Using your Dashboard in Course Site

The dashboard is a user-centered, customizable home page continually being optimized to make it easy and intuitive to navigate to your courses, see upcoming work and activities at-a-glance across all courses. The dashboard really shines in the new Boost theme. Below is a brief orientation to the most important features and regions that make up the dashboard.

1. Quick navigation drawer - the familiar slide-out quick navigation drawer that appears everywhere when using the Boost theme. You'll notice there is a top link to the dashboard. The My courses quick links still show below top-level links. As a reminder, the My courses list of links is not primary navigation and is only to provide quick access to current courses only.
2. Course overview block - appearing at the top of the main page content region, the course overview block shows a complete listing of all courses you have access to. From this block, you can filter, sort, and change the display layout of your courses. At the bottom of the block you can control how many courses show at a time (bottom-left), and navigate through your list of courses using the next/previous arrow buttons (bottom-right).
3. Timeline block - shows a comprehensive view of all upcoming due dates of activities that support native Course Site deadline scheduling/management.
4. Calendar block - shows a typical calendar in month view highlighting dates that have activities scheduled and/or due.
5. Recently accessed courses block - appearing below the course overview block in the main page content region, this block shows courses you have recently accessed from most recent. As with the course overview block, there are next/previous arrow buttons for navigating through this list located at the top-right of the block.

Detailed overview of dashboard regions

Course overview block

There are three main features that enhance the functionality of the course overview block. They are: the ability to filter courses to match provided criteria, the ability to sort courses by name or date accessed, and the ability to change the display of the list of courses.

Filtering courses

At the top-left of the course overview block you'll see a drop-down select field, that typically defaults to "In progress". This is the filter select menu. Select your desired choice to show only those courses that match the given criteria.

• All (except removed from view) - view all courses you have access to, except for those you have specifically removed from view (see details below)
• In progress - view only courses that are current and active - courses that have a start date that is on or before today and have an end date that is on or after today.
• Future - view only courses that have not yet started (have a start date that is after today)
• Past - view only courses that have ended (have an end date that is before today)
• Starred - view only those courses you have intentionally starred (see details below)
• Removed from view - view only those courses you have intentionally removed from view (see details below)

Regardless of which display you choose as your course listing layout, the triple dot icon button reveals the menu where you can star/unstar or remove from view the corresponding course.

• Star/Unstar this course - this is a great way to create a filter of only those courses you care most about or interact with most often. Starred courses will be marked with a star icon.
• Remove from view - this is a good way to remove courses that may still be active but you no longer need or want to see (administrative/training courses for example). Don't worry, you can always use the Removed from view filter to see courses you've removed from view and add them back into the mix.

Sorting courses

At the top-right of the course overview block, to the immediate left of the display menu, is the sort option menu. This allows you to sort the displayed courses either by Course name or date you Last accessed them.

Display options

At the top-right of the course overview block, to the immediate right of the sort menu, is the display option menu. This changes the view/layout of how your courses are displayed. There are three options:

• Card - this is the default, and most popular view - also a view commonly found in other major LMS platforms besides Course Site (Moodle). Each course is listed as a single card aligned to a grid depending on screen size showing the course title, feature photo, semester/category, completion progress (if applicable)
• List - each course is displayed as a line item in a list showing course title, semester/category, completion progress (if applicable)
  
• Summary - each course is displayed as a line item in a list format except with additional meta information displayed including: thumbnail of feature photo and summary (if provided)
  

Timeline block

The timeline block, by default found at the top of the right sidebar, displays a comprehensive, at-a-glance view of all activities with upcoming due dates. Each activity will display the icon, activity title, course name, time due, and an action link that takes you directly to the activity to begin (significantly fewer clicks than going to the course and navigating to the activity). You can filter by date range, sort by dates or courses, and change how many show up at once.

Calendar block

The calendar block, by default found in the right sidebar below the timeline block, displays the calendar in month view with dates highlighted that have events/activities due. Highlighted dates are links that will take you to a detail view of that specific day.

FACULTY ONLY

Adding a feature image for your course to appear on a Dashboard course card display

From your course main page, click the settings gear, then click Edit settings.

On the Edit course settings page, scroll down to Course image and simply drag-and-drop or upload your desired image.

Then click Save.

Questions and additional information

How to use the new Boost theme

How to edit your course using new gear icon

If you have questions or need more information, please feel free to contact the Instructional Technology team by submitted a ticket at help.lehigh.edu.