Answered By: Jonathan Faerber (he/him/his)
Last Updated: Mar 18, 2022     Views: 6712

APA Style (7th ed.)

If the information posted in a password-protected RRU Moodle course site is available to the instructor you are writing for, and if the instructor is the primary audience of your assignment, please cite this information as a recoverable resource rather than personal communication. For instance, it is appropriate to identify the author and date of a discussion forum posting when citing and referencing a post on Moodle.

Author, A. [username]. (Year, Month Day). First twenty words of the discussion forum post in italics and sentence case [Discussion forum post]. Moodle. https://moodle.royalroads.ca/

  • In-text citation: (Author, year, para. X if appropriate)
  • "If the slides come from a classroom website, learning management system [e.g., Moodle], or company intranet and you are writing for an audience with access to that resource, provide the name of the site and its URL (use the login page URL for sites requiring login)" (American Psychological Association, 2020, p. 347).

Please note that if the information came from another document (e.g., a colleague or instructor quoted from another author's text, and you want to use the quotation), you should track down the primary source versus citing your colleague or instructor citing the primary source (i.e., providing a secondary source citation).

If you want to quote or paraphrase from course postings, it's respectful of the authors' privacy to first ask permission to use their words in your assignment. They may not have intended for their comments to be used outside of the course site, so asking for permission to use their words alerts them to your intended use of the material. If the authors decline permission, please respect their wishes and do not quote or paraphrase them in your text. Please also see One of My Classmates Said Something Controversial, and I'd Like to Quote Her Comment in My Paper. How Should I Do This?