Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

by Susanna Wesson -
Number of replies: 7

Hi,

For our new self-study courses, I would like to make it clear to the students what action is required to validate the course.

To do this, I am using Activity Completion with my HotPot exercises (Boost/Moodle 3.4 soon to be 3.6.)

When students display the Course completion panel in Moodle, they see what the requirement is for some activities. (See screenshot.) Would it be possible to display the requirement for the HotPot exercises, for example, 'Completed status'?

Thank you for your help,

Susanna


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In reply to Susanna Wesson

Re: Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

by Gordon Bateson -
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Hello Susanna,
Could you show me the completion conditions for one of those HotPots?

In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

by Susanna Wesson -

Yes, here are the conditions for 'Cover letters - Introduction'. The actual completion indicator works fine.




In reply to Susanna Wesson

Re: Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

by Gordon Bateson -
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Ah, I see. Thanks very much.

If you check "Require view" box, and then view the Completion report, does the text in the "Requirement" column change to "Viewing the page"?

In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

by Susanna Wesson -

Yes, it does. ("Viewing the hotpot", to be precise.)

In reply to Susanna Wesson

Re: Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

by Gordon Bateson -
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Aha - thank you, Susanna!

Searching through the Moodle PHP code, I see that the "Viewing the __" string is declared in the following Moodle file:

It is called "viewingactivity" and it is used in the "get_details()" method of the "completion_criteria_activity" object, which is in the following file:

As you can see from the PHP code, the only completion criteria that get displayed are for (1) viewing, or (2) achieving a certain grade. Any other completion criteria are ignored in this report. Therefore, I believe that this issue affects not only the HotPot module, but any module that uses criteria other than viewing or achieving a certain grade.

This seems less than satisfactory. I would have hoped and expected that the "get_details()" method would allow each activity module to add details of it's own custom completion criteria. However, as we have seen, currently only a couple of common criteria are recognized. 

To get this report to behave as you expect, it would be necessary to modify the "completion_criteria_activity.php" file that I linked to earlier. As it is part of core module, it would take a lot of determination to get it changed. Furthermore, each activity module would then need to be altered to give details of its completion criteria. Another possibility is to commission your own report and add it as a plugin to your Moodle site. Neither path is short or easy.

In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

by Gordon Bateson -
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At the top of the "completion_criteria_activity.php" file, I notice the following comments:

* @copyright 2009 Catalyst IT Ltd
* @author Aaron Barnes

This indicates that this report was created 10 years ago, when perhaps completion criteria were not as sophisticated as they are now. Therefore, I would say that this report, and possibly other scripts of that provide the completion criteria functionality, are in need of some modernization to make them aware of custom completion criteria.

Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Gordon Bateson

Re: Course completion requirement for HotPot activities

by Susanna Wesson -

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for examining the problem which, I see, is not linked to the HotPot module.

I will discuss the plugin solution with the school's expert. Thank you for the suggestions.

Susanna