Customize your course website > Hide a site, section, material

Overview

General

There are two overall concepts. Public / Private is the first concept and by default all Materials within a Site are set to Private, meaning only course members can see the Materials.

The second concept is that CCLE allows hiding at various levels. Various level hiding is the harder concept to understand, and get set correctly, as there are multiple ways to hide, not show, items, Materials, within CCLE.

At the top level, the entire Site can be hidden.

At the Section level, aka Week, aka Course Menu Sections, the Section can be hidden. Within the Hidden Section, the content of that Section can be visible to the enrolled course members or hidden to the enrolled course members (this hide is really a double hide of both the Section and the Material)

The third level is any given Resource, item, Material, can be set to hide.

Tools

There are two tool sets and each has slightly different features and methods. Both are accessed from the top right of the site.

• The native feature is the Moodle "Turn editing on" 

• The other is the UCLA created "Control Panel" 

Details

Public / Private

1. Click the "Turn editing on" button  in the upper right-hand corner.
2. A series of actions should now appear in text under Materials in your course website:

• If you would like to make Material visible to the public (people who are not enrolled in your course), click Make public (and remember, this is World public, anyone in the world arriving at the Site can see the Material, item.)

• To make this Material visible only to course members, click Make private (the default is "Make private")
  
  • From the "Turn editing on" position, Materials set as "Make private" will show (Private Course Material)
    

Course visibility settings

The entire Course Site can be hidden from the course members through Course visibility settings. Be aware, that when the entire Course Site is hidden, email from CCLE is not sent. For example, any posts made in the Announcements forum will be posted, but email will not be sent to students. If this happened, set the site to Visible to students, copy that Announcement, delete that Announcement, created a new Announcement, paste the prior Announcement, Post to fourm.

•  => Settings & backup => Course visibility => Select Hidden from students or Visible to students in dropdown => Save, see screen shot.
  • Note, after Save, if Students are on the site, the Students must click, Refresh, the browser once, then the site is Hidden.
    

Set "Schedule course visibility" by selecting a Hide from and hide to date/time => Save session

 

• When a Site is hidden, a message, on the Faculty side, will appear at the top of the Site. "Course is now hidden from students".

• When the Hidden site is viewed by the Students, there will be several messages, screen shot below: "The site is unavailable.", "This course is currently unavailable to students".

Hide the Section aka Week aka Course Menu Sections

At the time of course Sites are built, Sections, titled Week 1, Week 2, and so forth are created. These are know as Course Menu Sections and by default are visible.

-Screen shot left side shows three states. -Screen shot right side is from the "Rearrange course materials" in the "Control Panel".

• Week 4 is hidden
• Week 5 has no content, no Material, (empty) and has no > icon
• Week 6 is hidden
• Week 7 has content, has Material, is visible and has the > icon

 

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Be aware that a Hidden Section may contain Visible Material.

To have a Hidden Section with Hidden Material, see further below. Hidden Section with Visible Material is only available by the "Turn editing on". 

Hide a single Material or item

Overview

There is two ways to "Hide" a Material or item. One is via the "Turn editing on", "Hide" button. The second is via the "Edit settings", "Common module settings", "Visible". Either "Edit settings" "Hide" or "Common module settings", "Hide" have the same result.

Method 1: This is probably the easiest as the "Hide" button is quickly available.

Turn editing on

1. Click the "Turn editing on" button  in the upper right-hand corner.
2. A series of actions should now appear in text under Materials in your course website:
   
   
   
3. Click on the Hide icon Hide icon to hide your Material.
   • Your Material should now be shown in gray (grayed out). This means it is only visible to you and other instructors or administrators. This Material is not available to students.
4. To show the Material again, click the Show icon. Show icon Now it is visible to students.

Method 2: This has more steps but if you are making other adjustments, settings, then this way is fine.

Common module settings

1. Click the "Turn editing on" button  in the upper right-hand corner.
2. A series of actions should now appear in text under Materials in your course website:
   
   
   
3. Click on the Edit settings icon.
4. Go to Common module settings, "Visible" there are two settings Hide or Show 

Hidden Section with Hidden Material Overview

• To properly configure a Hidden Section with Hidden Material, both the Section and the Material must be hidden. Otherwise, course members, by clicking the auto-generated links, "Files", will see the Material. Said another way, this is a double hide, you must hide both the Section and the Material.

• There is two ways to configure Hidden Section with Hidden Material.

Method 1: The auto-generated links are convenient but they can be turned off in the Control Panel => Modify site menu sections => Additional options, Check the Checkbox of Do not display auto-generated links.

