The Completion Tracking add-on allows instructors to set up a course site so that students are easily able to see their progress. The Completion tracking add-on allows for two main types of completion indicators: Activity Completion (for individual activities, such as assignments) and an overall Course Completion. Activity completion is used to show students which activities or resources they have interacted with and which they still need to. Course completion can be set up so that when students complete a series of requirements with the course they are marked as having completed the course.
Activity Completion can be particularly beneficial for students as a visual reminder of what they have already completed and what they still need to complete. If a course site has a lot of information and activities and resources throughout it can be confusing to know what needs to be done and what has already been completed. Activity Completion gives students a single place to see what is done, overdue, and coming up.
Setting up Course and Activity Completion
In order to set up these features, follow the steps below. Note: it is best to set up Course Completion and Activity Completion before building your course site.
Part 1 – Turn on the Completion Tracking in Course Settings
1. Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
2. In the Administration block on the lower right hand side, click Edit Settings.
3. In the Completion Tracking area, for Enable completion tracking, click the drop down field and select Yes.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save changes.
5. You will now notice a new setting in the Administration block, called Course Completion. This holds all of the settings for this add-on and the Activity Completion data, once you populate that area.
Part 2 – Set Completion Tracking Settings
One of the most useful parts of Course Completion is the ability to add Activity Completion to your course site. You have the ability to set up what is considered "completed" for all activities and resources. When turned on, your student will also see a check-box next to each included activity or resource. When the activity completion criteria has been met, the box will be checked.
To add Course Completion to your activities:
- Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
- Click Turn editing on.
- Either add a new activity or enter the settings of an already existing assignment.*
- At the bottom of the activity's settings, expand the "Activity completion" section.
- Add completion settings as desired depending on what you want to be considered "completed." Completion options include students viewing or submitting activity, as well as receiving a grade for the activity.
*Note: If you want to make course completion changes to an activity that has been already been completed by a student, you will have to click "Unlock completion options," which will delete the student's completion status.
- Show activity as complete when conditions are met:
- This activity completion option is a general option under which specific completion criteria for specific assignments become available.
This option is beneficial in that it automatically indicates completion of a task, relieving the burden from students. The downside to this option is that students will not be able to make a decision about whether they are done with the task. Thus, in some circumstances, the student may feel they are done with a task when the system indicates they are not. When this general option is chosen, the activity completion is marked automatically by the system as the criteria are met. These criteria are listed below.
- Require View:
- Students must view activity to complete. This criterion is the most basic criteria for automated completion. In order for this criterion to be met, a student must click on the provided link and view the associated page.
- Require grade:
- Students must receive grade to complete. In order for this criterion to be met, a student must receive a grade with the associated activity. This setting does not specify the grade needed, however, some activities allow for a specific grade to be achieved (see the "Students must receive a passing grade" condition below for more details)
- Students must submit to complete:
- In order for this criterion to be met, a student must simply submit her/his work.
- Students must post original or reply:
- In order for this criterion to be met, a student must either create an original post or add a reply a post to another individual’s post. This completion setting does not allow for an option of length of post or reply.
- Students must post or create entries:
- In order for this criterion to be met, a student must create an original post. This completion setting does not allow for an option of length of post.
- Students must post replies:
- In order for this criterion to be met, a student must post a reply to another individual. This completion setting does not allow for an option of length of reply.
- Students must make edits:
- In order for this criterion to be met, a student must make edits to the wiki. This completion setting does not allow for an option of length of edit. Thus, a student only needs to make a simple edit and the activity will be marked as complete.
- Students must receive passing grade:
- In order for this criterion to be met, a student must receive a passing grade for the activity to be marked as completed. The minimum needed to pass an activity can be set in the Gradebook Setup by clicking on the Edit link next to the specific activity.
Note: The passing grade criteria requires a passing grade – this could lead some discrepancy between the system and user needs since the assignment might not be able to be regraded for a higher grade. Thus, if students do not get a passing grade, there is no way to “catch up” in the course.
Part 3 - Completion Progress Block
The completion progress block is a visual way for students and instructors to see students' progress through a course according to the activity completion settings that have been set. To add the completion progress block to your course follow the steps below.
1. Turn editing on and scroll down on the right side of your course to Add a Block. Click on the drop-down and then click on Completion Progress.
2. With the Completion Progress block added the next step is to configure the block. Locate the block and click on the cog icon then click on Configure Completion Progress block.
3. Under Block settings,
- A) Order bar by can be set to Time using "Expected completed on" date or Ordering in course.
- B) If you plan to use the Completion Progess block for more than a handful of assignments we recommend changing the setting for "How to present long bars" from Squeeze to Wrap.
- C) You can choose to have an icon showing a check for completed items or an x for not completed items. This would be in addition to the colors that are used by default to show students which items have been completed and which haven't.
Settings for Resources and Activities
Activity completion settings will vary based on the functionality of the resource and activity, these are set within the settings for the given Resource or Activity under Activity completion.
Resources
Activity completion for Resources is limited to requiring students to view the resources to have it marked as complete or allowing students to manually mark the activity as complete. The use of an "Expect completed on" date will determine when the item is shown as not completed if the completion tracking requirements are not met by that date.
When items are designated for "Students can manually mark the activity as completed" (seen below with A), students will see an open checkbox next to the module which will allow them to check the box to mark it as complete (seen below with B).
Activities
Because activities have more extensive functionality compared to Resources their Activity completion options have more options. Depending on the activity and how students interact with it there will be different options to set for Activity completion. Listed below are the different options for Activity completion, the options available will depend on the activity.
