Students Faq - general technical problems

Table of Contents

• Can't log in (CEU Users)
  
• Can't log in (External users without a CEU account)
• Change password (CEU Users)
• Change / forgotten password (External users)

Course access

• I enrolled on courses in SITS, but can not see them in Moodle
• Course enrollment without SITS enrollment
• Can not find a course in Moodle

Problems with activities in Moodle courses

• Problem opening / downloading a PDF (reading)
• Do not want to receive email messages from Forums
• Can not find/upload an Assignment
• Turnitin Feedback / Originality reports
• How should I Copy/paste text from Ms Word?
• I cannot watch a Panopto video embedded in the course
• Download all course materials

If you need support

For Moodle issues, contact support at acsg@ceu.edu

If you have a problem with login with your CEU MS account, please contact the IT helpdesk at helprequest@ceu.edu

For the quickest support, please include details in your email.

• What is your problem exactly?
• If it is related to a course, or activity (like assignment), please state which one.
• If you got an error message, or think it may be relevant, attach a screenshot (Printscreen button and CTRL+V to the email)
• If you are not using an up to date Chrome or Firefox browser, use your mobile, or have specific extensions in your browser (vpn, adblocker) please try it from a desktop computer / other browser first.

Student Quick start Guide

Moodle is Virtual Learning Environment used by CEU (often referred to as the “e-learning site”). You can use it from any computer with internet access to find readings and assignments for most of your courses.

This help material contains the basics to get started.

How to Get in?

1. After you receive your username / password from CEU IT, make sure that you log in to your MS account (CEU email) first at https://portal.office.com 

2. Then to log in to Moodle:

Go to: https://ceulearning.ceu.edu

 Type your Microsoft Username
 (the beginning of the email address - for Kovacs_Gabor@student.ceu.edu, the username is kovacs_gabor)
and Password to the box and click on the Login button.

You CANNOT change your password on the e-learning site directly, but if you change your Microsoft password it will change your e-learning password as well.

How to Enroll In a Course?

Moodle is connected to the University Information System, SITS. This means, that when you register for a course in SITS, you will be automatically enrolled in the course in Moodle as well. The two systems sync when you login to Moodle.

Some courses may not be listed in SITS (or the course is open for free registering), you will be able to enroll in them directly in Moodle or your coordinator can manually enrol you.

Where to Find your Registered (enrolled) Courses?

Right after logging in you may find your enrolled courses in the “My courses” / My home menu at the top navigation panel or at the “My enrolled courses” block on your Dashboard. If your professor/department would like to share some information about a course, you will see that information below the course name (syllabus, summary, etc.) even before you register in SITS as you browse all available courses in the departmental folders.

If you cannot find a course, check that you are not hiding it with filtering for a specific year or folder.

Supported browsers / settings

Moodle supports the latest versions of browsers, Chrome and Firefox are recommended for the best Moodle experience.  

Internet explorer is no longer supported, Safari may have issues with some of the 3rd party components.

Cookies and Javascript needs to be enabled. 

For Panopto videos, 3rd party cookies needs to be enabled in your browser
Browser extensions may cause issues (Vpns, adblockers).

Course Overview

You can always find navigation links at the top section of the site and in the footer. These let you visit the folders of your department, check your courses, course contents, or find support materials, and the most important CEU links in link collections.

The navigation drawer contains the most important links in a course context, like the participants, and assignments, and this also enables browsing between sections or your current courses.

Mobile Devices / Tablets

You may use a normal web browser (Firefox, Chrome) on mobile devices and tablets. The site uses a responsive theme, so if you visit it from a smaller screen, it automatically renders the page accordingly. The top navigation will disappear, but you may still use the drawer – so you can quickly navigate to the course you want to check. The “Moodle Mobile” app is not supported as it has known issues with certain activities (like assignments) and file formats (videos).

Please note that, although most of the functions should work without problems on mobile devices, it is not recommended using such devices for important/urgent tasks. Use a desktop computer or a laptop instead, especially if you are completing an assignment or activity that will be graded.

Resources and Activities

 When you open a course, the Main section (middle) of the course page shows all the resources / materials your professor shared with you (files, folders, links, subpages) and also lists the Activities you have to take part or have to work with (forums, assignments, etc. ).

Download all course materials

1. For desktop computers (windows)

There is no direct function available, you can still download the files from a course relatively quickly with the following method: 

If it is enabled in your browser, you can just push the ALT button and (left)click on the files one by one, then these will be sent to your default download folder directly. 

Note: This may not work from all browsers from a Mac, but should work with Safari. 
If it asks for the download location, you need to change your settings.

For example in Chrome: Deselect the "ask where to save each file before downloading" option.

chrome://settings/?search=download

2. From a mobile, or Tablet

You can use the “Moodle mobile” app, which enables you to make the readings offline quickly (with the little cloud icon next to them in your courses).

