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Restrict access to a resource or activity

At a glance

Control who can see and interact with your Moodle activities and resources by setting group modes and access restrictions based on conditions such as completion, dates, grades or group membership. Understand how past unit access works for students and how to combine restriction sets to manage availability.

Moodle allows you to restrict access to activities and resources, making them only accessible to a particular group, or at a particular time, or only when certain conditions have been met. There are a number of different ways Moodle can restrict student access to resources or activities.

Expand the accordions below to learn more

Conditional restrictions based on activity completion, date, grade or group View

You can set up access restrictions for activities and resources, based on Activity completion, Date, Grade, Group or Grouping or a combination of these. For example, you might like to create a make-up quiz for students who scored below a certain grade on a task.

Note: For Moodle group assignments, ensure you enable Group submission settings in the Moodle assignment settings. This enables students to submit to the assignment as groups, which is separate from group access/visibility of the activity.

Note

If a student has a restriction applied to their visibility of an assignment activity, it will not be selectable in the Special Consideration and Extension form by that student. If you would like to restrict the date students can submit to the assignment, it is recommended that instead you specify a date using the Allow submissions from in the Moodle assignment settings (guide).

In the activity/resource settings, scroll down to Restrict access section. You can also navigate to the activity/resource settings by clicking the three dots and then selecting Edit settings.
In the Restrict access section and click on Add restrictions...
You will see a list of restriction types.
Note: You can use restriction sets to apply more than one restriction at a time, for example, only students at the Clayton Campus (grouping) who have completed the quiz with a mark of 50 (grade or activity completion) can access a resource.
Once a restriction has been applied, you will see the access conditions displayed below the activity/resource. By default only one restriction will be displayed. Click Show more to expand the box and view all restrictions that have been applied.
Note: You click Edit restrictions to quickly navigate to the activity/resource restrictions.

Expand the accordions below for examples use cases for each type of restriction

1. Select Activity completion from the list.
2. In the Activity completion field, select the Moodle activity that students must completed before accessing the activity/resource. In the second drop down list, select whether the activity:
  - Must be marked complete
  - Must not be marked complete
  - Must be complete with a pass grade
  - Must be complete with a fail grade
  For more information, see Activity completion.
3. Click on the eye icon so that is is displayed with a strikethrough. This means the activity/resource will ONLY be viewable to students that meet the specified requirements.
4. When finished, click Save changes.
1. Select Date from the list.
2. In the Date field, specify the date when the activity/resource can be accessed from.
3. Click on the eye icon so that is is displayed with a strikethrough. This means the activity/resource will ONLY be viewable to students after the specified date.
4. When finished, click Save changes.
1. Select Grade from the list.
2. From the Grade drop down list, select the graded Moodle activity that students must receive a grade for before accessing the supplementary quiz.
3. Select the checkboxes below to select the type of threshold (must be greater than or less than), and then specify the numerical grade in the text field.
4. Click on the eye icon so that is is displayed with a strikethrough. This means the quiz will ONLY be viewable to students that match the specified requirements.
5. When finished, click Save changes.
1. Select Group from the list.
2. From the group drop down list, select a group from the list. For example, this could be an Allocate+ tutorial group. For more information, see Groups and groupings.
3. Click on the eye icon so that is is displayed with a strikethrough. This means the forum will ONLY be viewable to the selected group.
4. When finished, click Save changes.
1. Select Grouping from the list.
2. From the grouping drop down list, select a grouping from the list. For example, this could be all Clayton campus based students. For more information, see Groups and groupings.
3. Click on the eye icon so that is is displayed with a strikethrough. This means the activity or resource will ONLY be viewable to the selected grouping.
4. When finished, click Save changes.

Note

Please note that restricting a learning section will NOT restrict the contents (e.g. files within). The contents of the learning section will still be accessible to students from on the left hand side menu. It is recommended that you apply any restrictions to individual resources and activities.

Group mode View

You can restrict access to resources and activities to all groups or specific groups with the group mode under common module settings in the activity settings, so that only students within can view and interact with specific content. For example, you may want to restrict a forum so that students are only interacting with the peers in their tutorial, or their peers in an assessment project, instead of being overwhelmed by huge numbers of forum posts.

You can also select the group mode when in Edit mode by clicking the three dots and selecting Group mode. Once selected, you will see the group mode icon displayed in the top right corner of the activity or resource tile. You can click on the group mode icon to quickly change the group mode for the resource or activity.

The table below to describes the differences between group modes

NOTE: These settings will affect ALL members in groups, including tutors.

Group mode	Description
No groups	There are no group restrictions, so students from all groups can view and interact with the activity or resources. This is the default setting. Everyone can read and respond to the whole cohort.
Visible groups	Students can only contribute to the activity within their own group, but students in all groups can view the activity or resource. This is useful if you want groups to discuss something, you want everyone to see other discussions, but you don't want members outside the group to participate. The visible groups option is useful of you want to set up a Group self-selection activity.
Separate groups	Students can only interact or contribute to the resource or activity within their own group. Other groups are completely invisible, and students can only read or respond within their own group. This is useful if you want groups to discuss in small cohorts where you can monitor and guide them, but it's not important for other students outside the class to see or participate in the resource or activity.

Access to resources or activities in past Moodle units View

Note

Currently, administrator's are unable to make 3rd party content, Learning capture, external tools and lessons available for students who have completed and passed the unit. Monash is working on amending this.

Students who have completed their Moodle unit with a pass mark can access resources and activities in previous units but not submit, post or take part in them, for at least 12 months from the date the unit was completed. Below are the default permissions granted to access previous unit content. If required, this can be modified by a lecturer or designer at the unit level or by a Moodle administrator at the category level.

(click here to view a PDF version)

Restrict student access to past Moodle units

Students who have completed a Moodle unit with a pass mark will be given the “Past student” role in their unit one day after the end of deferred exams as per the Callista integration. If you do not want to allow students access to past units you can change Course visibility in the unit settings to Hide, if required. This can be modified by a lecturer or designer at the unit level, or by a Moodle administrator at the category level.

Note

It is NOT recommended to hide past Moodle units from students, as access to previous Moodle units allows students to revisit units they have successfully completed throughout the duration of their course which supports their learning.

Navigate to the unit you would like to hide.
Click on the Administration cog in the top right corner of the unit banner, then click Edit settings.
Under the General settings, for Course visibility, select Hide from the drop down menu.
Scroll down and click Save and display.

Restrict student access to past activities and resources

If you want to modify the way the “Past student” role in your Moodle unit can interact with content in the Moodle unit, you can modify specific permissions from the Permissions page. This can be modified by a lecturer or designer at the unit level, or by a Moodle administrator at the category level.

Click on Participants in the top unit menu.
Click on the drop down list and select Permissions.

Navigate to the permissions you would like to modify.
Click the plus icon to add additional permissions for a role or click the trash icon to remove permissions for a role.
Your changes will be automatically updated.

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Restrict access to a resource or activity

At a glance

Expand the accordions below to learn more

Conditional restrictions based on activity completion, date, grade or group View

Note

Expand the accordions below for examples use cases for each type of restriction

Note

Group mode View

The table below to describes the differences between group modes

Access to resources or activities in past Moodle units View

Note

Restrict student access to past Moodle units

Note

Restrict student access to past activities and resources

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