Content Toolbox

Moodle is the central learning management system of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. This Video Turorial help you get to know Moodle better.  For registration at Moodle, please use your University username and password. On Explore Moodle you find a range of activities and educational tools provided by Moodle to create your online course. 

E-Mail: Contact your students via email and provide them with teaching and learning content, documents to work on and other materials. We have linked a suggestion on how you could design your teaching here. However, we recommend that you also inform yourself about other tools suggested below.

Moodle: The learning platform Moodle offers tools like forum or Chat to gt in contact with your students. Conference tools like BigBlueButton oder Adobe Connect  are implemented into Moodle and available for your online meetings and live lectures/Online-Seminars.

Terminplanung for Online-Meeting: Schedule your courses and invite your students for attendance using the  Terminplaner provides by Deutschen Forschungsnetz benutzen.

Online-Meeting: Besides BigBlueButton and Adobe Connect, DFN-conf  DFN-conf (provided by the Deutschen Forschungsnetz) can be used for online-Meetings.

Email: Via e-mail you can send teaching and learning content, documents to work on and other materials to your students.

University´s cloud-service: Files and documents can be securely stored in the university cloud and shared with others. Instructions can be found here.

Moodle: Your students can upload word or pdf documents on Moodle, so you can follow and control their work progress. This tutorial shows you how to track whether a task has been submitted.

Legal Framework:  A good understanding of copyright is essential to ensure the legal use of available teaching material. The graphic illustration  provided by Anne Fuhrmann-Siekmeyer (Universität Osnabrück) gives a quick and helpful overview about the topic. Of note: The storage capacity of Moodle is restricted. The embedding of complete e-books or other big data sets should be avoided and instead, be used as downloadable links.

The library of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar offers numerous starting points and extensions for the implementation of digital teaching and learning opportunities.

• The library provides a service called Semesterapparate, that can be used to organize and provide literature via Moodle. The feature „Semesterapparat“ can be found via the button „Create materials and activities“ in Moodle. A corresponding tutorial can be found here.
• Please note the regulatory framework underlying the use of the Semesterapparate, defined in § 60a UrhG.
• Of note, the library provides reference management software, such as Citavi, Zotero, Endnote and trainings for users.

In the summer semester 2020, teaching will largely take place in digital formats. The special call for eTutors specifically supports teachers in using digital teaching tools and various online forms of teaching and learning. eTutors are student assistants who are proposed by you and trained and supported by the eLab team. The training of bachelor and master students to become an eTutor encompasses both technical and didactic basics. Personnel costs for student assistants will be funded during the summer semester 2020. There is no application deadline, i.e. applications can be submitted by one or more lecturers from a professorship or a course on an ongoing basis using the application form. The Vice President for Studies and Teaching decides with the Dean of Studies on funding after the applications have been received. Funding is possible up to EUR 2000. To the application form >>>

Virtual classroom: Lectures can be held as online-conferences or webinars by using either DFN-conf, Adobe Connect (can be embedded into a moodle room) or BigBlueButton, which is available as a Moodle plug in. For all online conferences please use:

• Headset in order to prevent echo effects
• Firefox Portable or Chrome as browser
• Test beforehand whether your  microphone works , e.g. here:  https://online-voice-recorder.com/de/

Video recording (Screencasts): You can also record your lecture simply from home, with a camera, your smartphone or via MS Powerpoint as a so-called e-lecture and set the video in moodle. Alternatively, you can also record your video conference with Adobe Connect and BigBlueButton, or have it streamed in real time with DFN-conf.

Legal framework: A good understanding of copyright is essential to ensure the legal use of available teaching material. The graphic illustration provided by Anne Fuhrmann-Siekmeyer (University Osnabrück) gives a quick and helpful overview about the topic. 

Of note: The storage capacity of Moodle is restricted. The embedding of complete e-books or other big data sets should be avoided and instead, be used as downloadable links.

Icon-cards: The Association for Media Education, Media Literacy and Communication Culture provides icon-cards that can be used during online meetings help to minimize or communicate communication problems during the online sessions. The cards can be printed out, cut out and, if necessary, quickly held up in the camera without interrupting the communication that is currently taking place.

Moodle: Teaching materials like pdf or word documents can be shared, videos can be linked (YouTube-Video) or embedded via iframe . The plugin H5P allows the creation of interactive elements and contents . For collaborative work, Moodle activities like scheduler, organisation of working groups, creation of wikis and glossary can be used.

Lecturers can review and grade their student´s activities using Moodle-Tests: evaluation, feedbach and providing individual tasks. By using H5P, interactive contents and questions can be created. This video introduces the main functions.

Icon-cards: The Association for Media Education, Media Literacy and Communication Culture provides icon-cards that can be used during online meetings help to minimize or communicate communication problems during the online sessions. The cards can be printed out, cut out and, if necessary, quickly held up in the camera without interrupting the communication that is currently taking place.