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moodle.moodlemobile&hl=en

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/app/moodle-mobile/id633359593?mt=8

Can't log in (CEU Users)

1. Please check that you are using your correct (Microsoft) Username/Password
If your email address changed, you need to use only the username part (for kovacs_gabor@ceu.edu it is kovacs_gabor )

2. Do you have an active (student/legal) status with CEU? (your access will not work after your affiliation in CEU ends) Alumni accounts do not have access to Moodle.
If this is the case, contact your coordinator - if you had a valid basis for it, she can request renewal of your account from the IT helpdesk.

3. If your account is active, then probably your Ms password expired (it is need to be changed yearly).

You can update it by opening a incognito/private browser window and visiting the following website (O365 login page): https://portal.office.com

Please log in with your CEU email and MS password. It will provide you the options to reenter your old password then provide a new one that meets the mentioned criteria below (min. 12 char, etc.). Afterwards you can use the updated password to log in to Moodle and other services. 

If you have any problems, please contact CEU Helpdesk or call #2000 

Can't log in (External users without a CEU account)

You should have received your username /password from your professor / program director or from the site admin. If you did not receive an email with these details, please ask about this.

If you have your Username/password, but the system does not accept it, please check if you are using these correctly (you always have to use your username, not your email address) or ask for a password reset here:

http://ceulearning.ceu.edu/login/forgot_password.php

In case you have any problems, please contact Gabor Acs.

Change password (CEU Users)

The Password and username for the E-learning Site is always the same as your Microsoft username / password (for CEU users).

So if you change your Microsoft password it will change your E-Learning password as well.

You can update it by opening a incognito/private browser window and visiting the following website (O365 login page): https://portal.office.com
Please log in with your email and MS password. It will provide you the options to reenter your old password then provide a new one that meets the mentioned criteria below (min. 12 char, etc.). Afterwards you can use the updated password to log in to Moodle and other services. 

If you have any problems, please contact CEU Helpdesk or call #2000 

Change / forgotten password (External users)

If you have forgotten your Username/password, please check if you are using the correct username first (you always have to use your username, not your email address), if this does not solve the problem ask for an automatic password reset here:

Course enrollment without SITS enrollment

Most of the time,  you will not be able manually enroll yourself on a course in Moodle, you have to register in SITS. 

In case this option is available, you can enroll to a course without a final commitment in Moodle, if your professor allowed this. So you can enroll, check out the course details and unenroll yourself. 

In case of support / test / help courses, which are not listed in SITS, you can enroll on the courses directly in Moodle. Just select the appropriate department on the front page (or select it at the top, “departments” category) and you will be able to see all available courses. Alternatively you can use a direct link or you can use the search box at the bottom of the front page.

You will be asked whether or not you wish to enroll yourself for the course, this does not mean official SITS enrollment.  If the system asks for an enrollment key (a password) it means that you can join only after the teacher shares the password with you.

For removing yourself from the course - In the administration block and navigation drawer you will see Unenroll me from "Course name".  If you click on that, you will be removed from the course.
This only works for courses you self-enrolled, not for registered courses in SITS (usually you will lost your access for a Moodle course if you drop it in SITS).

Enrolled in courses in SITS, but can not see them in Moodle

Please check the following, if you do not find a course you registered for in Moodle:

Some courses are not listed in Moodle at all. Foreign language courses, field trips, thesis process, Ta-ing, etc. may not have a Moodle course. Please ask your coordinator about the course.

If this is a "normal" course, but none of your classmates can find it in Moodle, it may not be connected to SITS yet. Please ask your coordinator/professor about the details.

If your classmates can access the course, but you still cannot find it, check the questions below:

a) Did you register on the course a few minutes ago in SITS? Please log out from Moodle and log in again to force the sync.

b) Check if you are filtering for specific categories at the dashboard (If you filter for History/Fall term, courses offered by other departments will not show on your lists - you can still find them in the folders manually)

 If you filter for a specific department/folder or AY, change your filter options to ALL.

c) Did you change your CEU email address recently? If so, please write to the SITS support, and ask them to change your username in SITS as well.

d) If you had a CEU account earlier (with a different role or department), it may happen that the two systems can not connect properly. Please write to helprequest@ceu.edu and ask for an username update.

 e). Check your registration again in SITS.

SITS registration process:

You need to click the Submit Selections button to make your registration finalized.

After this is done, you need to log out from Moodle and log in again, then check the "My recent courses" list. 

Please find detailed help below:

1.step

On “My Student Page - Academic” click on the “Course Registration” tile to start your course registration.

 2.step

Select your courses. Then to finalize your course registration you MUST click on the “Submit Selections” button because this will ensure that the system records your registration. Selecting the courses is not enough to complete the registration process you need to submit it.

3. Step

To make any changes, click on the “Modify Registration” button. You will be directed back to the course registration site where you can still make modifications (add or delete courses) until the end of the registration period.

After modifying your courses make sure that you click on the “Submit Selections” button again!

Can not find a course in Moodle

If you can not find a specific course in the folder / subfolder of the department (maybe it is cross-listed), you can search for it by name at the search box at the bottom of the page or at this link:

http://ceulearning.ceu.edu/course/search.php?search=

If you still not find it, probably it is not listed yet on E-learning. Please ask your professor or coordinator.

