Release conditions allow instructors to guide instruction by providing rules and conditions for students to follow in order to access content and activities. You can also create learning paths in your course which personalize and optimize the students' learning experience, ultimately improving their engagement and satisfaction.
Items in your course, like content, can be locked until a user has met a specific condition. These items are locked using release conditions. Release conditions are one way to create learning paths in your course and can be action, enrollment or role based. Note that students cannot see release conditions, so they may not realize materials are hidden from them or they may think there is a technical problem. Additionally, items with release conditions do not populate the course schedule with their availability. Communicate to your students that you use release conditions in your course.
When adding availability restrictions or release conditions to content, activities and assessments in your course, be mindful of the implications to accessibility and inclusivity requirements. For example, some students may require a greater level of flexibility accessing or submitting assignments and assessments or may be completing your course from a distant geographic location such as Singapore whereby they are impacted by time zone differences. UB Learns allows you to account for students' unique needs by creating exemptions. Likewise, UB Learns users can adjust their location and time zone settings through the Account Settings in the minibar at the top of the screen.
| Release Condition Option | Reason | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visited Content Topic | Students need to read a Frequently Asked Questions page before accessing course content. | Create a Frequently Asked Questions page as a content topic in the first module. Next, create and attach the Visited Content Topic/ Frequently Asked Questions topic release condition to the other modules in the course. | Now, all users will have answers to key questions before progressing through the course. |
| Not visited content topic | You recognize a few students have not viewed the Frequently Asked Questions page and want to remind them that this is important. | Create an announcement reminding users to visit the topic and then attach the Not Visited Content Topic/ Frequently Asked Questions topic release condition to the announcement. | All users who have not visited the content topic will see an announcement prompting them to do this. Users who have visited the topic will not see this announcement. |
| Visited all content topics | Students need to respond to a survey at the end of the course but you do not want them to see the survey until all of the content has been visited | Create a course survey and then create and attach the Visited All Content Topics release condition to the survey. | As soon as users have visited every content topic, they will be able to access the survey and provide feedback. |
Release conditions can also be added in the Availability Dates & Conditions section when creating and editing assignments, discussions and quizzes in the appropriate assessment tool.
If adding multiple release conditions, choose All conditions must be met or Any condition must be met from the drop-down menu.