Moodle: Cross-enrollment

Cross-enrollment is a Moodle process that allows instructors to combine student populations from different campuses into a single course site for streamlined instruction and content delivery. It does not alter the course registration process. For example, this does not allow campus students to register for LSU Online courses. Campus students and LSU Online students would register for their respective courses, then they would be given access to the same Moodle course. All course content, and thus instruction, will take place in only one Moodle course, the course that students are cross-enrolled INTO.

Even though the LSU A&M and LSU Online campus courses are in one Moodle site, cross-enrollment is needed to combine these populations across the campuses. For combining courses within a campus (e.g., two LSU A&M courses) use the cross-listing feature (GROK #20173).

Jump to:

• Requirements
• Instructor Changes
• Request Ticket
• Instructor's Tasks
• Reminders
• Posting Grades

Benefits

Instructors and departments choose to cross-enroll to improve and simplify the teaching experience for the instructor. An instructor will not have to switch between multiple courses or Moodles while remembering what has been completed in each course. Also, if a course has low enrollment, traditionally the course would then not be offered, and students would miss out or it could feel awkward for an instructor to teach to just a few students. Cross-enrolling provides a full class for the instructor and helps retain course offerings for students. It is also cost effective for the department. Cross-enrollment also ensures that all students experience the course the same. Many instructors and departments have found cross-enrollment helpful. However, it is NOT mandatory and can vary term to term.

Here are the current cross-enrollment campus pairings:

• LSU A&M campus students join LSU Online students in an LSU Online Moodle course
• LSU A&M campus students join microcred students in an LSU Continuing Education Moodle course*
• LSU Online students join microcred students in an LSU Continuing Education Moodle course*

*LSU A&M campus students and LSU Online students can both be cross-enrolled into the same LSU Continuing Education microcred Moodle course.

Requirements

To cross-enroll both courses must be:

• assigned a Primary Course Instructor,
• listed as 100% web-based, and
• offered during the same accelerated calendar period
  • That is, their start and end dates must align exactly. For example, a Fall 1 LSU Online course (August-October) can only be cross-enrolled with an LSU A&M Fall 1 course (August-October). Full-semester courses and Fall 2 courses (October-December) cannot be cross-enrolled with Fall 1 courses due to mismatched schedules.
     

Instructor Changes

If changes need to be made to the Instructor within 30 days of the start of class, please update your request ticket or reach out to the Faculty Technology Center prior to making the change to ensure no course content is lost and that instructors and students end up in the correct course.
 

Request Ticket

We recommend a cross-enrollment request ticket is submitted at least two weeks prior to the term start date. This can occur before the course is added to Workday; however, it cannot be fulfilled until it is within 30 days of the term start date and the courses are created in Moodle. You must create a new ticket for each accelerated term, each year and each campus pairing. The formatting of the information on the form is flexible and does not affect the processing of your request.

1. Navigate to the ITS Self-Service Portal at itservice.lsu.edu, then Login with your myLSU credentials by clicking on Sign In in the upper right corner.
2. Use the search bar at the top right to search for "Moodle cross-enrollment" or select Request a Service and navigate to Teaching & Learning, then Moodle, then Cross-enrollment.
3. Click Request Service on the right side to begin the request form.
4. Your name as the Requestor and Acct/Department info will auto-populate.
   • Optional: You can provide an alternative contact other than your work email and office phone number.
5. Leave the Ticket Subject as it is.
6. Select the Accelerated Course Term for when the cross-enrollment will occur. The ticket will be for the next offering of that accelerated term.
7. Select the campus students will be moving FROM. This is often LSU A&M.
8. Then select the campus where students will be moved TO for their instruction.
9. Select the number of course pairings for this accelerated course term and this campus combination.
   Once selected, three additional fields will appear per course pairing:
   • Provide the information for the course students will be moving FROM. The Department code, course number, instructor’s name, and section number (e.g., MATH 1100 Mike Tiger 003).
   • Provide the information for the course students will be moving TO. The Department code, course number, and instructor’s name (e.g., MATH 1100 Mike Tiger). A new section will be created for the cross-enrolled students so no need to include a section number.
   • In Additional Email to Notify, type in the Course Instructor's name or email address, or if the Course Instructor is completing the form, type in the course coordinator's name or email address. This way both individuals will be on the ticket and notified of the request or any changes made. If the course instructor isn't in the system you may enter yourself as a placeholder and enter a note in the Additional Information box at the bottom.
10. Use the Additional Information textbox if:
    • a placeholder instructor was used for a course. 

