How to: Add an Allocation Form

You can use the Tutorial Booking activity to allow students to sign up for a single choice, and the Choice activity to provide a simple poll. However, there are occasions when you need to provide more than one choice ("choose three workshops from the following selection") and/or to have students allocated their choices fairly based on the overall choices/preferences made by all students using the Allocation Form you've set up.

Adding the Allocation Form to your module

Log into Moodle and into your module as Editing Teacher. Click the Turn editing on button in the top right hand corner of Moodle. In the Section in which you would like to add the Allocation Form, click the "Add an activity or resource" link From the list, select Allocation Form

Allocation Form Settings Explained

Once you have chosen the relevant settings click on Save and display to choose the options available to students.

General

Allocation form name: Enter a name for the allocation form Description: Enter a description for the allocation form

Setup

Number of choices: This denotes the number of choices a user has to spread around the options given to them Include do not want: Tick this box to allow the user to indicate if they definitely do not want a particular option allocating to them. Allocations per user: Tells the system how many choices to allocate each user to from the overall number of choices. At this point in the process you do not specify the maximum number of options but it is helpful to know this and bear it in mind.

Form availability

Choose a start date which indicates the start of the time window in which users will be able to make their choices. Enter a deadline for the end of the period in which users will be able to make their choices. Note that once the deadline has elapsed the form will be processed typically within 60 minutes. Choose a role to be allocated. i.e. what role (on this course) are the users picked from, usually (and by default) student.

How to: Create options in an Allocation form

This is Step 2 of 3 in creating an Allocation Form. This is the next step after you have added an Allocation Form to your module and set the appropriate settings. Please refer first to Step 1. How to Add an Allocation Form

Adding a new option to an Allocation Form

Once you have chosen the settings for your Allocation Form and clicked on Save and display an Option List will appear. From here you can create the choices available for students to choose from and make the Allocation Form active i.e. available for students to make the choices. The number of spaces for allocation is the number of places available on each option e.g. 3 options with 15 places each = 45 spaces for allocation. Click on Add new option Create a title for the option e.g. Work placement with Vodaphone or Optional Module AF11CB1 Set the number of places (allocations) available for the option e.g. 4 places available with the same work placement or 20 places available on an optional module

After adding an option you will be returned back to the main screen and you will need to click Add New Option again. Tip: Your option name/title should be fairly short ("The Viking World", "Placement in Nepal"). Any long description of the options should go in the Description portion of the of the Allocation Form. Repeat for each option you need to add. Note: There is no limit on the number of options you can enter. Finally, to make the form available for students (on the Start date you have set) click "Make this form active". Once the form is active DO NOT make any changes to the settings as this will affect choices already made on the form by students. Warning: The options cannot be seen by students until the Allocation Form has been made active.

How to: Adjust the allocations process in an Allocation form

This is Step 3 of 3 in creating an Allocation Form. This is the next step after you have added an Allocation form to your module and created the options for students to choose from. First see Step 1. How to Add an Allocation Form - Step 2. How to create options in an Allocation Form Once the closing date/time has been reached, any student attempting to complete the form will see the message:

'The allocation form is waiting to be processed... please come back later.'

Processing of allocation forms takes place automatically on the deadline date. It can take up to 24 hours to produce the allocation results. The process looks something like this:

Checking the allocation results

Once the processing has been completed, Editing Teachers and Editors can click on the title of the Allocation form in the module to view a list of students and the option they have been allocated. Students will not be able to view their allocated options until you have made them available, allowing you time to amend the results and rerun the allocation process if required. Note: Editing Teachers and editors can only view the allocation results once the deadline date set has passed, not before. Review the allocations. If the allocations are not appropriate, then you can rerun the allocation.

Amending the allocations

The edit option allows you to changes the number of allocations for this option before re-running the allocation process. You can generate a CSV of user choices that you can download, showing a list of students and preferences make prior to allocation. Unallocated students will show in a list Force reallocation will allow you to re-run the process Make allocations available: Once you've finished making changes to the allocations you MUST make them available to students before they can see their options. Once make available it cannot be reversed.