Activity and course completion tracking

Setting up completion tracking

Go to the Administration block on the left-hand side of the screen and click on Settings.

At the bottom of the Edit course settings page, click on Completion tracking to open the drop-down menu and change Enable completion tracking from ‘No’ to ‘Yes’.

Then click on Save and display.

Setting up activity tracking

Once you’ve turned on completion tracking, you will need to set the completion criteria for any activities that you want to count towards course completion.

Select the activity you would like to add completion tracking to and click on the icon of three vertical dots next to them to reveal a drop-down menu with the choices Edit settings, Move, Availability, Duplicate, Assign roles and Delete.

Click on Edit settings.

At the bottom of the Edit settings page, click on Completion conditions.

By default, the completion conditions for all activities are set as None. This means that the activity will not be tracked and no checkbox will appear beside it.

Select either Students must manually mark the activity as done or Add requirements. If you select Add requirements, further options will appear, which will allow the activity to be marked as complete automatically, including View the activity and an option to enable an expected date of completion.

Then click on Save and display.

There should now be a checkbox on the homepage alongside the activity you added completion tracking to. The system will add a tick to this box when the activity has been completed.

Note that if you’ve added a SCORM file to your course and want it to count towards course completion, you will need to configure the SCORM completion settings before outputting the SCORM from where it was created. Once it has been added to the course you will need to go to the SCORM package’s settings and switch on Auto-commit under the Compatibility settings heading, you need to switch 'auto-commit' on so the SCORM can tell OpenLearn Create (Moodle) that the learner has successfully completed the SCORM activity. Information on adding a SCORM package to your course can be found elsewhere in this guide.

Quiz activity settings

If you want to ensure a quiz is only marked as complete once the learner has received a passing grade, click on the icon of three vertical dots next to the quiz and click on Edit settings.

At the bottom of the Edit settings page, click on Completion conditions and select Add requirements to reveal extra options.

Select Receive a grade and then Passing grade to ensure that the activity will only be complete once your learners have passed the quiz.

Make sure that you have set the passing grade in the Grade drop-down menu. (By default this is set at 0.)

(Alternatively, if your learners don’t need to pass the quiz to complete your course but you still want the quiz to count towards course completion, select the View the activity option.)

Then click on Save and display.

There should now be a checkbox on the homepage alongside the quiz you added completion tracking to. The system will add a tick to this box when the activity has been completed.

Course activity completion

Once you have added completion tracking to each activity you want to count towards course completion, you will need to include them in the course completion settings.

Go to the Administration block on the left-hand side of the screen and click on Edit completion settings.

Open the Condition: Activity completion options by clicking on the tab. This will display a list of all the activities you have added completion tracking to.

Tick the tickboxes of all the activities you want to count towards course completion.

Under Condition requires, select ALL selected activities to be completed.

Then click on Save changes.

Testing the course materials and the quiz

In order to test your course and its quiz(zes) we advise that you either use a separate test account or enrol a colleague onto the course for them to test it. (Instructions on enrolling another user can be found elsewhere in this guidance.)

If you create the test account, you will need to register it on OpenLearn Create using a different email address.

Use your main account – that is, the one that you have Owner or Course Manager permissions for – to enrol the test account or your colleague's account and give it Reviewer status so that they can see the draft course.

Whether you or a colleague are doing the testing, you should check the course as though you were a learner who wanted to complete the course.

• Work through the course in the preferred order and note any navigational, editorial or accessibility issues. For example, are there clear links between different sections? Are there any grammatical or spelling errors? Do the figures have alt text and/or long descriptions to make them accessible to screen readers?
• Attempt the quiz, working through all the questions. If you need the quiz answers available, you can view them in with your main account by clicking on the icon of three vertical dots next to the quiz to reveal a drop-down menu, clicking on Edit settings and then Results and Review questions.
• Note that it is good practice to get the answers wrong in quizzes to check that the feedback for wrong answers and that the grade boundary feedback are working correctly. If you submit a quiz with a ‘fail’ grade; you will need to wait 24 hours to attempt it again to get a passing grade and achieve the badge; alternatively, you could set up two test accounts: one to deliberately fail the quizzes and one to pass the quizzes to achieve the badge.

