All students and staff at LSE have access to an online suite of Office365 tools, including Microsoft Word. Sometimes, it may be useful to create a shared document that all students within a Moodle course can edit. This guide covers how to create such a document with the correct permissions and share it to Moodle.
Creating and sharing a new document
To access Word online visit https://www.office.com/launch/word, or find it by clicking the Apps menu on any other Office365 application, including your email account if you access it through your browser. (This is an icon with a 3x3 grid of dots in the top left corner of the screen.)
2. Click ‘New blank document’
3. A new document will open. Click on the text that says ‘Untitled’ at the top left of the screen and give your document an appropriate name.
4. You will now have a new blank document that is ready to be used by your students. Before they can edit it, you will need to create a sharable link that gives students the right to change and add content.
Sharing your document with the correct editing rights
Click the ‘Share’ button at the top right of the online Word document you wish to share.
2. Click ‘People you specify can edit’. This will allow you to change who has permission to access the file. If you do not change this, your students will not be able to add to the document.
3. Change the settings so that the link will work for ‘People in London School of Economics with the link'.
4. Make sure ‘Allow editing’ is checked.
5. Make sure ‘Open in review mode only’ is turned off.
6. Click 'Apply'
7. You will now be returned to the previous window and should see that your changes have taken effect. Click ‘Copy link’.
8. A box with a long URL will pop up. This link will specifically allow the students with whom you share it to both access and edit the page. Copy the link and save it somewhere so that you will have it ready to share to Moodle.
Sharing the link to your shared document on a Moodle page
Make sure you have the URL you created in the steps above close to hand. If you have lost it, you can find it again by clicking the ‘Share’ button on your document once more and looking for the link icon at the very bottom of the pop-up box, where it says ‘Shared with:’.
2. Go to your Moodle page and turn editing on.
3. Choose the section of your course to which you wish to add the link. Click ‘Add an activity or resource’
4. From the activity picker choose the ‘URL’ resource
5. Give the link a clear and descriptive name and paste the URL you generated above into the ‘External URL’ field.
6. Add a description to help your students understand the purpose of the link. This will be displayed on the main page for the Moodle section.
7. Scroll down to the ‘Appearance’ tab and make sure the link is set to open in a new window. This will allow students to tab between the document and their Moodle page.
8. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click ‘Save and return to course’.
9. Your students will now see a link on Moodle that takes them directly to the shared document with full permission to edit.
