GauchoSpace is the learning management system for UCSB courses and projects, allowing instructors to create online sites for course materials and student activities. GauchoSpace is built using Moodle, an open source learning platform. It features tools that allow you to upload your syllabus, course assignments, or readings; manage a gradebook that calculates and displays grades for students; and create quizzes or lessons that provide instant feedback for students. GauchoSpace simplifies the process of communicating with students through a variety of communication tools, such as Peachmail and the Instructor Announcements forum, as well as other class activity forums (See, communicating with students for more information).
Students are generally able to access course sites from the current and one previous quarter (unless the instructor has made a current course unavailable to students, or an older course site available again).
Getting Started with GauchoSpace
To view your course, you must first log in to GauchoSpace.
- Go to http://gauchospace.ucsb.edu
- Log in using your UCSBnetID and password.
- Logging in will take you to your home page that lists all of your courses in the UCSB Course Overview block. Each course title is a link. Instructors and Teaching Assistants, course titles that are in gray indicate that the course has not yet been made available to students.
- Click on any course title to access your course site.
Students, if you do not see your registered courses after logging in, here are some common reasons a student's course site is not visible.
Instructors, if you are the instructor of record for a course, your course site is automatically created for you in the majority of cases. Should you not see your course listed, here are some common reasons why an instructor's course site is not visible. For more helpful resources for creating and managing course sites, visit Setting up a Site and GauchoSpace Basics.
To make changes to your GauchoSpace site, you must click Turn editing on, located in the top right-hand corner. The same button is also located at the top of the Administration block.
Once the site is in editing mode, you can make changes to your blocks, add activities or resources to your weekly or topical blocks, and move or edit items in your site. Once you have created your site, visit Editing a Course Site and Other Instructor FAQs for assistance in adding resources and activities to the site. Also, you can visit Enrollment Settings and Managing Users for tips on managing your students and teaching assistants in your course site.
- Activities are added by instructors for students to submit materials and interact with the instructor or other students. With assignments, you can create assignments for file uploads and online text and quizzes that are automatically graded as the student submits their answers. You can also add more communicative and collaborative components, such as a forum or a wiki module. When a grading element is introduced, Activities can be graded within GauchoSpace and calculated with your Gradebook.
- Resources
- Resources provide several different ways of providing key course information to your students. This area includes files or folders that you upload for the student to download, custom web pages and labels (how to add a label) to organize the content or provide information to your students directly on your course site.
- Participants
- Users who have access to your course are called participants. Each participant has one or more roles that determine his or her privileges for accessing the GauchoSpace course site.
- GauchoSpace uses roles to determine what areas of a course site a user is permitted to access and interact with. Roles are determined for the whole system and can be assigned to specific users in specific contexts. The most common examples are the roles of Instructor, Student, and Editing and Non-Editing Teaching Assistant in the context of a course site. Click here to learn how to add a user with a UCSBnetID to your course site.
- Groups are collections of Participants. Groups can have many functions, including small groups for collaborative projects, or larger groups for a course section. Groups that correspond to a course section are often created automatically when a department adds a Teaching Assistant to a section. Many functions of GauchoSpace, including Activities and Resources, can have altered functionality when used in different Group modes. Groupings are collections of Groups. Using Groupings allows you to restrict activities and visibility from other groups in your course site.
- Blocks contain specific information about your course and tools for instructors and students. The main blocks in the middle of the page provide an outline of your course either by weeks or course topics. Blocks can be placed by the instructor to the left and right of the main course content block and compartmentalize important course functions. The most important block for instructors is the Administration block. This block gives instructors the ability to change settings (Edit Settings), assign course roles (Users - Enrolled Users), and set up your Gradebook and enter grades (Gradebook Setup and Grades.)
There are multiple options for getting help with GauchoSpace:
- Submit a Help Ticket: This is the best way to get immediate, technical help. When you submit a help ticket please be thorough in your explanation of the issue you have. We will answer your help ticket within 8 hours during normal UCSB business hours.
- Schedule a Zoom Consultation: Reach out to us at help@collaborate.ucsb.edu to schedule a one-on-one consultation. We are available from 10am to 4pm, Monday to Friday.
- Best Pedagogical Uses: If you're seeking pedagogical help in using GauchoSpace please contact the Office of Instructional Development.