Reminder: This must be completed each term a course will be cross-enrolled.

Once you have submitted your ticket, those listed on the ticket, the course coordinator and instructors, will receive a confirmation email for their assigned course pairings.

If you would like to review your requests, click View Your Tickets in the Self-Service Portal. To update a ticket, select it from the menu and click “comment” or simply reply to your confirmation email. See GROK 20387 for more information on How to View and Update Open Tickets.
 

Instructor's Tasks

Once cross-enrollment is processed, course instructors and course coordinators listed on the ticket will receive a ticket update and a detailed email reminder.

Upon enrollment in your course, students will receive access to their assigned courses that are visible in Moodle.

Preparing Cross-enrolled Courses

The Teaching Course that Students are Cross-enrolled TO

Enter course content here. This is where all students will complete their work, so all activities and resources should be placed in this course shell.

Verify that cross-enrollment processed by navigating to the course roster and scan the group names. In this example, LSU A&M campus students are joining LSU Online students in an LSU Online course. The LSU campus students are tagged with LSU at the front of the group name:

The Non-Teaching Course that Students are Cross-enrolled FROM

The course in which you will not be teaching should have no content. We recommend leaving this course hidden from students.
 

Reminders

Here are a few helpful reminders:

• If you are cross-listing and cross-enrolling, please complete the cross-listing first and leave a note in the description of the cross-enrollment request ticket.
   
• If an instructor is teaching multiple sections and only one section will be cross-enrolled, the instructor should split the course into the sections (see GROK 20172). Please leave a note in the ticket's description with this intention so the cross-enrollment request is processed after the split.
   
• As students add and drop your course, the roster in your Moodle teaching course should update automatically. To verify added or dropped students, check the Enrollment Tracker in each course. See GROK article 20678 for more information.
   
• If you would like both student populations to engage with each other in an activity, set the activity's group mode to "No groups." You may find this helpful for Forum activities and group projects. See GROK article 20271 for more information.
   
• Posting grades for campus students need to be handled separately. They can be submitted either by entering directly into Workday (see the Workday Faculty Resources Submitting Grades in Workday Guide) or by exporting and importing between Moodle courses then posting grades from Moodle (see GROK article 20356).
  • To export campus student grades, we recommend following GROK article 20357 and export with the Plain text file (CSV) option and filter by separate groups to the campus student group starting with "LSU."
    
    
    
    
    Scroll down to the bottom and click Select none. Then select only the course total to export. Check that you will comply with FERPA and LSU's PS30 and then click Export. A CSV file should then download.
    
    
    
     
  • To import this file to the campus course, we recommend following GROK article 20358 and import with the CSV file option. Map from "Username" and Map to "Username". Then under Course total change the dropdown box from Ignore to New grade item. Finally, click Upload grades.
    
    
    
     
  • Double check the grades in the gradebook afterwards to make sure it has a non-zero weight. After a spot check in the gradebook, you can post grades from that Moodle course (see GROK article 20356).
     
• Currently for cross-enrolled courses the automated Academic Engagement Activity AEA process will only report on the LSU Online students, see GROK 20694. (Remember to tag the first AEA activity to aautomatically have the LSU Online student participation reported).  
  
  Here are your options for reporting your campus students' attendance:

  • Manually update the Workday Verify Participation task (see the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) instructions for Recording Student Attendance in Workday).

  • Import your AEA activity from your LSU Online course into your hidden campus course (make sure the activity has the AEA tag). Then export grades for the LSU campus group for this activity (see the steps above) and import the grades into this new campus activity. The grades must be imported within 48 hours of the due date.