Course Formats
There are many course formats that can be customized for your delivery preferences. We've described the most common ones under the instructions on how to change the layouts below:
Changing the course format
- Click on Settings in the course navigation bar
- Scroll down to the Course format section
- Select your preferred layout from the Format drop-down list
The most common layouts are:
Custom Sections
The custom sections format is a highly customizable layout that allows you to title sections uniquely and organize materials within them. You can also add subsections for a second level of content nested within a section.
With Edit mode turned on, you can edit the section titles by clicking on the pencil icon to the right of the title, and you can add more sections by selecting Add section at the bottom of the course homepage.
Weekly Format
The Weekly format divides your course into one section per week. These sections are automatically created and titled for each week using your Course start date as a starting point. With edit mode turned on, you can edit the weekly titles by clicking on the pencil icon to the right of the dates and also add more weeks/sections by selecting Add week at the bottom of the course homepage.
Please note that if you choose the weekly format, you will need to factor in Reading Week or other holidays in order for the course to finish on the appropriate date. For example, if the semester is 12 weeks, but there is a one week break, you would need 13 weeks for the course. Click Add week at the bottom of the page to add subsequent sections. You could choose to use the extra week for review materials, or you could hide it so that students will not be able to see it.
Menu/Tab Format
The Menu/Tab course format provides a visual, organized display of your course sections with activities and resources organized in tabs (subsections) inside.
For more information about using the Menu/Tab format, view the article Menu/Tab format.
Grid Format
The Grid format is an alternative course format that presents course sections as a grid of visual tiles instead of a long list. It is particularly useful for improving navigation and engagement by making the course layout more visually appealing.
The sections can have custom images inserted where the default patterns appear.
Importing/restoring
Note that when importing or restoring this view, the target (destination) layout must be set to Grid format prior to performing the import/restore, or the custom images selected in the grid will not migrate.
Collapsed Topics Format
The collapsed topics format is designed to enhance navigation by keeping course sections compact on the homepage. This helps reduce clutter, especially in courses with many sections, and improves user experience by allowing students to expand only the content they need.
Single Activity Format
This format has only one section and allows the instructor to add only one activity to the course. If the course already contains an activity, selecting that type of activity will default to the first instance of the activity listed in the course.
You will be presented with the following warning when switching to single activity format When changing the existing course format to "Single activity" make sure that you removed all extra activities from the course including the "News forum". Note that sections' structure may be modified.
Other course settings that affect the layout of your course
Course Layout
You can also modify other course settings like the course image, layout of course, and formats. Click on Settings in the course navigation bar on the course homepage to access the course settings:
If you plan to have a lot of resources and activities in your course, you may want to consider the One section per page layout in order to limit the amount of scrolling.
Show One Section per Page Layout
By default, the course layout is set to display one section per page. In this layout option, all the course section titles are displayed on the course main page, and you can view resources and activities in each topic by clicking the topic link. Links to adjacent topics alongside the topic name will allow you to easily navigate to next and previous topic.
Show All Sections on One Page Layout
You can also choose Display all the sections on one page as your Course Layout. In this layout, the sections appear in order from top to bottom and the Resources and Activities for each section can also be accessed from the main course page.
Moving, Hiding, and Deleting Sections
With Edit mode turned on, it is possible to rearrange sections and content by dragging and dropping them. By way of the edit menu to the right of each section or item, you can choose to hide the item(s) from students, duplicate, move, or delete them.
You can also enable Bulk actions to make these changes to multiple items at once by enabling Edit mode and selecting Bulk actions at the top of the course homepage. You can then select multiple items and use the menu at the bottom of the screen to make changes in bulk.