Use your main account to check whether the activities have been marked as completed by going to the Administration block and clicking on Reports and then Activity completion. This will show a list of all users and checkboxes for each activity that counts towards course completion. The checkboxes will be ticked if a user (i.e. your test account) has completed the activity.

Setting up a badge

Go to the Administration block on the left-hand side of the screen and click on Badges.

This reveals two more options: Manage badges and Add a new badge. Click on Add a new badge.

In the Badge details page, complete the information about the badge including its name, language and description, and add the image file using the File picker tool.

Please note that there is no formatting (font, numbering) on badges and that URLs will not be live links. An example badge description is as follows:

This badge has been issued for participating in the activities in the free, non-accredited [your course’s name] course. This free course supported demonstration of the following key learning outcomes:

[Your course’s learning outcomes]

You can review this course at the link [your course’s URL]. This badge does not represent formal credit or award. It does demonstrate participation in informal learning activity.

Then click on Create badge.

You will now be presented with the Badge page, which will tell you that criteria for this badge have not been set up yet.

Go to Add badge criteria and click on the Choose… drop-down menu to reveal a list of options: Manual issue by role, Course completion, Awarded badges and Activity completion.

• If you are setting up a badge for passing the course, select Course completion. Enter the minimum grade required and add a description of what the learner had to do to achieve the badge.
• If you choose Activity completion, you can manually select the activities you would like the learner to complete to achieve their badge. 

Then click on Save.

Final checks

Make any final changes to your course’s content and the acknowledgements. This is a good time to get someone else who has reviewer access to the course to check through everything for a final time to flag any issues.

Enabling the badge

Once you are completely satisfied that everything in your course is set up correctly, you can enable the badge(s).

To enable the badge, go to the Administration block on the left-hand side of the screen and click on Badges.

Click on Manage badges. In the Manage badges screen, click on the ‘three dots’ symbol in the right-hand column of the table and click on Edit.

This will open a page where you can edit the details for the badge, if needed. At the top of the page, click on Enable access to open the Changes in badge access page. Click on Continue.

You will then be taken back to the badge page, where the fields to edit badge details will now be locked. You will not be able to edit the badge details once the badge has been enabled.

Because you’ve worked through the criteria for the badge using the test account, the system should issue the badge straight away when you enable it and an email should be sent to the email address associated with the test account. Check the email to make sure it all works okay.

If there are problems with the email or if it does not arrive, or if no one is eligible for the badge, check that the test account has met all the badge criteria. (If you go to the Administration block and click on Reports and then Course completion, you’ll be able to confirm whether the test account completed the various activities that are being tracked.)

There might be a navigational issue that means the test account does not visit all the pages in a Moodle book; for example, it might not have seen an acknowledgements page at the end if an earlier page had a link to another part of the course, such as a quiz. You can set certain pages to be optional by going to the activity completion ‘require complete view’ and putting a page number into the text box.

If there is any problem with the badge issued, you might have to set up a new badge and disable the badge that was issued to the test account.

To disable a badge, go to the Administration block on the left-hand side of the screen and click on Badges.

Click on Manage badges. In the Manage badges screen, click on cog symbol in the right-hand column of the table and click on Edit.

This will open a page where you can edit the details for the badge, if needed. At the top of the page, click on Disable access.

Setting up a statement of participation

Once you’re satisfied that the badge(s) works correctly, you can set up a statement of participation (SoP). If you set this up earlier, you will need to go back into it to add the badges, and you might find that your test account receives a SoP that is not complete.

To set up a statement of participation, first go to the Add a block block (under the Administration block) and select ‘Achievements’ from the drop-down list.

In the new Achievements block, click on the cog symbol and select Configure Achievements block.

In the Block settings form that appears you can amend the default message in the Email text box to suit your course’s needs.

Add the Provide name and upload a logo into the Provider logo box. The logo will appear on the top of the statement of participation. Make sure you include the appropriate copyright holder information in the Author field in the File picker.

If you would like to include the badge(s) on the statement of participation, tick the Include “[the name of your badge]” badge in statement of participation tickbox. This is shown on the second page of the document.

Then click on Save changes.

In the Achievements block you can click on View a test Statement of participation to see what the newly created SoP looks like.

The alternative to using the SoP is a Moodle custom certificate.