Moodle Help Guide

There may be some cases where you'd like only one or two specific students to have access to a particular element of your course. This page lists the ways that you can set up access restrictions for that purpose.

Moodle has numerous options for restricting access. If you would like assistance figuring out the best practice for your course, feel free to get in touch with the edtech team, either at edtech@mtholyoke.edu or by booking an appointment with us.

These instructions will work for most items in your course, including Kaltura videos, documents, assignments, and forums.

1. On your course page, click Turn editing on (the green pencil icon, top left).
2. Add a new Activity or Resource, OR, for an existing item click Edit, then select "Edit settings". In either case, the Edit settings page will open.
3. On the Edit settings page, click on the "Restrict access" section to open it. 
4. Click "Add restriction...". The "Add restriction..." pop-up window will open.
5. Select "User Profile" from the options in the pop-up.
6. You will see the a place to enter the access restriction details, as in the image below:
   
7. In the first drop-down menu, choose either "Surname" or "Email address". For a small course, so long as there are no students who share a surname, choosing the "Surname" option should work just fine. For larger course, it may be best to choose email address, as the easier way to uniquely identify the student.
8. In the text entry box, enter the student's surname if you choose Surname, or their email address (including the @mtholyoke.edu) if you chose Email address.
9. To make certain that student access information is not revealed to other students, click the Eye icon to the left of the restriction details. The Eye icon will change to show a line through it, indicating the item and the details about who can see it will be hidden from other students completely. Make sure you do this in order to ensure confidentiality of the extra access you are granting the student or students.
10. Click Save and return to course.
11. To preview the results as a student, click on your profile photo in the upper right corner of Moodle. Click Switch role to..., then choose Student. If you have successfully set up the item, it will be hidden in the student view.

To allow students extended time on quizzes, or to release a quiz to only a few students, you will use User Overrides in the Quiz Menu. These are confidential between the selected student and the instructor of the course, so a student's peers will be unable to see the details of their quiz access.

Moodle groups can be used to dictate different access to items in your course by particular groups of students. This can be done very broadly, or on a very granular leve. Below are some scenarios in which groups might help you:

• You would like to deliver some resources to one group, but not the whole class
• Some students should submit different assignments
• Some students should discuss separately from one another
• You want to see a particular set of students when you grade
• You need to grant standard extensions (for any reason, including accommodations)
• You wish to restrict activities to individuals. For instance, you could set up one-person groups if you'd like each student to have their own private forum that only they and the teacher can see (think journaling exercise).

We support manual group creation in courses, as described in the video below: