Course completion in more detail

4. Course pre-requisites

Course prerequisites are a nice new feature in Moodle 2 and enables you to use multiple courses for one final aim.

Prerequisites in education usually refers to knowledge required prior to undertaking the next activity.  However, in the context of prerequisite courses in Moodle it refers to elements that can be undertaken concurrently but the final outcome cannot be achieved until the prerequisite is achieved. 

An example will be helpful here!!

• A student is completing a childcare qualification.  However, they also need to complete a first aid certificate and a Literacy qualification. 
• Each of the courses are taught seperately and each has its own Moodle course and assessments.
• They will be taught concurrently but the student cannot gain her full childcare qualification.  Even if all the childcare work is complete they still need to complete the first aid and literacy elements before the childcare course is finished.
• This is where Moodle prerequisites are useful.
• Each of the 3 Moodle courses will have course completion activated.
• The childcare course assigns the first aid and the literacy qualifications as prerequites.
• The student works through the three courses and completes all the work for the childcare course and the literacy course.  The course completion report tells the student that the literacy course prerequitite is complete and that all the activities in the childcare course are complete but the course completion report still says 'in progress'.  This is because she hasn't finished her first aid course yet. 
• As soon as the student finishes the first aid course, the childcare course will be marked complete and the course completion report will say tha the childcare course is complete.

In the course completion settings, the course prerequisites section will list all the courses in the Moodle site that have course completion activated. 

The teacher can choose the courses which are prerequisities that need to be completed before the current course can be marked complete.