Subcourse

Activities ::: mod_subcourse
Maintained by Dan Marsden, Catalyst IT
Subcourse behaves as a graded activity. The grade for each student is automatically fetched from a final grade in another course. This allows course designers to organize the learning content into separate units.
Latest release:
3218 sites
1k downloads
175 fans
Current versions available: 12

Subcourse is an activity module that represents the final grade obtained in another course. This allows to create "meta-gradebook" in one course, where all final grades from other courses are aggregated.

  • Grades are fetched automatically or can be fetched manually any time.
  • The grade type and other grade item settings are copied from the original grade total item and can not be changed.
  • Subcourse can be automatically marked as a completed when the referenced course is completed.
  • If the final grade in the referenced course is hidden, the associated subcourse activity grade is hidden, too.

This allows to apply the concept of grades aggregation to a next level and aggregate grades across courses.

Diagram illustrating course final grades aggregated to a main course via the Subcourse instances

Screenshots

Screenshot #0
Screenshot #1
Screenshot #2
Screenshot #3
Screenshot #4
Screenshot #5
Screenshot #6

Contributors

Dan Marsden (Lead maintainer)
David Mudrák: Original author and maintainer
Vadim Dvorovenko
Please login to view contributors details and/or to contact them

Comments RSS

Comments

  • Almants Ra
    Mon, 17 May 2021, 5:21 PM
    Hi David,
    Thanks for your reply!
    Just by coincidence I found out, that it is some weird theme behavior. "Expected completion on" checkbox is disabling the input one row above, not same row date fields ... In subcourse plugin case it is "Require course completed". In SCORM case irt is "Require all scos to return completion status". Weird ...
  • Muriel Baluteau
    Tue, 29 June 2021, 4:44 PM
    Hello,
    We use subcourse plugin 10.0.0 in Moodle 3.10.4. There is a loop with this error : forearch (invalid argument) on /moodle/mod/subcourse/locallib.php line 238

    We have more than 1200 groups. The loop takes about 20 ms but only with student profil.

    I modifie code to test if the value exist like this

    $gs = grade_grade::fetch_all(['itemid' => $gi->id]);
    if (is_array($gs))
    {
    foreach ($gs as $g) {
    $values= null;//warning!!!
    if (isset($refgrades->grades[$g->userid])) {
    if ($refgrades->grades[$g->userid]>hidden != $g>hidden) {
    $g->grade_item = $gi;
    $g->set_hidden($refgrades->grades[$g->userid]->hidden);
    }}}}}

    with this code, no more errors, the page is a little faster but not as fast as with the admin profile.

    Please can you tell me how to solve ?

    best regards
  • Joseph Liaw
    Thu, 12 Aug 2021, 4:25 AM
    Hi David:

    I am upgraded to Moodle 3.9, and I when I try to use Subcourse to fetch grades, I get this error message:

    Unable to fetch grades: error code 4

    More information about this error

    Any ideas on how to fix this?

    Thanks for your help!
  • Joseph Liaw
    Thu, 12 Aug 2021, 4:42 AM
    Hi David:

    To help troubleshoot, I am using subcourse to pull grades from hidden courses into a "main" portal course, where the subcourses serve as each unit.

    This is the beauty of Subcourse--you can build very large, complex courses, but keep them manageable since you can break apart your course into "subcourses", but to keep the student Dashboard from getting too messy, the subcourses are hidden and only the "Main" portal course shows up which then links out to each subcourse as well as aggregating the final grade.

    Thanks for your help and sharing your great work with the Moodle community!
  • Joseph Liaw
    Thu, 12 Aug 2021, 5:15 AM
    Hi David: I did more digging around and saw that this was an issue you had addressed, and apparently your latest version is to help teachers who want to keep hidden subcourses and grades hidden from students...makes sense!

    However, if you could create a tick box in the settings that would allow teachers to also be able to show hidden grades from hidden courses, then it would enable teachers to leverage the subcourse plugin as a way to link together many courses into a "main" or "master" course as the portal / launchpad into learning!

    I downgraded to the previous version, and everything works as before, but moving forwards maybe can this setting be added in?

    Thanks for all your help in the past, and also sharing your great work with the Moodle community!

    -_Joe
  • David Mudrák
    Thu, 12 Aug 2021, 7:55 PM

    Thanks Joseph. May I ask you to summarise this as a feature request in the plugin issue tracker at https://github.com/mudrd8mz/moodle-mod_subcourse/issues

  • Отдел Обучения
    Mon, 18 Oct 2021, 2:13 PM
    Hello. Can this plugin restrict access to a course if the previous one is not passed?
  • Sue Reid
    Tue, 8 Feb 2022, 3:21 AM
    We are using subcourses to create "programs" of multiple courses & enrol students via meta-linking the sub-courses to the "master course". To keep the student dashboard simple, I attempted to hide the subcourses leaving the master course visible. However, this made the subcourse "unavailable" to students. Is there a way to keep the dashboard simple with allowing access to the subcourses through the "master course"?
  • David Mudrák
    Tue, 8 Feb 2022, 6:11 AM

    The only way I am aware of would make use of the 'Remove from view' feature of Dashboard. Normally, users can remove individual courses from their dashboards. If there was a way to inject the 'block_myoverview_hidden_course_' + courseId user preference for every user and every subcourse, then they would not show at students' dashboards. But that would require some customisation and / or additional plugin.

  • Jari Vilkman
    Mon, 20 June 2022, 6:49 PM
    Hello,

    Please can someone explain in detail what "Fetch grades as";

    real values
    and
    percent values

    actually mean in reality? How do the differ?
  • David Mudrák
    Mon, 27 June 2022, 4:52 AM

    Hello Jari. Please go through the discussion at https://github.com/mudrd8mz/moodle-mod_subcourse/issues/29 to understand the reasoning behind this setting.

  • Edouard R
    Fri, 1 July 2022, 5:07 PM
    Hello,

    I'm creating a new Moodle website using version 4.0 and this plugin perfectly meets my needs.
    Is a version compatible with Moodle 4.0 is going to be released ?

    Thanks in advance for your answer.
  • P H
    Fri, 16 Dec 2022, 4:34 PM
    Hello. Has this plugin be tested with Moodle 4.1? Thanks.
  • Philipp Streit
    Wed, 11 Jan 2023, 7:38 AM
    Hey, is there any plan for a Moodle 4.1 update in nearer future? This would be highly appreciated! If not so i would be grateful for the information . Thank you!!
Please login to post comments