Valid for Moodle version 4.4
The Contactlist in Moodle offers the option of displaying a GDPR-compliant list of participants in courses.
This allows course participants to see which other people who have also agreed to be displayed in the Contactlist are in a course with them. The Contactlist can be used to send internal Moodle messages or e-mails to other students or teachers. Participants can decide for themselves at any time whether or not they are visible in the Contactlist in individual courses or in all Moodle courses.
This plugin was developed by the Moodle team at the University of Vienna.
Contents
Accessing the Contactlist of a course
The Contactlist is available in every Moodle course by default. Students can find it at the top of the course in the Contactlist tab, teachers in the More tab.
Settings for visibility in contact lists
Moodle users can decide for themselves whether they want to be visible in contact lists or not (default setting: not visible). Visibility in contact lists must be set by each person either Moodle-wide in the profile settings or manually on a course-specific basis. By agreeing to the publication of the contact information, a GDPR-compliant procedure is given.
Moodle-wide visibility
You can set or change your Moodle-wide default visibility in the Contactlist in your profile settings. To do this, open your profile by clicking on your user picture or the icon with your initials in the top right-hand corner of the Moodle header and select the Profile option from the drop-down menu. Then click on Edit profile on the following page.
In the Privacy settings section, you can now define your desired default visibility in the Contactlist. Then save your settings via the Update profile button.
Attention
Course-specific changes to visibility in contact lists that have already been made will not be overwritten by changes in the Privacy settings of the profile and may have to be adjusted manually in the contact lists of the individual courses!
Course-specific visibility
To change your visibility in the Contactlist of a specific Moodle course, first call up the Contactlist of the course as described above under Accessing the Contactlist of a course. At the top of the Contactlist, you will see your current visibility status in this Contactlist. To be able to make changes, you must uncheck the Use Moodle-wide contact list visibility setting box. You can then select the desired status from the drop-down menu under Contact information visibility in this course. Finally, save your settings using the Save changes button.
Note
As a lecturer, you are also not visible in the contactlists of your courses by default. If you would like to appear in contactlists, you must either agree to the Moodle-wide visibility via your profile settings or individually in your courses as described above.
Making contact via Contactlist
Participants who have chosen to be displayed in contactlists are listed under the visibility settings options in the contactlists of the courses. They can then be contacted by other participants in the course via internal Moodle Messages (click on the relevant speech bubble in the Messages column) or via e-mail. By clicking on the name, the profile of the person in question can be viewed.
Above the list there is an option to filter by the first letters of first and/or last names. The table itself can be sorted by first name, surname or e-mail address by clicking on the corresponding heading in the header.
Hide Contactlist in course
In some cases, e.g. in exam courses, it may be desirable that students are not able to contact each other via the contactlist. In this case, lecturers can specify in the course settings that the contactlist is hidden. To do this, first select the Settings tab at the top of the course.
In the Privacy Settings section, you can now select whether the contactlist should appear in your course or not. Then save your settings using the Save and display button.
