VIULearn offers you three different ways you can control what students can access in your course. You can attach dates that control when a content item can be visited, make content invisible until a student meets a specific condition, or manually hide content until you are ready to make it visible.
Availability Dates
In VIULearn, you can add a Start Date, Due Date, and End Date to your Modules, Sub-Modules, or Content Topics. Doing so will allow you to let students know when they should be reading or completing certain activities in the course and will allow you to guide student's progression through the course.
- Due Date: When a Due Date has been assigned to a Content Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic, students will receive a notification in VIULearn once the Due Date is 2 days away.
Once the Due Date has passed, students will still be able to see and view the Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic. However, they will receive a notification that they have not completed the Content Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic and will continue to receive this notification until they have viewed or completed the Content Topic(s) in question. - Start Date: When a Start Date has been assigned to a Content Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic, students will be able to see that the item exists, but will not be able to view that Content Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic until the Start Date has passed.
- End Date: When a End Date has been assigned to a Content Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic, students will be able to see that the item exists, but will not be able to view that Content Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic after the End Date has passed.
In general, it is best to only include Availability Dates on a few key content materials in your course that are crucial for students to view or complete by a certain date. If too many Availability Dates are added, students may find it frustrating that they cannot progress through the course at their own pace. In particular, End Dates should not be used for course materials that students may need to revisit and review later.
- Select Content from the course navigation bar.
- Click on the Module or Sub-Module in question.
- Click the Bulk Edit button.
- Click the Add dates and restrictions... text below the Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic in question.
- Add a Start Date, Due Date, or End Date, by clicking on the appropriate field and selecting a date from the pop up calendar.
- Click the blue Update button.
- Click the Done Editing button.
Release Conditions
Release Conditions allow you to create a custom learning path through the materials in your course. When you attach a Release Condition to an item, users cannot see that item until they meet the associated condition.
For example, you could attach a Release Condition to the second Content Topic that would hide that Topic until users viewed the Topic before it. Or you could create a condition that required users to view a Content Topic before gaining access to a Quiz, or one that required them to post to a Discussion Topic before they could see a Content Module.
If you attach multiple conditions to an item, you can choose wether students need to meet all the attached conditions or only one of the conditions. For example, you could require users to visit the first three Content Topics in a unit before gaining access to an associated Quiz.
Please Note: Once a user meets a Release Condition, the condition is cleared for that user and cannot be reset.
For example, if you attach a Release Condition to a Discussion Topic requiring users to achieve more than 60% on a Quiz before they can access that Topic, and one of your participants receives 72% on the Quiz but you adjust their grade to 55%, they will be able to access the Topic because they did meet the requirement at some point.
Best Practices for Release Conditions
Create all of your course materials and set up your Release Conditions before the course opens to users. This gives you a chance to check for mistakes in the conditions or for circular, contradictory, or unnecessary conditions. If you add new Release Conditions after users have accessed the course, users might be confused by resources disappearing. Since conditions cannot be reset, you also risk having users meet conditions before your resources are ready (e.g., accessing a Content Topic before it is finished).
Each condition you associate with a tool takes additional time for VIULearn to process. Using as few conditions as possible to set up a learning path minimizes the amount of time that users spend waiting for pages to load.
For example, you set up a Content Topic, a Quiz, and an Assignment Submission folder for the second week of class. You want users to read the Topic before taking the Quiz, and you want them to read the Topic and attempt the Quiz before submitting the week’s work to the Assignment Submission folder. For the Assignment Submission folder, you only need to attach the condition that users attempt the Quiz. Since users must read the Content Topic before they can take the Quiz, it is not necessary to add this condition to the Assignment Submission folder.
A circular reference makes it impossible for users to satisfy a set of conditions. For example, if you set the condition that users must view a Content Topic before they can access an Assignment Submission folder, and then set a condition that they must submit a file to the Assignment Submission folder before they can access the Content Topic, you have a circular reference. Users can’t satisfy either condition without satisfying the other one first.
Circular references are more likely to occur with long chains of conditions. For example, a Content Topic that depends on a Quiz that depends on a Assignment Submission folder that depends on a checklist that depends on the Content Topic.
Ensure that your conditions are not impossible for users to satisfy. For example, a condition that users must achieve greater than 100% on a Grade Item would be impossible (unless bonus marks are available for the item). If users are unable to satisfy a condition, they are unable to access the content or tools to which the condition is attached.
Contradictory conditions occur when two or more conditions that cancel each other out are associated with an item. For example, the conditions “User must achieve greater than 49.9% on Grade Item 1” and “User must achieve less than 50% on Grade Item 1” are contradictory. Users could not satisfy both conditions at the same time; they would not be able to see the item associated with these conditions.
Set Up Release Conditions
- Select Content from the course navigation bar.
- Click on the Module or Sub-Module in question.
- Click the Bulk Edit button.
- Click the Add dates and restrictions... text below the Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic in question.
- Click the Create button to create and add a Release Condition.
- Use the drop down menus to select the conditions students must meet before the content item is visible. Once you select a condition from the first drop down menu, additional configuration options will appear. Items in the first drop down menu are organized by tool.
- When you have finished setting your conditions, click the blue Update button to save your changes.
- Once you have finished making changes, click the Done Editing button to exit the Bulk Edit mode.
- Select Content from the course navigation bar.
- Navigate to the Module or Sub-Module where you want to add a Release Condition.
- If you want to add a Release Condition to a specific topic, click the Bulk Edit button
- If you want to add a Release Condition to a specific topic, click the Bulk Edit button
- Click the Add dates and restrictions... text below the Module, Sub-Module, or Content Topic you want to restrict access to.
- Click the Browse button to view and select from a list of conditions you have previously set up in the course.
- Check the box next to the condition you want to attach and click Attach.
- Click the blue Update button to save your changes.
- Click the Done Editing button.
Hide a Topic or Module
Hidden content cannot be seen or accessed by students. If you hide a single topic, students will not see that topic.
- Select Content from the course navigation bar.
- Find and click on the Module or Sub-Module that you want to hide.
- Click the eyeball icon on the right side of the page (across from the "Add Dates and restrictions..." option).
- Click the toggle button to change the Module from visible to hidden.
- Your change will be saved automatically and you will see a confirmation pop-up at the bottom of the page.
- Select Content from the course navigation bar.
- Find and click on the Module or Sub-Module where the Content Topic you wish to hide is located.
- Click the grey Bulk Edit button.
- Click the eyeball icon next to the Topic you wish to hide from learners.
- Click the toggle button to change the Topic from visible to hidden.
- Repeat steps 4-5 for each Topic you wish to hide in that Module or Sub-Module.
- Once you are finished, scroll back up to the top of the page and click the blue Done Editing button.