Legal framework: A good understanding of copyright is essential to ensure the legal use of available teaching material. The graphic illustration provided by Anne Fuhrmann-Siekmeyer (University Osnabrück) gives a quick and helpful overview about the topic. 

Of note: The storage capacity of Moodle is restricted. The embedding of complete e-books or other big data sets should be avoided and instead, be used as downloadable links.

This guide by Karin Gorges (Scientific stuff member) explains how students can submit their exercises, documents and theses via Moodle.

Moodle: For collaborative work, Moodle activities like scheduler, organization of working groups, creation of wikis and and glossary can be used. Conference tools like BigBlueButton and Adobe Connect are implemented into Moodle and available for your online meetings and live lectures or webinars.

Final projects can be presented on EXPERIMENT.Bauhaus.

Nextcloud: The University Nextcloud can be used to share and work together on the same document at the same time. Detailed information can be found on the website of the IT Service SCC.

Do not hesitate to contact the elab-team via elab[at]uni-weimar.de for any questions regarding your classes, lectures, seminars or projects and the transformation in a digital format.

The eTeach-Network Thuringia provides courses for University lecturers covering topics like “How to Moodle”, “How to deal with copyright issues”, “video production” and “design basics” and more. All courses are currently provided as webinars and exempt from charges. Please note that the courses are performed in German only. The registration form can be found here.

Further information on teaching and learning with digital offers and services: On e-teaching.org you will find scientifically sound and practice-oriented information on the design of higher education with digital media. The University Forum Digitalization has reacted to the current exceptional situation and set up a Corona service page with the first tool collections, didactic tips and offers for exchange and networking.

1. Why Moodle? A few years ago, the Bauhaus University Weimar opted for Moodle as a learning management system in an elaborate and participatory award procedure. The system is constantly being developed and the SCC ensures data protection, online security and support.

2. Who administers Moodle? Moodle is administered externally by the Sudile company. If you have any questions about Moodle, please contact moodle-support@uni-weimar.de

3. Can only employees of the University use Moodle? In order to activate a person for Moodle, you have to be registered as a trainer in a Moodle room. This short video explains how to register an external participant for Moodle.

4. Does the university have its own video conference system? Yes, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar has a video conference system. You log in with your login and password. The advantage of this system is that meeting rooms can be set up independently and sent to all participants via a link - without having to be registered in Moodle.

5. How can I make my online teaching interactive (discussion groups, feedback on work results, discussion of common materials)? Online teaching can be designed both synchronously and asynchronously interactively. This can be done synchronously using the BigBlueButton conference tool (available in moodle and as an external tool). There, presentations can be shown, worked together on a whiteboard, or work results / lectures can be presented and discussed. Since all conference tools are currently heavily overloaded and not all students have the technical prerequisites to participate in synchronous online courses, we recommend asynchronous teaching formats. Interactions with the students are also possible via the Moodle forum, the Moodle chat or the Moodle wiki or glossary. These tools can be used creatively and the discussions then take place in writing and over a longer period (over a week).

6. How can emerging work results be made visible at the same time? How can the work be organized online in alternating small group and plenary phases? A change of synchronous and asynchronous teaching formats is recommended for this way of working. The results could be uploaded to the Nextcloud and can be viewed by everyone. There it is also possible to work collaboratively on a document asynchronously. The results, interim presentations or other work results can be discussed using the BigBlueButton.

7. Which teaching formats are useful for online teaching? Basically, the change between online and classroom teaching, a good mix, is recommended. However, due to the current situation, you may have to conduct your course solely in online teaching for a few weeks of the semester. Here, too, we recommend that you switch between synchronous and asynchronous formats. Even though BigBlueButton enables discussions, presentations and presentations, you should keep in mind that this format also has its pitfalls. It is therefore better to incorporate learning phases in which the students can solve tasks independently and conduct the discussion in chats in writing.

8. What are e-tutors and what is part of their training? eTutors are student assistants (Bachelor and Master students) who are proposed by the teachers and who are trained and supported by the eLab team.

9. How can I apply for funding from an eTutor and what does it include? Training as an eTutor encompasses both technical and didactic basics. The eTutors support teachers in planning and using digital tools in online and classroom teaching. Personnel costs for student assistants will be funded during the summer semester 2020 (max. € 2,000 per eTutor). There is no application deadline, ie applications can be submitted by one or more lecturers from a professorship or a course of study to the eLab using a webbased form. The Vice President for Studies and Teaching decides with the Dean of Studies on the funding of applications.

10. What is the eTEACH network and what does it offer? eTEACH is a network of Thuringian universities and colleges to promote digitally enriched teaching. It offers free online courses and further training for teachers.