Virtual Office Hours

Owned by Marcy Dickson
Last updated: Sept 20, 2022
6 min read

There are various ways to provide virtual office hours to students. Here is our recommendation using appointment slots on your Google Calendar, and then embedding your appointment page in your Moodle course. Watch the brief video tutorials or follow the step-by-step instructions to learn how.

Need help setting this up? Contact the Help Desk at helpdesk@ccad.edu!

 

 

Video tutorials

Part 1: Create appointment slots on Google Calendar

A video tutorial for setting up Virtual Office Hours in Google Calendar. It shows Eileen's browser window, and there is a small video of Eileen talking in the bottom left corner.

 

Part 2: (OPTIONAL) Embed on Moodle course page

A video tutorial for embedding Virtual Office Hours on a GoStudio course page. It shows Eileen's browser window, and there is a small video of Eileen talking in the bottom left corner.

 

Step-by-Step Instructions

Part 1: Create appointment slots on Google Calendar

Let’s say for the purpose of demonstration you need to set up weekly office hours from 1-3 P.M. Monday through Wednesday.

  1. First open your Google Calendar by going to calendar.ccad.edu and logging in with your CCAD account.

  2. Click an open space to create a new calendar event. Name the event something like “Weekly office hours” and change the type from Event to Appointment Slots.

     

  3. Click More options. On this page, set the end time to 2 P.M. and set the slot duration to 60 minutes.

     

  4. Click the does not repeat drop down and choose Custom.

     

  5. On the pop-up window, click M, T, and W to have to the office hours repeat weekly on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Under Ends, click the On button to have the appointment slots end on a certain date. For this example, click September 2nd to have the appointments end after two weeks.

     

  6. Then, click Done and then Save to create your appointment slots.

     

  7. Click the appointments you just created and then click Go to appointment page for this calendar.

     

  8. This is what students will see when they go to book an appointment with you.

     

  9. Note that any calendar events that were already on your calendar will also appear, but others will not have access to view the details of your events unless you have given them permission to view full details. (Check out this Google Help page to learn more about sharing your calendar with others.)

  10. From here, you can do one of two things: you can either send the link in a Moodle Quickmail to your students, or you can embed the appointment page directly on your Moodle course. To do the former, keep reading. To do the latter, skip to the next section now.

  11. Copy the URL to your appointment booking page.

     

  12. Paste the URL in an email or a Moodle Quickmail to your students.

 

Embed the appointment page on your Moodle course (OPTIONAL)

Okay, so this part is a little more technical and involves some HTML. But this will make it very easy for students to book office hours with you and will save you time in the long run!

  1. Start on your Google Calendar. Next to your calendar, click the three dots and select Settings and sharing.

     

  2. On the left, click Integrate calendar. Copy the embed code.

     

  3. Now go to your Moodle course page. Click the Turn editing on button if not already in Editing Mode. Click Edit week from the Edit drop down at the top right of one of your weeks.

     

  4. Above the Summary box, click the Show advanced buttons button and click the HTML source view button at the end. Paste the embed code in the Summary box.



  5. This will embed your regular Google Calendar, but now we need to change the code slightly to embed your appointment page instead.

  6. Go back to Google Calendar, and find your appointment slots. Click them and choose Go to appointment page for this calendar.

     

  7. Copy the URL to your appointment booking page in the address bar of your browser.

     

  8. Go back to Moodle and highlight just the URL portion of the HTML code in the Summary box, shown below:

     

  9. Paste the URL to your appointment booking page over the highlighted URL.

     

  10. Click the Save changes button at the bottom of the page. You’re done! Your appointment page is now on Moodle.

If you like, you can put a label across the top or create a new week and rename it Office Hours to put the calendar in a separate section, as shown below.

 

After an appointment is booked

  1. When one of the available slots is clicked, a student will be able to book the time as shown below.

     

  2. Once booked, the slot will disappear from the booking page and an event will appear on your calendar with you and the student who booked the slot, like the one highlighted below.

     

  3. To add video conferencing to the appointment, click the event that was booked and click the pencil to edit it.

     

  4. Then, depending on your video conferencing platform of choice:

    1. Google Meet - Click the Add Google Meet video conferencing button to add a Google Meet meeting room to the event

    2. Microsoft Teams - Type “I’ll call you on Teams” in the Location to let the student know you will call them on Teams at the scheduled time

       

  5. Click Save to save the changes to your event. You’re all set!