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Restrict access
Why use it?
Restricting access to Moodle activities allows control of the student learning journey through access to course materials.
Step 1: Edit settings and choose restriction type
With Edit Mode on, click on the icon next to the activity you wish to restrict and select Edit settings. From within the settings menu, expand the Restrict access section and click the Add restriction… button to view restriction settings.
Uses can choose from the restriction types included below. Note that some restriction types (indicated by *) are only available if other settings in the course allow it.
Activity completion* - only appears if Completion Tracking is enabled at the course level. See Completion tracking for further details.
Date
Grade
Group* - only appears if one or more Groups exist in the course. See Groups and Groupings for details.
Grouping* - only appears if one or more Groupings exist in the course.
User profile
Restriction set
Restriction types are explained in the next section.
Step 2: Specify criteria
The sections below explain the criteria settings for each restriction type. Some settings are common to all restriction types, and these are covered in the first restriction type below.
Date (and common settings)
Selecting Date enables restriction settings that prevent access until (or from) a specified date and time.
Date restrictions contain 3 settings:
“Must” or “must not” (this setting is common to all restriction types)
“From” or “until”
Date and time
To set a date range, click Add restriction… a section time and add a second date.
Once more than one restriction is in place the settings will display together to show they are working in conjunction.
Additional settings affect how the restriction behaves.
Restrictions can be set so students “must” or “must not” match the settings.
Restrictions can be set so “All” or “any” of the settings apply. This allows users to control how the restrictions are combined (common to all restriction types).
Each restriction also has an 'eye' button to the left of the date (common to all restriction types). Click this button to toggle between:
: Moodle will display the restriction settings to students if they do not meet the condition.
: Moodle will hide the object (activity / resource) from students who do not meet the condition.
Any restriction can be removed by clicking the trash button to the right of the setting (common to all restriction types).
Once restrictions are in place, click Save and display or Save and return to course at the bottom of the course.
Activity completion
Selecting Activity completion enables access restrictions that require students to complete (or not complete) another activity.
There are two settings:
The activity which completion applies to
The state of completion required for access to be granted: either “must be marked complete”, “must not be marked complete”, “must be complete with pass grade” or “must be complete with fail grade”. (See Completion tracking for further details.)
Grade
Selecting Grade enables access restrictions options that require students to achieve a specified grade.
The settings are:
The activity for which the Grade will be checked.
The upper and lower ends of the range of acceptable grades. Tick the checkbox at the start in order to add a value to one of these fields.
Students will only be able to access the current activity (the one we are editing) if they have achieved a grade within the specified range for the specified activity.
Group or Grouping
Group or Grouping allows only student who belong to a specified group or grouping access.
The only setting required is to specify the Group or Grouping that is allowed to view this activity.
To provide each of the groups in a course separate access to an activity (such as a forum or assignment) using Group Mode is recommended instead. See How to use Groups and Groupings to manage group activities for details.
If using groups to restrict access to resources (e.g. lecture recordings) for students with My Adjustments, then you must ensure the group membership visibility setting is set to Hidden, otherwise membership is visible to all course participants from the course participants page. Alternatively, add individual user profiles instead, as described below.
User profile
User profile restriction uses specific fields within the student’s user profile to control access.
The settings are:
Field from user profile to match (e.g ‘Email address’)
Condition on which to match the profile field “is equal to”, “contains”, “ doesn’t contain” etc.
Text to match with the profile field
Only users whose profile fields match the specific match criteria will be able to access the activity. This makes it useful for providing resources to individual students with specific requirements.
Close the eye-icon when specifying individual students so that the conditions and consequently the student identity is not visible to other students. This is especially important when restricting access to students with My Adjustments (MAs).
Restriction set
Restriction set is used to add nested restriction that allow more complex restriction logic.
An example of the use of a restriction set is to restrict access to an activity so that is available to all students within a given date range, but also available to members of a specific group outside of that date range.
Step 1: Add group restriction
Update the group restriction settings so that the student must be a member of Group 1.
Step 2: Add restriction set
Click Add restriction… and select Restriction set from the list. The option to add an additional restriction will appear nested below the existing Group restriction.
Step 3: Add date range restriction
Select Date to configure a date from which the restriction will apply, add a second Date restriction to create a range. To enable access to students that are members of Group A or if the current date is within the specified range update, update the field immediately after ‘Student must match..’ from “all” into “any” of the criteria.
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