The Links tool enables you to provide links to URLs, web sites, or Quicklink to areas in your course offering or files that are useful for your course.
You must organize links into categories; for example, a psychology course might provide the link categories General, Psychology, Reference Materials, Online Publications, etc. Categories enable better organization of links and enable users to quickly find the information that they need.
Accessing the Links Tool
- Click Edit Course in the course navigation bar.
- Click Links under the Site Resources section (See Navigation and Navbars to add Links to your navigation bar).
Creating a Link Category
- On the Manage Links page, click New Category.
- On the New Link Category page, type the name of the new category in the Name field.
- Tip: A good category name enables visitors to understand the general topic for that category. For example, the category “Online Publications” would logically contain links to online journals and publications.
- Type an optional Description for the category if you want. This is useful for identifying what the category should contain.
- Click Save to save the new category or Save and New to save it and create another one.
Creating a Link
- On the Manage Links page, click New Link.
- On the New Link page, select a category for the link in the Category drop-down list. Each link must belong to a category.
- Note: To add a new category, click the New Category link. In the New Link Category pop-up, type a Name and Description for the new category and click Save.
- Type a Title for the link.
- Type the URL of an external link or attach a Quicklink by clicking the Quicklink icon. To preview the link, click the Preview link beside the URL field.
- Select the Open in New Window check box if you want the link to appear in a new window when a user clicks it.
- Type a Description for the link if you want. The description displays below the link on the Manage Links and View Links pages.
- Click Save to save the new link or Save and New to save it and create another one.
Managing Categories and Links
Previewing Links as Other Users See Them
On the Manage Links page click Preview under More Actions. To view the links in a specific category, select the required category from the Category drop-down list.
Editing a Category
- On the Manage Links page, click the name of the link category or drop-down list and click on Edit.
- On the Edit Link Category page, make the required changes and click Save.
Editing a Link
- On the Manage Links page, click the name of the link.
- On the Edit Link page, make the changes you want and click Save.
- Note: To change the category to which the link belongs, select the category you want from the Category drop-down list.
Editing Multiple Links
- On the Manage Links page, select multiple checkboxes.
- Click the Edit Multiple Links icon at the top or bottom of the Category/Link list.
- On the Edit Multiple Links page, make the changes you want to each of the links and click Save.
Reordering Links or Categories
- On the Manage Links page, click the Reorder link under More Actions.
- On the Reorder page, change the values in the Sort Order field for the required links or categories and click Save.
Deleting a Category or Link
On the Manage Links page, click the Delete icon beside the name of the category or link you want to delete.
Note: Deleting a category also deletes all the links in that category.
Deleting Multiple Links
- On the Manage Links page, select the check boxes next to the links that you want to delete.
- Click the Delete Multiple Links icon at the top or bottom of the Category/Link list.
