Activities

An activity is a general name for a group of features in a LMS Training. Usually an activity is something that a student will do that interacts with other students and or the Instructor.

In LMS terminology, an Activity, such as Forums or Quizzes, properly means something students can contribute to directly, and is often contrasted to a Resource such as a File or Page, which is presented by the Instructor to them. However, the term activity is sometimes for convenience also used to refer to both Activities and Resources as a group.

There are 14 different types of activities in the standard LMS that can be found when the editing is turned on and the link 'Add an activity or resource' is clicked.

Assignments

Enable Instructors to grade and give comments on uploaded files and assignments created on and off line

Chat

Allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion

Choice

A Instructor asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses

Database

Enables participants to create, maintain and search a bank of record entries

Feedback

For creating and conducting surveys to collect feedback.

Forum

Allows participants to have asynchronous discussions

Glossary

Enables participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary

Lesson

For delivering content in flexible ways

(LTI) External tool

Allows participants to interact with LTI compliant learning resources and activities on other web sites. (These must first be set up by an administrator on the site before being available in individual Trainings.)

Quiz

Allows the Instructor to design and set quiz tests, which may be automatically marked and feedback and/or to correct answers shown

SCORM

Enables SCORM packages to be included as Training content

Survey

For gathering data from students to help Instructors learn about their class and reflect on their own teaching

Wiki

A collection of web pages that anyone can add to or edit

Workshop

Enables peer assessment

Resources

A resource is an item that a Instructor can use to support learning, such as a file or link. LMS supports a range of resource types which Instructors can add to their Trainings. In edit mode, a Instructor can add resources via the 'Add an activity or resource' link. Resources appear as a single link with an icon in front of it that represents the type of resource.

Administrators can decide whether or not to force Instructors to add descriptions for each resource by enabling or disabling a site-wide setting in Administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Common settings.

• Book - Multi-page resources with a book-like format. Instructors can export their Books as IMS CP (admin must allow Instructor role to export IMS)
• File - A picture, a pdf document, a spreadsheet, a sound file, a video file
• Folder - For helping organize files and one folder may contain other folders
• IMS content package - Add static material from other sources in the standard IMS content package format
• Label - Can be a few displayed words or an image used to separate resources and activities in a topic section, or can be a lengthy description or instructions
• Page - The student sees a single, scrollable screen that a Instructor creates with the robust HTML editor
• URL - You can send the student to any place they can reach on their web browser, for example Wikipedia

See also

• Managing activities - for administrators
• Resources FAQ