Making course material available to students in electronic format in Moodle works to enhance the lecture experience. Reading lists, articles, assignments and news forums are all useful tools that help to improve the learning that takes place in and outside of the classroom.  For example, making material available to students to read in preparation for more indepth discussion in class can maximise the learning that takes place during lecture time. Lecturers have experimented with different approaches to ensure that attendance does not reduce if content is added to Moodle. 

These approaches include:

• Making the content available for a limited time to encourage students to keep up to date, e.g on a weekly basis so that content is only available for one week at a time,
• Adding additional reading, case studies and supplementary resources to Moodle and adding core lectures when coming closer to exams and revision time, etc.

However, general feedback from lecturers has indicated that placing content in Moodle in a structured manner to complement traditional face to face delivery  does not negatively affect attendance. This is in line with the results of an annual survey undertaken by several Irish universities and Institutes of Technology where respondents strongly indicated that they were not more likely to miss class if content was added to Moodle.

Quick guide for staff.