Valid for Moodle version 4.4
Contents
Open personal settings
Both teachers/staff and students can make some personalized settings in Moodle. You can access your personal settings by clicking on your icon or profile picture in the top right-hand corner of the Moodle header and selecting Preferences from the drop-down menu. In the following window you will find the links to the various areas in which you can make personal settings.
The most important settings are presented below.
Profile settings
Your profile contains personal data that can be viewed in full or in part by other users of the respective Moodle instance when they click on your name. Your name is displayed in various places in Moodle, e.g. in participant lists or when you write a forum post.
To change your profile settings, select the Edit profile option in the Preferences.
Alternatively, you can also select the Profile option in the drop-down menu at the top right of your icon/profile picture and click on Edit profile in the following window.
General information
The General section of your profile contains basic information about you.
Not all of them can be changed directly in Moodle. Your name is taken from the administrative system of the University of Vienna. Name changes must be entered there by the Human Resources Department (for employees) or by the Admissions Office (for students) and are then automatically updated in Moodle.
Your official university e-mail address is entered under E-mail address. If you would like to receive your messages from Moodle at a private e-mail address, you can set up forwarding at https://email.forms.univie.ac.at/weiterleitung-verwalten/index.html?lang=en
Under E-mail visibility, you can specify who can see your e-mail address (hidden / visible to all / only visible to participants in the same course).
Note
Teachers can always see the university e-mail addresses of the participants in their courses in the participant list, even if students have set the visibility to hidden.
If you as a lecturer hide your email address in Moodle, you do not prevent students from sending you e-mails. Your university e-mail address is published in u:find and can be found there by students, too.
You can also enter your city, select your country (if you do not make a selection, Austria is displayed by default) and select your time zone (default setting: Server time zone (Europe/Vienna)).
Note
Beachten Sie bitte, dass die Ortsangaben im Profil nicht unbedingt bedeuten, dass sich jemand tatsächlich gerade an diesem Ort aufhält. Wenn z.B. jemand technische Probleme bei einer Online-Prüfung im Ausland meldet, können Angaben im Profil nicht als Beleg dafür herangezogen werden, ob sich diese Person tatsächlich im Ausland aufhält oder nicht.
You can enter further information about yourself in the Description field. This could be, for example, your main areas of research, publications, details of your studies, etc.
Tip
Bear in mind that your profile can be viewed by various other Moodle users. Therefore, think carefully about which personal details you actually want to disclose, which information is appropriate in the context of teaching in Moodle or in the academic environment and which might seem inappropriate in this context.
User picture
In the section User picture, you can upload a photo of yourself or an icon image. This image will be displayed next to your name in places where your name appears in Moodle, e.g. in participant or contact lists or in your forum posts.
To upload a profile picture, either drag & drop the picture from your computer into the dotted field or alternatively click on the Add... symbol on the left above the files field and select the desired picture from your computer via Upload a file (left column) > Select a file and then confirm your selection by clicking on Upload this file.
Accepted file formats are PNG, JPG and GIF. Ideally, your image should be square and 100 x 100 pixels in size. Larger images will be reduced in size, non-square images will be cropped to squares.
If you would like to replace a profile picture that has already been uploaded, simply upload the new picture as described above and save the profile settings. To delete your profile picture, tick the Delete picture option under the picture and save the settings. A circle with your initials will then be displayed in place of the picture.
Privacy settings (Contactlist)
Since the participant lists in Moodle are not displayed for students for data protection reasons, but in some courses it is desirable for students to contact each other, e.g. in the context of group work, the Contactlist is available in Moodle at the University of Vienna. In the Privacy settings section of the personal profile, both students and staff can specify whether or not they appear in the Contactlists of Moodle courses by default. The visibility in the Contactlist can be changed individually in each course.
Note
The university e-mail address is displayed in the Contactlist, even if the visibility of the e-mail address is set to hidden in the profile settings.
Optional & Other profile fields
In the sections Optional and Other profile fields, you can enter additional channels through which you can be reached (e.g. telephone number).
Note
The fields Registration number (=matriculation number) and u:account are automatically filled in by the system and cannot be changed directly in Moodle. These fields are hidden from other students in the profile. However, lecturers can see both in the participants lists in their courses.