Course Homepage and Widgets

The course homepage is most likely the first page your learners see when they land in your course, so it’s important to design the homepage with purpose, to enhance the course experience. The goal is to place useful information in intuitive places rather than create a homepage so cluttered that your learners struggle to find the relevant links and information. Generally it’s not recommended to change your default homepage, as its layout has been determined to be the most efficient version, but it is possible to make changes.

From Course Admin, click on Homepages listed under Site Setup. You will see a selection of options for how you want the Home page of each of your courses to be organized. The checkmark sign shows which Homepage is active right now. The options feature different widgets like Calendar, Announcements and Updates in positions of prominence. Each Homepage listing shows its Name and Description.

Name	Description
Course Home: Default	Course Home: Announcements and Calendar

Editing an active homepage

To make changes to a shared homepage, click on the drop down arrow beside the Homepage you want to make changes to and then click Copy. This will create a copy of the existing Homepage. Click on the new copy of the homepage. You can then rename the homepage and make changes to it. Hit Save and Close when done. To make the new edited homepage active, click on the drop down menu.

Editing widgets on a homepage

A widget is an application, or a component of an application, that displays specific information (like Announcements) or provides a specific way, usually a shortcut, for a user to interact with the learning environment.

1. On the Course Admin > Homepage Management page, select Homepages.
2. Click to select the homepage you want to edit.
3. In the Widgets area, do any of the following:
   • Click Add Widgets to add new widgets to the panels on your homepage.
   • Click Remove to remove an existing widget from the homepage.
   • Click on a widget to edit the appropriate fields to hide the title bar, replace the widget name, or restrict the ability to minimize the widget.
4. Click Save.

Creating a custom widget

1. On the Course Admin > Homepage Management page, select Homepages.
2. Click to select the homepage you want to edit.
3. In the Widgets area, do any of the following:
   • Click Add Widgets to add new widgets to the panels on your homepage.
   • Click Remove to remove an existing widget from the homepage.
   • Click on a widget to edit the appropriate fields to hide the title bar, replace the widget name, or restrict the ability to minimize the widget.
4. Click Save.