Moodle Educators – Use the Sections Course format to merge Topics & Social Course format

Moodle is most customizable open source Learning Management System in the world. By using wide variety of Moodle Plugins you can extend the Moodle features beyond the Moodle core. There are more than 2000 plugins contributed in the Moodle Plugins directory. Recently, a new course format type Plugin – Sections Course format is added which allows you to combine the benefits of Topics course format with Social course format.

The Sections Course format type Moodle plugin is developed by Catalyst IT for the University of Canterbury. It is based around the Core Topics course format but including the benefits of the Social course format. According to the plugin description, it allows the following features:

• Hide section 0 when viewing another section
• Add a news forum/social forum display under section 0 when viewing the course “home”
• Allow the user to swap between showing one topic per page and all topics on the same page.

You can download the Sections course format from the Moodle plugins directory here. You can follow this guide to understand how to install a Moodle plugin. Once installed, there are no major configurable parameters for this plugin and you can start using it immediately after installation.

Sections Course format settings

Under the Course Format area, you can choose the Sections format. You can also configure to Hide Section 0, Show news under Section 0 and Allow users to choose their course layout as shown in the image above. Once you are done you will be able to see a General section with an Announcement forum below followed by the Course Topics.

I was pretty impressed with the Sections course format plugins and the advantages it offer over the default Topics format. You should also give it a try if you are a Moodle enthusiast.

What are the other Moodle course formats you are using on your Moodle environment? Please share with us in the comments section below.