This refers to Moodle 3.4 from January 2019 onward

How to set up and use completion tracking to monitor student progress

Completion Tracking

Completion Tracking allows teachers to specify conditions that define when an activity is considered to be complete e.g. when a certain number of posts have been made, or a grade has been reached or a choice has been made .

You set, for each activity or resource, what constitutes "completion".  You can then:

• Track a student's progress through the module and see which resources and activities they have accessed.
• Make some resources or activities conditional upon completion of a previous activity, allowing a linear guided progression through the module - particularly useful for self-study modules.

For a resource, completion will be equivalent to "view" - this only really checks whether the student has opened the resource, it can't know if they've actually looked at it!

Note:  Completion tracking must be turned on BEFORE the conditional  resources  or activities are added.  However, tracking can be backdated to start of module.

How to turn on completion tracking

• Navigate to the Moodle module you want to work in and click on the Turn editing on button (top right)
• Find the Administration block and click on Module administration > Edit Settings
• Scroll down to COMPLETION TRACKING
• Set Enable Completion tracking to Yes
• Click Save changes

 See also How to enable conditional activities

For each activity you will need to set up the conditions to be met that will constitute completion: 

(Checkbox has dotted outline)

• You need to EITHER Add a (new) resource or activity, OR edit an existing resource or activity
• If you are setting up a new resource or activity, complete the settings, then, under Activity Completion, in the Completion tracking drop-down choose "Show activity as complete when conditions are met"

For a resource:

• click the Require view  tick box for Student must view this activity to complete it

For an activity:

• Set the conditions for completion,
  e.g., (for an assignment) check Require grade: "Student must receive a grade to complete this activity" OR
  (For a forum) Require replies: "Student must post replies: [enter number e.g., 2]"
  or whatever constitutes completion for that activity (see below for list)

Note: "Expect completed on" is a date which is not shown to students and is only displayed in the Activity completion report for teacher use - a sort of reminder to yourself.

List of possible Completion Requirement Options for Activities

Self or manual student completion

It's also possible to allow students to tick items themselves to say they're completed (but that relies on their honesty - you can compare it with their basic tracking report!). Where the resource is a label, the only way to indicate completion is for the student to manually tick it.

To allow manual student completion (checkbox with solid outline)

When setting up the activity or resource:

• Under Activity Completion from Completion tracking dropdown choose "Students can manually mark this activity as completed"

  Results of Activity Completion

If activities or resources are set to “Show activity as completed when conditions are met,” then a checkbox with a dotted outline will appear on the student’s Moodle page when the conditions are fulfilled. The check-mark icon will be on the right of the link for that resource or activity.  The activity must be completed according to the criteria and Moodle will automatically mark it as ticked.

If you have manual completion setting, i.e. "Students can manually mark resources and activities as complete," then students will see a checkbox with a solid outline to the right of the links to that resource or activity. Clicking the square will place a tick, marking it as complete.

BEFORE CHECKBOX TICKED

AFTER CHECKBOX TICKED       

Activity Completion Reports

You can view a report table with a list of your students and their completion results.

To view the Completion Reports page:

• Find the Administration block and click on Module administration > Reports.
• From the reports list, click on Activity Completion.

This will show a table of your students and their progress. (Use CTRL _ to zoom out)  You can export the results to a spreadsheet by clicking on the Download hyperlinks. The exported report also lists the date the activity/resource was completed.

Changing Activity Completion Settings

These settings can be changed later by selecting the edit settings option for a resource or activity.

However if one or more students have already completed a resource of activity, you will see a warning in the Settings page:

You can unlock the setting by clicking on the Unlock completion options button, but student progress information up to that point will be lost for that activity or resource.

Similar tutorials

The following other resources are also relevant to this topic:

• How to see tracking reports for students
• How to enable conditional activities