Using Access Restrictions for Activities in Moodle

In order to change access of an activity in a Moodle page, the instructor of the course must change the "Restrict access" options in the activity settings.  This can be very useful for external tools, which have limited settings inside of Moodle. This setting can be based on the following:

• Activity completion
• Time and date
• Gamification
• Grades
• Groups and Groupings
• Mobile use
• User profile fields

Multiple restrictions can be applied at once, and there is also an option to apply nesting for more advanced logic. 

This article provides several examples for working with the "Restrict access" settings.

Finding Restrict Access Settings

The access restriction settings are found in the Settings page of any activity or resource in Moodle.  There are two ways to get into the Settings page.

To access "Restrict access" settings from the main course page:

1. In the top-right corner of the screen, enable "Edit mode".
2. Next to the activity's name, select the three vertical dots.
3. In the pop-up menu that appears, select "Edit settings".
4. Scroll down to the header labeled "Restrict access", and expand it.

To access "Restrict access" settings for an activity from its activity page:

1. In the Activity's page, in the top row of headers, select "Settings".
2. Scroll down to the header labeled "Restrict access", and expand it.

If no restrictions have been set, the "Restrict access" field will be set to "None" with an "Add restriction" button available.

Using Restrict Access

In order to add any restriction, click the "Add restriction" button.

RESTRICTING BASED ON DATE AND TIME

Activities may need to have access restricted based on timing, which is like a Quiz's open and close time. This example will set an access restriction so that students can only access the activity between September 13th, 2022 at 8:00AM, and September 15th, 2022 at 11:55PM.

To add a Date restriction:

1. In the "Restrict access" box, click the "Add restriction" button.
2. In the "Add restriction..." pop-up window, click the "Date" button.

An option will appear in the Access restrictions tool, with two statements:

• Student "must" match the following
  • This field specifies the condition for any restrictions.
  • It can be set to "Must", indicating that all conditions must be true for students to access the activity, or "Must not", indicating that they all must be false.
• Date "from DD Month YYYY HH:MM", which displays the current date
  • This field specifies the date and time the activity will become available or unavailable.
  • By default, it is set to the current date at 00:00 (in 24-hour time, so 12:00AM) hours.
  • It can be set to "From", indicating that the restriction will stop starting on a given date, or "Until", indicating it will be unrestricted until then.

To change the date and time to Sept. 13th, 2022 at 08:00, or 8:00AM:

1. In the drop-down menu that specifies the current day, select "22" from the list.
2. In the menu for the month, select "September".
3. In the menu for the year, select "2022".
4. In the menu for the hours, select "08".

After these changes are made, the first date restriction will display "Date from 13 September 2022 08:00".

To make another Date restriction so that the activity closes after September 15th, 2022 at 11:55PM:

1. In the "Restrict access" box, click the "Add restriction" button.
2. In the "Add restriction..." pop-up window, click the "Date" button.
3. In the drop-down menu that specifies "From", select "Until" from the list.
4. In the menu for the day, select "15".
5. In the menu for the month, select "September".
6. In the menu for the year, select "2022".
7. In the menu for the hours, select "23".
8. In the menu for the minutes, select "55".

The activity is now restricted from the 13th of September 2022 at 8:00AM until the 15th of September 2022 at 11:55PM. 

The conditions should look like this:

RESTRICTING BASED ON GROUPS

Assignments may need to be restricted based on a Group role assigned to a student. For example, an assignment or group of assignments could be assigned to a given group named "Group Alpha".

For specific guidance on creating groups and adding students to them, please review the "Creating and Adding Users to Moodle Groups" article.

To add a Group restriction:

1. In the "Restrict access" box, click the "Add restriction" button.
2. In the "Add restriction..." pop-up window, click the "Group" button.

 An option will appear in the Access restrictions tool, with two statements:

• Student "must" match the following
  • Specifies the condition for any restrictions.
• Group "Choose..."
  • Specifies the Group that can or can't access the activity.

To set the appropriate group:

1. Click the drop-down menu with "Choose...".
2. Select the appropriate Group from the list.

It's possible to hide the activity from students not in the given Group. To do so, select the open eye icon next to the Group restriction. This will change to a crossed-out eye, indicating that the assignment is fully hidden unless the student is in the given Group.

The activity in this example is restricted if a student is not part of a "Group Alpha":

RESTRICTING BASED ON ACTIVITY COMPLETION

External tools may need to be restricted based on completion of a prior assignment. For instance, maybe an assignment should only be visible after a tutorial is completed.

In order for a restriction to be added this way, completion conditions must be enabled on a given activity.  See the "Setting Activity Completion on a Moodle Activity" article for instructions.

To add the restriction:

1. In the "Restrict access" box, click the "Add restriction" button.
2. In the "Add restriction..." pop-up window, click the "Activity completion" button.

An option will appear in the Access restrictions tool, with two statements:

• Student "must" match the following
  • Specifies the condition for any restrictions.
• Activity completion "Choose..." "must be marked complete"
  
  • The first drop-down menu specifies the activity this restriction will check for completion.
  • The second drop-down menu can be set to check for different states of completion, such as "must be complete with a pass grade".

To set the activity completion restriction:

1. Click the drop-down menu with "Choose...".
2. Select the activity that should be checked for completion from the list.
3. Click the drop-down menu with "must be marked complete".
4. Select the completion state that the activity should be in for a student to access this activity.

The activity in this example is restricted based on completing an activity titled "External Tool Tutorial" before accessing the given activity, which looks like this:

Restriction in this way is also especially useful for Gamification.  See the "Overview of the Moodle Gamification Plugin" article for more details.

RESTRICTING BASED ON MOBILE APP USAGE

Some activities may need to be restricted so that they can only or cannot be accessed using the Moodle Mobile app.  More details on the app can be found in the "Overview of the Branded Moodle NC State App" article.

To add a mobile app restriction to an activity:

1. In the "Restrict access" box, click the "Add restriction" button.
2. In the "Add restriction..." pop-up window, click the "Mobile app" button.

An option will appear in the Access restrictions tool, with two statements:

• Student "must" match the following
  • Specifies the condition for any restrictions.
• Mobile app "Access using the Mobile app"
  
  • Specifies whether or not the student can access on either mobile or desktop.

To set the mobile app restriction, set the "Mobile app" field to one of the two settings:

• Access using the Mobile app
  • Students will only be able to access the given activity using the mobile app.
• Access NOT using the Mobile app
  • Students will only be able to access the given activity without using the mobile app.

This restriction can be useful for ensuring that students don't attempt to access an activity unsupported by the mobile app, such as an external tool or advanced activity type.

Additional Resources

Restrict Activity Access (Moodle Doc)

Setting Activity Completion on a Moodle Activity (DELTA Knowledge Base) 

Activity Completion (Moodle Doc)

Khan Academy article on conditional logic

For additional assistance, please contact the LearnTech Help Desk at learntech@ncsu.edu or (919) 513-7094, or via the Get Help form on the DELTA Knowledge Base.