The additional settings--Common Module, Restrict Access and Activity Completion--in every activity, resource and topic section are versatile tools to restrict access of the course content to just those particular users on the site who should access them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Common Module Settings

The Common Module is also known as Groups and Groupings.  This feature provides the ability to further organize your users into distinct groups, allowing you to control the content they see within the LMS or a specific course.  Groups and Groupings will also provide the option to report on a specific group of users in a given course. 

Enabling Groupings for the site

First, turn on Groupings on the site level by going to Site Administration>>> Development>>> Experimental>>> Experimental settings and click on Enable group members only:

Setting up Groups and Groupings in a course

Now you can create Groups and Groupings in a course.  Note that students must be in a Groupin order to be in a Grouping. 

Within the course, go to Settings>>> Users>>> Groups:

On the groups screen, click on Create group.  Give the group a name and save changes.  Ensure the group name is highlighted on the left and click on Add/remove users.  Click on users’ names and then on the Add button.  You can use Shift or Control plus click to add several users at one time. Click on Back to groups.  Repeat as needed to create all desired groups.

Now, click on the Groupings tab at the top of the page then click Create groupings. Give the grouping a name.  The name used for the grouping can be the same as the name of a group, especially if there will be only one group per grouping. Once complete, save changes.  

On the groupings page, click on the people icon that represents groups, found to the right of the grouping name.  Click on one or more groups to add to the grouping. Click on Back to groupings.  You can add more groups to the grouping or more students to the groups at a later time.

Groupings in an Activity, Resource or Topic Summary

Navigate back to the course page.  You can now use the Common Module for any Actvity, Resource or Topic summary in your course.  When you create or edit any of these, you can specify which groups and groupings can see that content.  To restrict the content to one grouping, find the Common module settings in the Add/update dialog screen, in this case, a meeting:

Select Separate groups and the name of the grouping (in the example above, Second Groupingonly).  Check off Available for group members only and under Visible, select Show. Click on Save and return to course. 

Only once group mode and grouping are enabled on the first meeting creation will the option to add a grouping to a meeting instances become available. (See Connect Meetings main article)

Back in the course, you will see the meeting iconic display in the topic section and you can see the grouping associated with it:

When a user of that grouping comes into the course, they will simply see their meeting instance:

When a user in any other grouping logs in, they will not see any meetings in the course.

The My Meetings tag (see section 'My Meetings Tag') on the front page will not respect restricting meetings by groupings.  If you use groupings for meetings, do not use the My Meetings tag.

In RT3, the location of the grouping restriction for topic summaries is found in the Restrict Access settings for the topic (see next section).

Restrict Access Settings

Restrict Access is a Moodle feature that replaces the “locking” feature in the earlier versions of the RT platform. This feature is used to prevent users from accessing an Activity until they have completed another component of the course.  Refined Training has added three more conditions to the existing Moodle Restrict Access options. 

Enabling Restrict Access for the Site

To enable the Restrict Access feature for your LMS go to Administration>>> Site Administration>>> Advanced Features:

Click on Enable conditional access, which is close to the bottom of the page:

Restrict Access Settings in Activities

Once Restrict Access is enabled for the site, the Restrict Access settings are available in each activity set-up.  The options are different in RT3:

The options highlighted in yellow above are the Refined Training options, described below.

To add other restrictions, click on Add restriction:

Moodle Settings:

• Activity Completion – prior activity that must be marked complete before student can access the current activity or section; this can include activities for which no grades are given. The prior activity must have its activity completion set first (see Activity Completion below).  The choices for Activity Completion are Must be marked complete, must not be marked complete, must be complete with pass grade and must be complete with fail grade.
• Date -the options are Allow access from – if enabled, prevents students from accessing the Activity until the date and time indicated and Allow access until – if enabled, prevents students from accessing the Activity after the date and time indicated (optional)
• Grade – the prior Activity and grade (maximum or minimum) or grade range that must be achieved before the student can access the current activity:

You can enable the equal to or greater than option, the equal to or less than option or both to set a grade range.

New in RT3, you can use 100% as the required equal to or less than grade condition for a prior activity.

You can also set grade conditions for more than one prior activity.

• User Profile - access to activities based on any user profile field, selected from a drop-down menu and refine the access by is equal to, contains, doesn't contain, starts with, ends with, is empty or is not empty.
• Restriction set - you can a set of nested restrictions to apply complex logic.

You have two options for how the link to the activity will appear before the user has met the requirements to unlock the activity.  These are set by clicking on the eye next to the restriction to open or close it:

If open, the activity will show activity greyed out, with restriction information displayed; if closed,  the activity will be hidden entirely.

