We have a Moodle instance on 3.2.8+ (build: 20180329).
I do have an understanding of setting activity restrictions... but we want to take this a step further and actually set course restrictions. For example, if Joe Schmo logs in he can only see and access two courses, while others that login can view the whole catalog.
Is there a method to restrict course access? Not related to activity completion, but just based on user email or group. What would be the best way to set this up?
Not really, no. Because although you can restrict your front page to only show specific courses and although you can restrict users from accessing courses (ie being able to enrol in them) there is nothing to stop a user who knows the link going to yourmoodlesite.com/course/index.php which is the list of all the courses on the site visible without a log in. (Try it with any Moodle site that has a visible front page)
People might say there are ways around it by changing permissions to view hidden courses etc etc but it's a lot of work and I'm not convinced it's effective.
You can of course make it harder to find courses, so you don't show any courses on the front page and then if Joe Schmo is enrolled in only two courses and the Dashboard is the default page after login then he will only see those two courses he is enrolled in , and hopefully won't go searching for others.
