Creating users

To create a user in Moodle:

1. Log in as an administrator level user account.
2. Access the user management options in the Administration block under Site administration | Users | Accounts.
3. Click on Add a new user. This brings up the following page:

   

4. To fill in the Username, use the person's first name and last name with no spaces and all in lowercase for the username.
5. The username column must be all lowercase using letters, numbers, and any of the following characters: hyphen "-", underscore "_", period ".", or an at character "@".
6. If you are creating an account for a user with external authentication, then select the relevant option for the Authentication method, otherwise leave the Authentication method to Manual Accounts.

   Tip

   External authentication is where Moodle connects to a different system, such as Microsoft Active Directory, to authenticate the users. There are a number of such systems supported by Moodle.

7. Create a secure password for the user and enter it into the New password field.

   Note

   Passwords must adhere to the password policy in Moodle, configured in site policies section, which by default include one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number, and one non-alphanumeric. It must be at least eight characters long.

8. Enter their first name into the First name field.
9. Enter their Surname into the Surname field.
10. Enter their e-mail into the Email address field.
11. Select the preference for the Email digest type setting which are as follows:
    • No digest (single email per forum post).
    • Complete (daily email with full posts) (that is all content).
    • Subjects (daily email with subjects only) (recommended).
12. Select the preference for the Forum auto-subscribe setting.
    • Yes: when I post, subscribe me to that forum discussion (recommended).
    • No: don't automatically subscribe me to forums discussion.
13. Enter the text for the user's location in the City/town field.
14. Select the correct country under Select a country.
15. Select the timezone for the Timezone setting, if you know the user's timezone.
16. Select the language in the Preferred language menu if needed.

    Tip

    There are other user profile fields that can be filled in, but we have only covered what we believe are the most essential here.

17. Carefully check all entries to make sure you have no mistakes, such as typos.
18. Click on the Create user button to save all changes.
19. The new user account is created in Moodle, but as you created the username and password yourself, you will need to give these to the user.
20. The account will now be able to log into the site. However, it will not have any permissions yet in any courses, either as a student, course creator, or teacher as this is a separate action.

This area of enrolment is handled later in Chapter 5, Role Management.