Problem opening / downloading a PDF (reading)

The most common reason for this error is the Browser / Adobe browser plugin (either too new or too old version). The easiest solution is opening an other browser (if you use Firefox, then Chrome or vice versa). This will solve this problem most of the time.

If you still have a problem contact the helpdesk. If nobody can open the reading, contact your professor.

Do not want to receive email messages from Forums

1. If your professor did not prevent it, you can unsubscribe from any particular forum, or single forum discussion if you open it, with "unsubscribe from this forum" (or unsubscribe from this discussion) Usually you can not do it with the "main course forum" as this is dedicated for important messages.

2. You can find the emailing options if you edit your Forum Preferences.

(Top right > Preferences > forum)
Direct link: https://ceulearning.ceu.edu/user/forum.php

a) Forum auto-subscribe: If you select Yes, once you’ve posted to any Moodle forum you’ll be subscribed to that forum and notified of all posts to it.

b) Forum tracking: If you select Yes, Moodle will highlight posts that you haven’t yet read.

 The default option is (no digest) Getting one email for each forum post is useful because

c) Email digest type:

• each email has a helpful subject line including the module it has come form
• it is clear which staff member is sending the message

OR you can change to digest mode (daily email) - only one email a day, in a digest.

• This is useful because you only get one email a day

Warning: you may not see it as important (always read such emails)

• The emails from the Main course forum are mixed in with emails from other forums and you may have to read carefully to pick out the important messages
• It only comes once a day (around 5-5.30 pm) so any messages which require immediate action may be received too late (e.g., last minute cancellation of a lecture). 

Can not find / upload an Assignment

1. Do not see an assignment in the course

Please check in the "Assignments" link at the Drawer to the left (or the "This course menu") - maybe the assignment is located at a different section of the course. 
If you still do not find it, please contact your professor.

2. Check the date

If the assignment is not due yet or overdue, certain settings enable professors to prevent the access (only the upload option, or the whole assignment can become invisible). That may also happen, that the "due date" is incorrect at the assignment, if you encounter this, please contact your professor.

3. Already submitted, but can not change

Your professor has the option to allow overwrites or prevent it. If the assignment is overdue, usually you can not overwrite your submission.

4. Try from an other browser

Maybe your browser version is not up to date, or you use something new what is not supported (yet). At the moment Microsoft Edge may be problematic for file uploads.

5. File extension
Please check if your professor asks for a specific file type (e.g. PDF).

Turnitin Feedback / Originality reports

Grademark - Feedback from your professor

Assignments may be connected to Turnitin. Turnitin will check the paper for matching sources, and your teacher will see the results.
After the upload, you will see the Turnitin icon below your file with the mark “Pending”. After the paper is uploaded to Turnitin, it will show an ID.

Also if available, the apple icon leads you to Grademark  (where your professor may have been commented on your work.)

Originality Report

1. Students can't see their originality report and score by default. Your teacher can allow this if he/she decides so.

2. If your teacher allowed this you should see the % value in the similarity column after you go to "My submissions" in the turnitin assignment.

As you click on the percentile a new window will open and it will load the originality report.

- In case you see an empty window here or other error message you should try to load the page again (or just refresh your browser window with the F5 key) and it will solve the problem.

How should I Copy / paste text from Ms Word?

Most of the time when you will copy / paste some text from a MS Word document to Moodle it will be done without any problems (label or web page as a teacher; assignment, forum post as a student).

But it is recommended to be cautious as sometimes a few formatting problems can happen as these documents have "hidden" formatting (and you copy these options as well without knowing it). 

What can you do when you encounter problems?

Paste the text into Wordpad or Notepad first (to make it "clean"), or use the "Paste from Word" function in the Word processor of Moodle.

As you click on the icon, a pop-up window will open up. Just paste the text into the left box (CTRL+V), check the preview and click on the "Complete Paste" button.

Note: Some browsers does not allow you to use the "Paste" command with your mouse. Use the CTRL+V key combination instead.

I cannot watch a Panopto video embedded into the course

When you first enter a course, the Moodle page may load before the Panopto sync is complete.

I. Error message 

If you get an error message at the video, like X-frame or the video prompts you to log in, there is an issue with your browser/cookies.

Panopto supports the latest versions of Chrome, Edge (Chromium-based and legacy), Firefox, Internet Explorer (11), and Safari.

Make sure, that you are not using a VPN.

Either of these methods should solve your problem:

a) Make sure that 3rd party cookies are enabled in your browser,  and 
Disable any adblocker extensions in your browser. After this, clear the cache 

b) Open the course from another browser

c) Open the course from an incognito window 

d) Open a new tab in the same browser, and log in to Panopto first.
https://ceu.cloud.panopto.eu/

It will ask you to log in (select CEU ADSF - needs your CEU email address + password).

After you logged in, reopen/refresh the tab with the Moodle course.

If your problem persists, contact the classroom support.

II. Self-enrolment

If you enrolled in a course yourself (self-enrollment), you may not get access to the videos immediately.

If you get the message on a video: "You do not have access to this, Please request access", do not click on the link, but refresh your browser window (F5) twice to force the synchronization.

If your problem persists, then the most likely cause is that instructor did not share the video with the class correctly - please contact the instructor.