in your calendar about upcoming events and deadlines. If you would like to compare WAT with your local time, use this link. Why we use WATWe use WAT as the default time zone because a large number of our course participants are based in West Africa. |
Tips to use your digital badgeIf you complete an online course on INASP Moodle, you may receive a digital badge. To download this badge, login to INASP Moodle (http://moodle.inasp.info) and visit the "My badges" page: http://moodle.inasp.info/badges/mybadges.php Click the badge to view the full details. You can copy the link to this web page from the address bar of your web browser and share the link in your CV or any online profile. You
can also display this digital badge on a badge portfolio. To do this,
follow the steps given in this tutorial. Finally, read this Wikipedia page if you'd like to learn more about digital badges. |
Trouble opening documents in the assessment phaseIf the submission is in DOC or DOCX format, please use Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer to open the document. LibreOffice is free and open source software, so it's a good choice if you don't have Word. If you are not able to open a submitted document with such software, or if you open the document and find it to be blank, please do the following: (1) complete a dummy assessment for this submission (eg, write 'could not open document' in each aspect of the assessment form), and (2) report the issue on the Technical Support / Technical Queries Forum. |
User profilesYou can see the profiles of your fellow course participants by clicking on their names in the forums, in the participants list, the online users block, etc. So write something about yourself in your profile so others can get to know you When you edit your profile, you can set your email address to be visible to your course colleagues, to everyone on INASP Moodle, or to no-one. We recommend that you use the first setting so that your course colleagues can get in touch with you to discuss collaboration or interesting opportunities. |
Using emoticons on this siteThe basic
smiley
is arguably the most popular emoticon, but emoticons can also be useful
to convey other feelings. You can make an emoticon just by typing the
relevant characters in your text editor. No special formatting is
needed! For example if you type a colon : followed by the symbol ) you
won't immediately see a smiley but when you save your post you'll see it
has appeared on the page like this:
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Using the 'optional subscription' featureTo receive email copies of posts made on this forum, click on 'Subscribe to this forum' in the 'Forum administration' menu (the gear icon on the right side). You can unsubscribe at any time. Alternatively, you can subscribe to specific discussion topics within a forum. |
What others can see in your user profileIf you are a participant in a course on INASP Moodle, other course participants can see the following information about you: your photo if you have uploaded one, your description/bio if you have entered any text in the "description" field in your profile, your name, your email address, when you last accessed the course, your role in the course and which group (if any) you belong to, and the list of courses you are enrolled in. You can choose to hide your email address when you edit your profile. Others CANNOT see the city and country in which you are based. We encourage you to write a short description in your profile page (see check/edit your profile) so that your course colleagues who see your profile can learn about you. If you would like them to know where you live, mention your location in the description. |
What to do if you get disconnected while taking the pre/post quizYou can make only one attempt on the pre assessment and post assessment quizzes. If you get disconnected while taking any of these quizzes and can't complete your attempt, please write to Ravi - rmurugesan@inasp.info - and mention the name of your online course / learning space and the name of the quiz. |
What to do if you've not received any assessmentsThere's a small chance that none of the people who have been allocated your work completed the assessment. This is an unfortunate outcome (but hopefully rare). If you don't see a "grade for submission" when in fact you have submitted your work, we will award you credit for the activity as long as you have assessed the submissions allocated to you. We will be looking at the course logs to determine who has done what. So don't worry! |
When you will see peer assessmentsYou will see the assessments you've got from your peers only after the assessment deadline. You will not be able to see them before the deadline even if the assessments have been done. Please be patient :) See phases of a peer assessment activity |
Who can take part in the assessment phaseOnly those participants who have submitted their own work will get others' work for assessment. If you have not submitted anything, you will not be assigned any submissions to assess.
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Why deadline extensions are not possible for peer assessment activitiesAn activity that involves peer assessment has a number of sequential phases. Immediately after the deadline for the submission phase, the submissions are randomly allocated by the system for assessment. It's not possible to plug in a late submission after the activity enters the assessment phase. Then, right after the assessment phase, the activity is closed and everyone can view their assessments. Again, it's not possible to plug in late assessments once the activity is closed. Because of the way this activity works, we cannot extend the deadline for either the submission or assessment phase. So please do not ask for extensions! Related tip: phases of a peer assessment activity |
Why the assessment phase is crucialIn a large online course such as this one, it's not feasible for a small group of teachers or facilitators to provide personalised feedback on each participant's work. Peer assessment is the only practical way to provide participants with feedback on their work. A survey of participants who took part in a peer assessment activity in one of our previous courses indicated that...
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