Title: A look at the restrict access and conditional release settings
Course: Teaching with Moodle 2: Training, collaboration and reflection online > Section: Setting Restrictions and Conditional Activities

Before we add conditions to the resources we have created, let's take a look at the  options available to us.

Once conditional access is enabled on the site you will be able to restrict access on all resources and activities.

When you add an activity or resource there is a 'restrict access' section towards the bottom of the edit screen.  You can see these options below.

When you add the conditions they are the restrictions for the activity which you are currently adding.  When adding the restrictions think about 'what does the student need to have done before they can see this resource'.  These will be the conditions you will add.

The first options allow you control the date and time which the resources become available.  This allows you to set when the resource should be released and when it should be hidden again.  It will do it automatically without you having to remember to make it available manually!

The next option you can choose is to set a grade condition.  This means that the student must achieve a grade for the course or an activity before they can complete or view this activity.  You can choose a course grade (eg: the student must receive a minimum grade in the course to date before this activity can be accessed.  It pulls this information from the gradebook course total).  It can also be set for a specific resource so that the student must receive a grade in a specific graded activity before this resource can be completed.  If using this option, you will use the drop down list to choose the course grade or individual activity that you want to use.  You then type in the grades you want to apply to the activity.  Notice that there is also an 'add 2 grade conditions' button.  This allows you to add more than one option (eg: you could have one condition based on a specific activity or assignment but also have a course grade requirement as well).

The next set of options are for activity completion conditions where you can choose other activities within the course that need to be completed before this activity can be viewed and completed.  The drop down list will contain ALL the resources and activities that are in the course and have activity completion assigned to them.  You will pick the activity and then choose the condition that needs to be met in the next drop down list (that currently says 'must be marked complete').  The other options you get are 'must not be marked as complete', 'must be marked completed with a pass grade' and 'must be marked complete with a fail grade'.  (You can only use the pass and fail options with graded activities).  As in the grade conditions, you can add additional activity conditions to the form so that this resource cannot be viewed until multiple activites have been completed.

With the above options, you can choose one or many of the them to meet your needs.

The final option we can choose is how this activity will be shown on the screen to the students.  You can choose 'show activity greyed-out, with restriction information' which means the student will see the activity but won't be able to click on it until the conditions have been met.  The alternative is to 'hide activity entirely' which means the resource will not be shown at all until previous activities have been completed.

Think about your students when choosing which option to use.  In some ways it is good to show all the activities with the restrictions so that students know what to expect and what they are working towards.  However, if this is a lot of content it could be quite demotivational for students.  Therefore, hiding the activities and releasing them a bit at a time might be better.   Alternatively, hiding the resources completely might be good initially but students may think they have completed everything and then find that there is more to complete.  This could be demotivational too!  Think about your students and what is best for them!!