Online Studies: Blog

Course Personalization Part II – Release Conditions

This blog is part II in a series for personalizing your course in Falcon Online.

Read Part I – Replace strings
Read Part III - Intelligent Agents

This is a lengthy post, so you can use this table of contents to access specific sections.

1. What are release conditions?
2. Where can I use release conditions?
3. Types of release conditions
4. Creating release conditions
5. Best practices
6. Video Demos

What are release conditions?

Release conditions are conditional requirements that restrict access or visibility to specific content, resources or areas within the Brightspace Learning Environment. Users must satisfy the conditions before the restrictions are removed. They allow you to create a custom learning path through the materials in your course. Here are few examples of usages for release conditions:

• Release content based on learning ability and course performance - Include additional content in your course specifically for users who need extra help and release this content to users who score below a specified threshold on a quiz or grade item. You could also release an announcement personalized with replace strings to users pointing them to this additional content or congratulating those that achieved a high score.
• Release content in stages - To reveal content topics to users only after they have read prior content, attach release conditions on the subsequent topics or modules that require users to view earlier topics. This can provide a clear path through the material and prevent users from becoming overwhelmed by a large table of contents at the start of the course. Alternatively release content based on students performing a required activity such as posting to a discussion or submitting an assignment.
• Customize content for groups within a course - If your course has group projects and you want to provide different instructions or resources for each group, you can create separate content topics or modules for each project and attach release conditions based on group enrollment. Group members working on one project will see content related to their work without being distracted by content not relevant to them.
• Use a checklist to organize activities - You can create a checklist that lists the activities users should complete throughout the course. For example, a checklist for the first week might include reading the course’s introductory content, posting to an introductory discussion topic and submitting a list of learning goals to assignment submissions folder. You can set release conditions based on users checking off items from their checklist. For example, you might release an Announcements item on your course’s homepage once users check off that they have completed the first week’s activities.
• Use intelligent agents to monitor user activity or non-activity - You can set up intelligent agents with release conditions using the not operator to intervene with students who have not completed course work. For example, create an intelligent agent that sends a reminder email to users who have not yet completed a quiz attempt or submitted an assignment to an assignment submissions folder. We will cover intelligent agents in a following blog post.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: Release conditions are separate from availability dates. When you assign dates to an item, students will still see the item in the course and will be able to access the item based on the date settings. However, items with release conditions do not appear in the student view of the course until the condition is met. You can assign both to an item. For example, you can set a release condition on an assignment folder requiring that a student first access a specific content topic. You can also assign availability dates to the assignment folder. Until a student satisfies the release condition, the assignment folder will not appear in the course. Once the release condition is satisfied, it will appear. However, no submission will be allowed until the assigned start date is met.

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Where can I use release conditions?

 Release conditions are supported throughout Falcon Online. They can be used in the following tools:

• Checklist
• Content modules and topics
• Custom widgets
• Discussion forums and topics
• Assignments
• Grade items and categories
• Intelligent Agents
• Announcements items
• Quizzes
• Surveys

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Types of release conditions

The following table lists the types of release conditions available.

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Creating release conditions

• To access release conditions for a discussion forum or topic, checklist, assignment submissions folder, grade item, quiz, survey or custom widget, access the edit screen and select the Restrictions tab. This screenshot shows accessing release conditions for a discussion topic.
• To access release conditions for an Announcements item, scroll to the Additional Release Conditions at the bottom of the edit screen.
  
• To access release conditions for a content module, select the module and then “Add dates and restrictions."
  
• To access release conditions for a content topic, select the dropdown arrow next to a topic name and then “Edit properties in place."
  
  
  
  On the next screen select “Add dates and restrictions”
  

Once you access the release conditions tool, you will see two buttons. These buttons will be labeled differently depending on how you access release conditions. They will be labeled Create and Attach or Create, which allows you to create a new release condition, and Attach Existing or Browse, which allows you to reuse a previously created release condition.

Choose Create and Attach or Create to create a new release condition.

1. Choose a type for the new release condition.
2. Based on the type you choose, you will need to set additional conditions. Then select the create button.
   
3. Since you can set multiple release condition on an item, you can choose whether any or all conditions must be met. The default is all.
   

Once you set up release conditions on an item you will see those indicated similar to this. Notice the icon.

If you want to remove a release condition you previously assigned, access the release condition tool for the item and then select the trash can icon to delete all release conditions or the “x” next to a specific release condition to delete them individually.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: Release conditions are not editable. If you need to change a release condition for an item, you must remove the current release condition, then create and assign the correct release condition.

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Best practices

• Set up conditions before users access the course - Create all of your course materials and set up your release conditions before the course opens to users. This gives you a chance to check for mistakes in the conditions or for circular, contradictory or unnecessary conditions. If you add new release conditions after users have accessed the course, users might be confused by resources disappearing. Since conditions cannot be reset, you also risk having users meet conditions before your resources are ready (for example, accessing a content topic before it is finished).
• Avoid unnecessary conditions - Each condition you associate with a tool takes additional time for Brightspace Learning Environment to process. Using as few conditions as possible to set up a learning path minimizes the amount of time that users spend waiting for pages to load. For example, you set up a content topic, a quiz and an assignment submissions folder for the second week of class. You want users to read the topic before taking the quiz, and you want them to read the topic and attempt the quiz before submitting the week’s work to the assignment submissions folder. For the assignment submissions folder, you only need to attach the condition that users attempt the quiz. Since users must read the content topic before they can take the quiz, it is not necessary to add this condition to the assignment submissions folder.
• Avoid circular references - A circular reference makes it impossible for users to satisfy a set of conditions. For example, if you set the condition that users must view a content topic before they can access an assignment submissions folder and then set a condition that they must submit a file to the assignment submissions folder before they can access the content topic, you have a circular reference. Users can’t satisfy either condition without satisfying the other one first. Circular references are more likely to occur with long chains of conditions. For example, a content topic that depends on a quiz that depends on an assignment submissions folder that depends on a checklist that depends on the content topic.
• Avoid impossible conditions - Ensure that your conditions are not impossible for users to satisfy. For example, a condition that users must achieve greater than 100% on a grade item would be impossible (unless the grade item is set to Can Exceed). If users are unable to satisfy a condition, they are unable to access the content or tools to which the condition is attached.
• Avoid contradictory conditions - Contradictory conditions occur when two or more conditions that cancel each other out are associated with an item. For example, the conditions User must achieve greater than 49.9% on Grade Item 1 and User must achieve less than 50% on Grade Item 1 are contradictory. Users cannot satisfy both conditions at the same time; they would not be able to see the item associated with these conditions.
• Copying release conditions – Release conditions can be copied from one course shell to another. If you copy all components, everything will still work as before, but if you choose to copy individual course components, including release conditions, you must remember to copy the items to which the release conditions are applied.
• Clearly communicate to students – Students do not see items that are conditionally released. Ensure you communicate to students that new content will appear based on release conditions. This can be included in your syllabus, course schedule, announcements, etc.

Review these videos on creating release conditions.

Attach a release condition

Create custom learning paths with release conditions

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Bill Harrison
Senior Instructional Designer/Instructional Technologist
william.harrison@daytonastate.edu | 386.506.4306