“Orphaned” activities occur when a course has more sections than are allowed in the course settings (see figure below):

This most often occurs when a course with more than 16 sections is imported into a new course shell (which has a default setting of 16 sections). Because the new shell doesn’t know how to compute the extra sections, it “orphans” them. Luckily, the solution is pretty straightforward:

STEP 1: Click on your “Course Dashboard” and select “Edit course settings”:
STEP 2: In “Course settings,” scroll down to the “course format” section. In the “Number of sections” dropdown, change the number to the total number of sections needed for your course. That number should be the [currently listed number of sections] + [the number of orphaned sections]:

EXAMPLE: If you have 3 orphaned sections and there are 16 sections listed in the dropdown, change the dropdown from 16 to 19.

STEP 3: Scroll down to the bottom and click “Save and display.” The additional sections will no longer be orphaned:

For Moodle help, contact the NMC Technology Helpdesk at 231-995-3020