As an instructor in moodle you have access to reporting tools that collect information about your course activity. This data is very useful when determining which students are and are not active in different activities of the course. You also can pull data that inform how to better manage your course content and delivery methods to the class. This article explains:

• the two primary locations to find activity data
  • Participants list: how to see when participants last accessed moodle and view an activity report for an individual student
  • Reports: creating a participation report and using it to conveniently send notifications to specific students based on that report

Where to Find Activity Data

There are two primary locations where you can retrieve course logs about the amount and kind of student participation happening in your course:

• Participants (Roster and Navigation blocks): provides most recent course access time and a basic activity report for individual participants.
  
  
• Reports (Administration block): provides a full range of reports (activity reports, course statistics, participation reports and a timeline view of course activity)  Most of these reports can be customized with filters.

Enter the moodle course from which you with to view data.

1. Participants

1. In the Roster block, click Participants to view your course participants list. This list includes a column showing when each participant has last accessed the course.
   
   
   
   The participants list gives the time frame of when each participant last accessed the course. Here you can filter the list by those who have been inactive in moodle for a certain period of time with the 'Inactive for more than' pulldown menu. If a certain time period is not selected, the report is based on the complete course history.
   
   
   
   
2. To view more detailed information on the activity of participants, change the 'User list' setting from 'Brief' to 'User details'. Additional options appear on the right of each participant row.
   
   
   
   
   
3. To view an activity report on an individual participant, click 'Activity' for that participant.
   
   
   
   You will see a report of today's activity log for the participant in your course. Additional reports are selectable in the Navigation block. In the Navigation block, drill down from Course Name -> Participants -> Participant Name -> Activity Reports.
   
   For more report options, see method #2 (Reports) in this article.

2. Reports

The participation reports are designed to pull participant logs related to a specific moodle activity/item in a course such as an assignment, forum, or resource link. In this example we will view whether students have viewed a certain resource and send an email to the students that haven't yet.

1. Enter the moodle course from which you wish to view data. In the Administration block, click "Reports".
   
   
   
   You will see a number of report options. For this article we will be using the "Course participation" report.

1. Select values for the report parameters, click "Go". A list of participants and their status for the select activity is shown.
    
   
   
2. To quickly select all students that have not accessed the specified activity, click the "Select all 'no'" button. From the "With selected users…" drop-down menu select "Send a message". Then, click OK.
    
3. You will be presented with a page to compose your message with the designated recipients listed at the bottom. Type your message in the text field and click the "Preview" button.
   
   
   
   
   
4. You will be see a preview of the message to be sent to the designated users. Click the "Send message" button when ready to send the message. Or press "Update" to edit the message.
   
   
   
   You will receive a confirmation that the message was sent to students as an email.