Advice Needed: Moodle Setup for State-Specific Course Modules

Advice Needed: Moodle Setup for State-Specific Course Modules

by Lee Taylor-Vaughan -
Number of replies: 4

Hi All,

I’m setting up a course on our website where students (nurses) register, and upon registration, the system assigns a Moodle course. The course structure includes:

  • Core modules: These are the same for all learners, regardless of their state.
  • State-specific module: Each state (USA) has a unique module covering nurse practice act/state-specific laws/rules.

The challenge is that our registration system can assign only one Moodle course per registration. Ideally, I’d like to create a pathway within Moodle that allows users to select their state (only one option) and grants them access to the core modules as well as the relevant state-specific module.

Goals:

  1. Avoid duplicating the core modules for 50+ courses, as managing metrics and participants across separate courses would be overly complex.
  2. Create separate state modules that are easy to assign and manage.

I was considering using a "Pathway" in Moodle to achieve this, but before investing time into trial and error, I’d appreciate any advice or suggestions on the best approach or if a "Pathway" is the correct method.

What’s the most efficient way to set this up? Your insights would be greatly appreciated!

Best regards,

Lee

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In reply to Lee Taylor-Vaughan

Re: Advice Needed: Moodle Setup for State-Specific Course Modules

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi

I am taking a shot because your enquiry takes unusually long. Otherwise there are more knowledgeable people in these forums.

First thing is the terminology. Moodle has its own "reserved words". If you use them for other things, you'll go in circles. The one that appeared already is 'course'. Moodle uses it in the sense of Courses. It is the basic building block of Moodle and hence you'll see it everywhere. I suspect what you call 'the course' is something different, it is what the (US?) people call a 'program'.

Your 'modules' are highly likely Moodle courses. So there is the set of common courses and the set of (US) state-specific courses.

Although that sounds clear, I have respect in opening 50 courses for the 50 states - unless you have a teacher per state and is willing to fill his course with unique content. If it is ultimately you who are going to create and maintain similar but differing 50 courses, that'll become a nightmare.

Initially, try to prototype all 50 states in a single course with Groups of participants - to polish more consider Groupings.

One question: Will this program have "forever" courses or will you (copy and) restart courses at regular intervals, like semester, bi-annually,..? Depending on that have a look at Cohorts too.
 
Disclaimer: Written without asking any AI bot, not even a web search, only Moodle Docs. I wonder why you didn't ask the (more intelligent) Articifial Intelligence. 
smile
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In reply to Lee Taylor-Vaughan

Re: Advice Needed: Moodle Setup for State-Specific Course Modules

by James Steerpike -
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The simplest solution would be a single course with several core topics for each module plus separate topics for each state. Each state topic would restrict access based on the user profile field. Adding a drop-down list of US states as a custom profile field would be required.
That should allow each user to see all the core and only the one state topic based on their state and allow everything to be in one course.
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In reply to Lee Taylor-Vaughan

Re: Advice Needed: Moodle Setup for State-Specific Course Modules

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Good point by James: If your module is something small, then better to combine a number of modules in to a single course, each module occupying one or more course sections. A unit of learning consisting of 2-3 hours of learning activities is clearly a course section. A full semester module of ten times that needs a full course.

And for the intermediate cases there are all sorts of solutions, eg. additional course formats plugins: https://moodle.org/plugins/?q=category:19. I think it was Moodle 4.5 LTS which introduced sub-section to courses as an "official" solution. See Course_homepage#Add_a_subsection.

If you are implementing a full curriculum in Moodle you need to do more research. MoodleDocs are quite comprehensive on this topic, see for example Managing a Moodle course. For a more systematic approach visit the (free) Moodle Academy.
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In reply to Lee Taylor-Vaughan

Re: Advice Needed: Moodle Setup for State-Specific Course Modules

by Isaias Alvarez -
Did you find a solution?
I'm trying to do something similar but I'm currently using meta courses. The student enrolls on their state specific course and the meta link enrolls them on the needed core courses. I'll like to streamline the enrollment process and also only display one course on the MyCourses page, which I haven't figured out how to do yet.
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