Should I use a meta course?
Should I use a meta course?
A meta course is very useful, especially if multiple sections are being taught for the same course in the same term.
A meta course (this is the Moodle term for this course) is a course that has "child" courses. The "child" courses are the vaious course sections in the registrar's list of courses. All the students and teachers that are participants in any of the child courses are also students and teachers (respectively) in the meta course. Suppose several section sites in Moodle are a child courses of a meta course. Once this is set up, a document can be posted (one time) in the meta course by any of the teachers and all of the students in all sections can then see and access the document. This has been useful when a professor is teaching two or more sections of the same course. This is also useful when several different professors are teaching different sections of the same course and are coordinating efforts and posting many of the same documents for all sections.
The Moodle administrator will have to set up the meta course, but this can be done very quickly and easily.
Whenever students are added or dropped (by the registrar) to or from one of the sections, they are automatically added or dropped to or from the meta course as well.
Many professors have found it useful to hide the individual sections when a meta course is being used so that the students won't be confused and not know which place to go (section site or meta course site) to see course materials. If you want to have an activity (grades, forum, chat, quiz, assignment, wiki) restricted to students in one of the sections, this can be done rather easily using groups in the meta course or by leaving the individual sections visible.