Controlling Visibility in Moodle

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  1. Hidden Content
  2. Know if it’s Visible to Students

Hidden Content

If your course is a Work-in-Progress you can hide course content from students till you are ready for them to access it. This will prevent students from accessing content early and becoming confused or concerned about the content. You can also restrict access to activities (and sections) to prevent students from accessing activities and/or resources until certain conditions are met.

NOTE: Hidden activities will affect the grades you see in the Grader report, but will not affect the grade the student sees in the User report.

Know if it’s Visible to Students

What teachers and students see can vary drastically, but Moodle does its best to communicate this to you by labeling hidden courses, sections and activities. You can also switch to the student role to help you to view a course as a student.

NOTE: If your course is hidden to students and you leave the course before you return to your normal role you will not be able to see the course on your My courses page. If this happens to you submit a ticket to OLET and we can send you a link to access your course directly.

Courses

Make Your Course Visible to Students

  • Courses will open and close automatically on the Moodle Start and End Date listed for your course. If your start or end dates in Moodle do not match those in myClackamas > Course Management, please contact the OLET department at online@clackamas.edu.
  • If you would like to Show your course before the start date or Hide the course before the end date you can change the Course Visibility.
  • Courses that are hidden from students will state so on your My courses page.

Section

Weeks/Topics

The default is to make all Weeks/Topics in a course visible to students. If you choose to hide a section from students it will appear greyed out in the Course index and have a tag stating Hidden from students next to the heading in the main course area.

Turn Edit mode on.

Turn Editing On button is found in the top-right corner of a Moodle page you have permission to modify content for.

Click the edit menu (three vertical dots) next to the week/topic you wish to hide.

Select the Hide week/topic option from the drop-down.

Activities & Resources

Activities and Resources

The default setting is to make visible to students. If you choose to hide an activity or resource from students it will appear with a grey background and tag that states Hidden from students.

These directions will help you change the visibility of a single activity or resource, but if you want to change the visibility of multiple activities or resources we recommend you use the Mass Actions Block.

Turn Edit mode on.

Turn Editing On button is found in the top-right corner of a Moodle page you have permission to modify content for.

Click the edit menu (three vertical dots) next to the activity you wish to hide.

Select the Hide option from the drop-down.

After you hide an activity or resource the option Make available will be listed as an option on the edit menu. This will make the activity or resource Available, but not shown on course page. Students can still access the activity or resource through direct links placed in your course or from the Gradebook, but it will not show on the course page or the course index.

Available, but not shown on course page allows you to use Auto-links. These are created by typing in the exact name of the activity or resource any other Moodle activity or resource such as text and media, page, forum, assignment, etc.

Grade Items & Totals

How visibility affects what you and students see in the gradebook:

  • hidden grade items and categories will appear greyed out in the Grader report, and will not be visible in the User report
  • hidden grade items will affect grade totals that you see in the Grader report, but they will not affect grade totals that the student sees in the User report.

NOTE: This means your students and you may see different grade totals in a course.  Make sure you view the User report when you make changes to your gradebook to verify the student view is accurate.

Visibility of a grade item is determined by whether:

  • the grade item visibility is set to show or hide in Gradebook Setup
  • the visibility setting of the activity is set to show or hide

NOTE: If an activity visibility setting is set to Hide you will not be able to select the show option for the grade item in Gradebook setup. If an activity has its visibility set to Show you may or may not be able to select to hide for the grade item in Gradebook setup.

  • the quiz Review options has Points checked or unchecked when the quiz is opened or closed.

Visibility of a grade category:

  • can toggle from show to hide for the entire category using the edit menu at the top of the category. This will hide the category and any grade items inside the category. This may impact the grade total students see in the User report.
  • can toggle from show to hide for the total of the category by using the edit menu at the bottom of the category. This will only hide the total of the category, and will not impact the grade total that students see in the User report. 
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