Quercus Modules and Pages

What Can I Use It For?

Quercus course content can be presented in two ways: Pages and Modules.

Modules can link to Pages, and Pages can link to Modules.
Modules are a way to organize course content. Pages give flexibility on how to display course content.

Modules are a good way to guide students through course content, as the instructor has options to specify the sequence to follow; to lock content until a certain date; and to require students to complete activities or quizzes before going on to the next module.

Special Notes

When you publish a module, all of the items in that module also become published. This is seen only after refreshing the webpage. If you would like to publish a module BUT there are certain module items that you do not want published: 1) publish the module, 2) refresh the webpage, and 3) unpublish any module items that you do not want to be available to students. .

This Academic Toolbox tool helps you...

Build Your Course

Typical course activity format:

Synchronous or asynchronous

Quercus integration

Built-in tool

Where can I get more support?

Divisional Support Contacts

Quercus Support

Consultations

Cost

Centrally funded

How Are Faculty Using This Tool

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Building usable knowledge is not a passive process of receiving information but an active one. Learners build understanding by connecting ideas, questioning, organizing, and applying new concepts. Barriers can arise when instruction assumes that all students share the same background knowledge or ways of knowing. Supporting these processes benefits not only students who have gaps… Read more

Reassessing Assessment

U of T faculty members reflect on their experiences creating assessment in an online teaching environment. Resources can be found at the bottom of the page. Safieh Moghaddam, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Associate Chair, Linguistics and Language Linguistics, UTSC During Fall 2020, in one of my C-level courses, I noticed that some of the students… Read more

How to Use This Tool

Modules allow instructors to determine the order and structure (eg. by week, unit, or topic) in which the content will be released to the end-user to provide a guided learning experience.

Organization. Allows the students to move through the course in a predetermined order set by the instructor.
Prerequisites. Help students avoid missing course content or assignments by setting completion prerequisites.
Monitor Progress. Help both the instructor and students monitor their progression through course content.

Pages can be created individually, then organized into Modules. You can also link pages to one another without using Modules. Modules have the advantage of offering more flexibility, such as students having to meet certain prerequisites in order to gain access. or you can specify that students navigate through Modules in sequential order.

Instructions

Create a New Module
1. Open Modules: In Course Navigation, select the Modules link.
2. Add a new Module: Select the + Module button
3. Add Module name: Type a name in the Module Name field.
4. Lock Module: If you want to restrict the module until a specific date, you can lock the module.
5. Add Module prerequisites: If you have added at least one module to your course, you can require a prerequisite module. A prerequisite module means students must complete the previous modules before they can view the new module.
6. Add Module: Select the Add Module button.
Adding Items to your Module and Publishing Modules

You can add new or existing content items in Quercus to a module. You can also add an item to multiple modules, or multiple iterations of an item to one module
1. Open Modules: In Course Navigation, select the Modules link.
2. Add Module item: Click the Add Item (+) button.
3. Add an item: From the Add drop-down menu and select one of the following item types:
  • Assignment
  • Quiz
  • File (document and media file types)
  • Content Page
  • Discussion
  • External URL
  • External Tool (Note: Instructors can share OneDrive documents as an external tool
  in Modules. The embedded document can be viewed directly in the course.)
4. Add existing item: If you have already created the item you want to add, click the name of the item. You can select more than one item to add.
5. Add new item: If you want to add a new item, click the [Create item] option and type a name in the name field. Depending on the item type, when adding new content you may be asked to complete additional fields.
6. Indent item: Choose the Indentation drop-down menu to indent the item inside of the module.
7. Add item: Click on the Add Item button.
8. Publish Module and added content items: Unpublished modules are invisible to students. To make the module and the content items added to the module available to students publish the module and the content items.
Assigning Modules to Individual Students or Sections

After adding a module, you can assign the module to individual students or sections. The module content will automatically be visible only to those who have been granted access at the module level.
1. Click the module Options icon
2. Select Assign To
3. By default, modules are assigned and visible to everyone in the course. To assign the module to individuals or sections, select Assign To
4. Click in the Assign To box to select individual students or sections
5. Select Save
After assigning modules to individuals or sections, you can view and modify the assignment settings by clicking View Assign To at the top-right corner of the module

Note: When you add an existing item (e.g., an assignment, page, or discussion) to a module, the item’s assignment settings will be updated to match the module’s assignment settings. For example, if you add a page that is available to all students to a module assigned to individual students, the page will only be available to those individual students.

You can modify the assignment settings for module items by editing the individual content item or directly from the modules page.

For more information, please watch the following brief video guide:
Building and Publishing Pages in Your Course

Pages allow instructors to display a smaller amount of information, for example, a specific topic. Having a similar feel to a webpage, Pages are multimodal and can display text, embedded videos, images and files, all in one scrollable area.

Why use pages?
Context. Help students understand what they should focus on and what they should be learning.
Multimodal. Readings, links, images, videos and more, can be placed in one area for a complete lesson.
1. Open Pages: In Course Navigation, select the Pages link.
2. View Pages: Pages is designed to open to the front page for the course, if there is a front page selected (Links to an external site.). To select a page from the Pages Index, select the View All Pages button.
3. Add Page: Select the Add Page button.
4. Add content:
  i. Type a name for your page.
  ii. Use the Rich Content Editor to create content for your page, including links, files, and images. The Office 365 integration displays the OneDrive icon in the Rich Content Editor in Pages and allows users to create a hyperlink to OneDrive files directly in the Rich Content Editor.
5. Edit page settings: You can decide who can edit the page by selecting the Users allowed to edit this page drop down menu. Options include only teachers, teachers and students, or anyone (applied to all users enrolled in the course).
6. Add the page to student To Do list.
7. Schedule Publication: Optionally, designate a specific date and time in the Publish At field to schedule when the page will be published.
8. Manage Page Assignment and Availability: You can use this feature to assign the page to specific students or sections in your course, and/or set the availability window for the page. You can use the + Assign To button to assign the page to other students or sections with different availability settings.
9. Notify Users of Content Change: You can notify users that content has changed by selecting the related checkbox.
  
  Note: If a user’s Course Content notification is turned off they are not notified of page updates.
10. Save and Publish: If you are ready to publish your page, click the  Save & Publish button. If you want to create a draft of your page, click Save.
  
  Note: If you try to navigate away from a page without saving, you will see a pop-up warning.
  
  When your page is saved in a draft state, you can return to the page and publish it at any time by clicking the Publish button. The button will change from gray to green.
11. Return to Pages at any time to edit your pages.