Access restriction

Overview

Restricting access to activities and sections based on mission states allows you to create a progressive flow in your courses. This means you can design courses where content is only revealed after learners have completed specific missions, creating a guided learning path.

For example, you could start a course with minimal visible content, and progressively reveal more activities and resources as learners complete quests. This approach helps maintain focus on current objectives and creates a sense of discovery and achievement as new content becomes available.

This feature works with quests, challenges, and achievements. It's most commonly used with quests due to their narrative structure. In contrast, restrictions based on achievements and one-time challenges are typically used to unlock access to bonus content.

Mission states explained

When setting up access restrictions, you'll need to select a mission state. Here's what the various states mean:

• Has been recruited for: is true as soon as the user is a recruit, regardless of the state.
• Has started: the mission must have started, but can be in any subsequent state.
• Has completed: the mission must have been completed, but can be in any subsequent state.
• Is assigned: the recruit has only been assigned, the mission has not started yet.
• Is ongoing: the mission has started and is ongoing.
• Is completed: the mission is completed, but not yet finished.
• Is finished: the mission has been finished.

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With challenges and achievements, you should only use "has started" or "has completed" states.

Usage examples

Progressive content revelation

A common approach is to use quests to progressively reveal course content. Here's an example:

1. Create a quest that introduces learners to the course
2. Restrict access to subsequent course section using the "Is finished" restriction for this introductory quest
3. As learners complete the introductory quest, the next section becomes visible

Repeat the process with subsequent quests by linking quests together.

One-time challenges

One-time challenges can also be used to reveal content:

1. Create a non-repeating challenge
2. Restrict access to certain activities or sections using the "Has completed" state
3. When learners complete the challenge, the restricted content becomes available

This approach works well for optional or bonus content that you want to make available after learners demonstrate certain skills or knowledge.

Implementation

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This feature requires the availability plugin Quest Availability to be installed and enabled.

You can apply mission state restrictions to both individual activities and entire course sections. The process is the same for both:

1. Navigate to the settings of the activity or section you want to restrict
2. Locate the "Restrict access" section
3. Click "Add restriction" and select "Level Up Quest"
4. Choose the mission and the required state
5. Save your changes

More information on access restriction can be found in the Moodle documentation.