If the restriction information option is chosen, the Refined message in the topic with the restricted activity displays: 'Not available unless you get a particular score in _________ (Retry)':

When users complete the prerequisite activity successfully, they can click on the Refined feature Retry link to reload the page and open the restricted activity.  If users click on the retry link before completing the prerequisite activity successfully or before their grades have reported, they will see a message advising them that their grades are not yet available:

The wording in this message can be edited by going to Language>>> Language customisation>>> mod_connect and searching for the string connect_grades_notyet.

In RT3, the Retry link is a default language string; for sites running earlier versions, see Prerequisite Refresh Link for how to set this.

Refined Training Settings

The RT custom restrictions can be used in addition to Moodle restrictions.

• First Login – previously restricted by the tags [[usertype#new#24]] and  [[usertype#old#24]], this option allows you to show certain activities or messages to users who are new to the site and/or to users who have used your site before.  The two options are Less than or More than and the number of hours can be typed in:

A typical use of this option is to show one message to users logging into your site for the first time (First Login is Less than 24 hours).  You might want them to look at an introductory video the first time they log in.  When they log in the next day, they will not see the video.  You can leave a different message or content for users who have visited your site more than a day ago (First Login is More than 24 hours) or any amount of time that you wish, specified in hours.

• User Language – Previously restricted by the tag [[Langblock#fr_ca]], this option allows you to show certain activities or messages to users who have selected a language other than the site default language as their preferred language:

This option is typically used on the front page of the site to welcome users in their selected language and to direct them to courses offered in their language.  But it can be used in courses, too.

• System Role – Previously restricted by the tag [[role#admin]], this option allows you to ensure that users with a particular role see certain messages or content and users without that role do not see it:

These Refined options can be used alone or in combination with any of the other options. For example, you can use a combination of these options to make sure that new users whose language is French and who have the role of Editing Teacher see a message that other users on the site do not see.

Restrict Access Settings in a Topic Section

When you set Restrict Access conditions on a topic section, everything in the topic section will be restricted, including any resource or activity in the topic.  When you set Restrict Access conditions for an activity or resource, only that activity or resource will be restricted; everything else in the topic will be accessible by all users.  It is, however, possible to restrict a topic section by language and then to restrict the PDFs uploaded to that topic section to various roles, such as Editing Teacher or Advanced Students.

Note that, when Groups or Groupings have been enabled for a course, the option to restrict access by Group or Grouping is found in the in the restrict access settings for the topic summary (in activities, the option is found in Common Module settings, see above):

Activity Completion Settings

If enabled, Activity completion is tracked, either manually or automatically, based on set conditions. Multiple conditions may be set if desired. If so, the activity will only be considered complete when ALL conditions are met.

Enabling Completion Tracking for the Site

To enable the Restrict Access feature for your LMS go to Administration>>> Site Administration>>> Advanced Features:

 Click on Enable completion tracking, which is close to the bottom of the page:

Completion Tracking inside a Course

To turn on the feature for a course, go to Administration>>> Course Administration>>> Edit Settings. Click on Expand all and scroll down to Completion tracking. Next to Enable completion tracking, select YES:

Once Completion Tracking is enabled for the course, you can set the Completion criteria for activities:

Several options are available:

• Completion tracking – If using this feature, select one of the following: Students can manually mark the activity as completed or Show activity as complete when conditions are met; otherwise leave at Do not indicate activity completion (the default option).
• Require view – student need only click on the activity or resource to complete the activity.
• Require grade – students must get any grade to complete the activity (pass or fail).
• Expect completed on – date by which your users are expected to complete the activity.

Click on Save and return to course.

When Student must receive a grade to complete this activity is selected for Connect Activities, the course Reports may not register the completion until one or two cron runs have taken place (cron runs occur approximately every 15 minutes).  Once the completion is reported for the Connect Activity, any other activity with a restrict access dependent upon it will unlock.  You may need to post a notice in the second activity to inform students to wait for a half hour.

Course Completion

You can set completion criteria for the entire course as well as individual activities.  Go to Administration>>> Course administration>>> Course completion:

On the page that displays, you can set one or more criteria that determine completion for the course.  When the completion criteria are set, several Refined Features are available:

• Flexible Certificate/Completion report generates reports based upon the completion status of users in courses that have completion criteria set.
• Course Assignment Tool allows an administrator to change the status of users to/from complete in courses with completion criteria set; this is especially useful if users are likely to have registered into the wrong session of a particular course.
• Front Page Progress Tracking displays a green progress bar on the Front Page of the LMS to indicate what percentage of the course the student has completed.  To ensure your users can actually get 100% complete, you must set all activities and resources in the course with completion criteria.

As a rule, we recommend that, you alwaysset completion criteria inside the Course completion set-up (listed under Course administration). You need to set completion criteria for at least one activity to set up completion for the course; usually the certificate is the best indication of course completion.