Each activity available a number of days after previous one

Each activity available a number of days after previous one

by Mike North -
Number of replies: 3

Hi,

Having searched through documentation and previous forum posts I can't find an answer to this question:

Is it possible to have an activity, let's called it "Activity B", only become available a number of days (e.g. 3 days) after completion of a previous activity, let's call it "Activity A"?

So a timeline of events could be:

1) Student self enrols in course on day 1 (this is a date of their choice and each student on the course can enrol on a different day)

2) Student completes Activity A on day 1 of their enrolment

3) Student waits 3 days after which activity B becomes available

4) Student then completes Activity B


There is a plugin that allows activity restriction based on number of days after initial enrolment, which would solve the problem if all students enrolled on the same date, but I can't find any way to set a time limit on availability of upcoming activities if students can enrol whenever they choose.

The reason I need this is that I'm creating a course in which students can self enrol any time and I'd like to leave a number of days for students to practice the skills learned in each activity before moving on to the next. If all students were to enrol at the same time then I could set a restriction for activities to become available x number of days after enrolment, but since their enrolment dates would differ then this plugin wouldn't work for me.

I know there is a strong argument for not restricting access to activities so that students can progress as soon as they are ready but the nature of this particular course really requires that functionality.

Have seen in a previous post an option for students to post on a forum after completing each activity and then using time limits from the forum to then make the next activity available but this is a really inconvenient and awkward method which I'd rather avoid.

I'm using Moodle 3.9

Any suggestions or advice would be hugely appreciated!

Thank you.

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In reply to Mike North

Re: Each activity available a number of days after previous one

by john kuti -
I think you may be able to do this to some extent by enabling "course relative dates" see https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Course_relative_dates

I understood what you said about the nature of the course making a minimum time necessary for different stages. However, In most pedagogical situations, I'd say that the amount of practice done would be more important than the number of days that have passed. So you could set a series of practice exercises, extra memory tasks etc., and make progress conditional on completing them in a prescribed order.


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In reply to john kuti

Re: Each activity available a number of days after previous one

by Mike North -
Thanks for your suggestions. You're definitely correct that the amount of practice is more important than the number of days passing by, however I'd still like this one single course to be time based. I've no idea how the backend of moodle works but shouldn't it be fairly simple to have the ability to restrict access to something for a number of days after completion of an activity? Maybe not!

Or to have a time based activity activated in the background after an activity has been completed that then triggers the appearance of a second activity?

Course relative dates are very useful and I am currently using that within this course but would be great if that could be taken one step further and as well as enrolment date, dates could be set relative to activity completion.

If you have any other ideas or think of any other potential solutions please let me know!
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In reply to Mike North

Re: Each activity available a number of days after previous one

by Stefan Scholz -
Picture of Plugin developers
Hi Mike,

Catalyst‘s reengagement plugin does what you want. Give it a try! It’s not super easy, but worth exploring. https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_reengagement

Also worth considering: https://moodle.org/plugins/availability_relativedate

If you cannot use plugins, try using a lesson with activity completion „time spent“ to the appropriate effort you require (note that this would require you to add everything into the lesson).

Or, try using a quiz with several attempts that have a delay in between. Play around with the activity completion criteria, most importantly: no attempt left. (The „story“ could be that you assess the knowledge several times to ensure that the learner has really learnt it)

The last two solutions are a bit crazy, but each has its own benefits.

Hope this helps!
Stefan
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