Method 2: This is probably the better way as the auto-generated links remain in place. This is a combination of the Hide Section concept, the Hide Material concept, and the Additional options of auto-generated links. The settings are subtle but, once understood, all work as expected.

Screen shot below, Week 6 is hidden, but the two Materials are both visible to the course members. Notice that the file April 24 has the Private Course Material beside it, meaning viewable by only course members. Notice that the Kaltura August_4_second also has Private Course Materials beside it. Notice that both Materials are showing in bold. The bold will be more evident when you see the screen shot further below where the file "April 24" is grayed out.

Notice that April 24 in this screen shot is not bold, it is grayed out, the August _4_second is bold. This gray is a subtle but important difference.

From the student view, notice that the auto-generated links, Files, is showing Week 6, file April 24, meaning the student can view the Material in the file April 24.

From the student view, still Week 6, but now the file April 24 is hidden, the student does not even see Files in Week 6. So, this is the example of a Hidden Section with Hidden Material, the student, course members, do not see anything for Week 6.

Hidden Section with Hidden Material(s) Setup

There are two ways to setup a Hidden Section with multiple Hidden Material(s)

Turn editing on

Method one via "Turn editing on" 

Material(s), item(s), may be Hidden within a Section by toggling the Hide section, Show section, screen shot below. Clicking on the Hide section will hide both the Section and the Material(s) within the Section.

Control Panel

Method two via "Control Panel" 

"Modify site menu sections", "Hide" column, Checkbox, several screen shots below. Clicking on the Hide Checkbox will hide both the Section and the Material(s) within the Section.

 

 

Hidden Section with Visible Material(s) Setup

Hidden Section with Visible Material(s) is only available via "Turn editing on"  although the setting is shown in the "Admin panel"  as explained below. This is known as either 'Hidden section with visible content' or known as 'Visible content in hidden section' and is available for Managers in a report called 'List courses with visible content in hidden sections' via the 'UCLA support console'.

Screen shot below, Week 6 is hidden. The file April 24 is visible. The Kaltura media file August_4_second is hidden as it is grayed out. Both files are Private Course Material meaning available only to course members.

• Click on Edit

• To show the Material, click the Make available icon.  Now it is visible to students. You are done, if you later decide to Make unavailable, see just below.

 

• Click on the Make unavailable icon  to hide your Material.
  • Your Material should now be shown in gray (grayed out). This means it is only visible to you and other instructors or administrators. This Material is not available to students.

The view from the "Admin panel"  Rearrange course materials shown below. Notice that the Section, Week 6, is hidden and the file August_4_second is (hidden). The file April 24 is in a Section, Week 6, that is Hidden but the file is visible to the course members.

Toggle Tip for Tools

Method one via "Turn editing on" 

• To see the "Hide section" and "Show section" and "Show" and "Hide" for a Material, toggle the "Show section" and "Hide section" a few times and you can see the interplay between a Hidden Section and Hidden Material.
  • Also, click, toggle the "Common module settings" an few times to see the interplay between the three tools ("Turn editing on", "Control panel", "Common module settings").

 

 

 

 

Method two via "Control Panel" 

• "Modify site menu sections", "Hide" column, Checkbox, several screen shots below. Clicking on the Hide Checkbox will hide both the Section and the Material(s) within the Section. Click, toggle, this a few times to see the interplay between the "Turn editing on" and the "Control Panel".
  • Also, click, toggle the Common module settings an few times to see the interplay between the three tools ("Turn editing on", "Control panel", "Common module settings").

 

 

Double check your settings

You can use the "Switch role to..." to see the "Student" view.

To return to your normal role, Click on the "Return to my normal role" link in "Switch role to..."

Bulk change materials

• It is possible to bulk change materials as follows.

Screen shot below, showing a mix of Public and Private where Private is showing the Access restrictions.

Go to Course administration => Edit settings => Groups => Public/Private, should be showing as Enable, Change to Disable, Save, screen shots below.

Still at Groups, Toggle from Disable to Enable, screen shot below, be sure to Save.

Check that this worked as expected, screen shot below, showing that now both materials are set to Private, Access restrictions.

Troubleshooting tip: If you have a Student that is not in Course members, and you ran PrePop, and the Student is still not in Course members, then do the toggle as described above. 10/2/2020

Other edit options

Via "Turn editing on" 

• You can also click on the other options "Edit settings" "Move right" "Duplicate" "Make public" "Delete" for a resource or activity. See File Options for a description of these features.