Restrict Access & Completion Tracking: Student Must Post to Forum to Move on

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Home > Moodle Activities & Resources > Forum Activity (Discussions) > Restrict Access & Completion Tracking: Student Must Post to Forum to Move on
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  1. Setup Forum Completion
  2. Restrict Access to Next Activity

These steps require that you have completion tracking enabled in your course.

A common activity in Moodle is to require that a student start a discussion (new thread of conversation) and then reply to two peers. You can force students to do this before moving onto the next activity or topic/section of a course. This will NOT check for a substantive post- merely the post/discussion/reply with some content that could be as little as “hi”.

Setup Forum Completion

Locate and enter the Forum activity you want to require students make at least a set number of replies/discussions/posts to.

Locate the Actions menu (gear icon) and  click the Edit settings link.

Expand the Activity completion section:

  • set Completion Tracking to Show activity as complete when conditions are met
  • ensure the Require discussions option is checked and Student must create discussion is set to 1.
  • ensure the Require replies option is checked and Student must post replies is set to 2.

NOTE: Posts vs Discussions vs Replies
You can really fine tune what you want from your students by way of how many of a set interaction you want from them.

  • Discussions are a new thread of conversation. A topic (or question in Q & A forums) is set.
  • Replies are responses within an existing Discussion.
  • Posts are all-encompassing and will count Discussions and Replies.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Click the Save and return to course button.

Restrict Access to Next Activity

Locate the Activity or section/topic in your course that you want to ONLY be available after a student has made the needed replies and/or discussion posts.

If Editing is turned on, click the Edit menu and click the Edit Settings link.

OR

Click into the activity or resource and from the Actions menu (gear icon) click the Edit settings link.

Scroll down to and expand the Restrict Access section.

Click the Add restriction button.

From the popup list select the Activity completion option- it should be at the top.

Ensure that Access restrictions are set to:

  • Student must match the following
  • Ensure the eye icon is open and set to “Displayed greyed-out if user does not meet this condition – click to hide”
    (that way students can see that there is more to do and what is required to access it.)
  • Select our quiz activity from the drop down list.
  • ensure that the last drop down has must be complete with pass grade selected

Scroll to the bottom of the page.

Click the Save and return to course button.

With restrict access applied you should see the activity greyed out and a note for students as to what needs to be done first.

Related Tags
7 Principles: Communicate high expectations (18)7 Principles: Emphasize time on task (13)Completion Tracking (11)Efficiencies (49)Moodle (LMS) (120)Restrict Access (6)