Require view: Students have to view the activity to complete it.
*For the Feedback activity, it can be set to be marked as complete when feedback is submitted.
Require grade: If enabled, the activity is considered complete when a student receives a grade. Pass and fail icons may be displayed if a passing grade for the activity has been set.
*Require students to submit to complete the activity.
Require passing grade: If enabled, this activity is considered complete when the student receives a passing grade (as specified in the Grade section of the quiz settings) or higher.
*All available attempts completed is an option for quizzes as well.
Require posts: If you enable this option, the blog will be marked as complete for a student once they have made the specified number of posts. (Forum and OU Blog activity)
Require discussion: Students must create a set number of discussions.
Require replies: Students must post a set number of replies.
Make choice: Students must make a choice to complete the activity. (Choice activity)
Require entries: require students to post a certain number of entries in the database (Database activity)
Require time spent: require a specific amount of time spent doing the activity (lesson activity)
Require end reached: Student must reach the end of the lesson page to complete this activity. (lesson activity)
Require comments: If you enable this option, the blog will be marked as complete for a student once they have left the specified number of comments. (OU Blog activity)
Require new page: User must create a number of new pages. (OU Wiki)
Require edits: User must make a number of edits. (OU Wiki)
Student View
Students can view their progress in the Completion Progress block when they are on the course site. Different colors in the bar will indicate the status of the different items for the course. The status
Red: The completion requirements have not been met.
Green: Completion requirement has been met.
Yellow: The activity has been submitted but the requirements for completion have not been met.
Blue: The item has an "Expected completed on" date in the future.
For items that have Activity completion setting students will see checkboxes next to the assignment. If the assignment is set to have "Student can manually mark the activity as completed" then a checkmark will appear next to the item for students to check when they have completed it.
If the assignment is set to "Show activity as complete when conditions are met", students will see a dotted checkbox that they will not be able to check themselves but will be checked once they have completed the requirements set for activity completion.
Part 4 – Add a Course completion tracking block to your course
After turning on the course completion add-on, a corresponding block can be added to the course to allow for easier access to the activity completion report for both the instructor and the student. Below are the instructions on how to turn this block on.
- Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
- Click Turn editing on.
- Scroll down to find "Add a Block" on the lower right side of the browser window.
- Click the Add... drop-down menu.
- Select the Course Completion Status block from the list.
- The new block will appear on your course page. It will be empty and will only have features when conditions have been added. See the Course Completion block page for details about the settings.
Part 5 – Edit Course Completion Settings
After the course completion add-on has been turned on, course completion settings can be adjusted to allow for specific conditions to be met before a student can progress to course completion. Below are the steps for adding these settings.
- Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
- In the Administration block, click Course Completion.
Understanding the Course Completion settings
Each section of the settings can be edited to describe what you considered completed for your course.
- General: The General course completion setting allows for the instructor to decide if ALL or ANY of the succeeding conditions are required for a student to "complete" the course.
- Activity Completion Condition: The activity completion settings allow an instructor to decide which activities will be counted toward the progression of course completion. Note: This area discusses how to select the activities needed for the recognition of course completion. Only activities that have activity completion conditions set will reflect a student's completion. (i.e. if an activity is checked under Activity Completion Condition but does not have activity completion setting set the activity will not be marked towards course completion and will prevent a student from being able to be marked as having completed the course)
- Completion of Other Courses Condition: This condition allows instructors to designate whether other courses have been completed. For this condition to work, it is necessary that the other course(s) also has the course completion add-on turned on in GauchoSpace.
- Date Condition: This condition allows for the designation of a specific date that needs to be reached before the course can be completed.
- Enrollment Duration Condition: The enrollment duration condition allows the instructor to designate a specific amount of time that a student must be enrolled in the course before this condition can be reached. This is similar to the date condition but requires a specific amount of days actually enrolled. This means that this condition is ideal for courses that have rolling admissions, where the student can begin the course at any time.
- Unenrollment Condition: This condition requires that student unenrolls from the course before the course completion requirement is met.
- Course Grade Condition: This condition allows for the instructor to set a specific level of a course grade that must be met before the condition is met.
- Manual Self Completion Condition: The manual self-completion marking is an additional feature for tracking student completion. This feature allows the student to mark her/his progress through the course as complete in addition or in place of the other requirements for course completion. This can be helpful for student progress tracking through a course.
- Manual Completion by Others Condition: This setting is an additional feature for tracking student completion. This feature allows the instructor to mark a student's progress through the course as complete in addition or in place of the other requirements for course completion. Note: Once a student has been marked as complete by an instructor, it cannot be easily unmarked. In order to un-mark this, the condition has to be reset in the course completion settings and any students that have been correctly marked as complete will need to be marked again.
Part 6 – Course Completion and Activity Reports
For instructors, one of the main features of Course Completion is the ability to track how students are progressing through a course.
Note that in order to use this feature, you will first need to set up Course and Activity Completion and determine the Course Completion Settings.
Viewing Logs for Course Completion and Activity Completion:
- Log in to GauchoSpace and enter your course site.
- Click on Reports in the Administration block on the side of your page.
3. Look for Course Completion or Activity Completion. Click on the report you want to access. Below, you can see more details about what is shown in each type of report.
Course Completion Report
The Course Completion report will show a detailed view of how each student is progressing towards full course completion. Note: If you have the Course Completion Status Block set up, you can click on View Course Report in the block to view this report.
Activity Completion Report
The Activity Completion report will show a detailed view of how each student is progressing towards completing the activities that you have included in the activity completion settings.