Students are often enrolled in three or more course, with many of these posting online materials. Add to this previous and future semesters and we can see that students must potentially search through hundreds of resources to find what they’re looking for.

This is where we can help.

By simply naming our resources in a clear manner, it helps students more easily find what they need, when they need it. This also helps us in the same way. Let’s look at three ways to name documents more clearly.

When you are uploading files from your own computer, make sure they are named consistently.

1. Course Code and Number begin the document name. For example, the syllabus for English 101, Sept 2013 would be called “ENG101 Syllabus Sept 2013”. This type of naming structure affords several ways to find the document. If you simply name the document “syllabus”, this may result in many unclearly named documents.
2. In Moodle, when posting your resources, name them the same name as the filename, minus the course code. This way the syllabus from ENG101 mentioned above would be named Syllabus Sept 2013.
3. Label your media files and links using brackets at the end of the file. For example, if you have recorded an introduction to your course and have posted it on YouTube, you should name that link “ENG101 Course Introduction (YouTube Video)”. Likewise, if you have media files that need to be downloaded, you should clearly label them. For example, “ENG101 Shakespeare Radio Interview (Audio Download)”.

Using these naming standards not only allows for better organisation, but it tells students what the files are before they open them or download them. This is a very important feature as students increasingly use mobile devices which have limited storage and maybe accrue extra fees with streaming or downloading.

If you have questions about naming and organizing your course materials, please e-mail elearning@upei.ca