How do I set up Adaptive Release?

Instructors can display content to certain users for a limited period of time, or only after users meet (or fail to meet) predetermined requirements. Adaptive release allows an instructor to create custom learning paths through site content and activities. Content items, assignments, discussions, tests, or other activities can be released to students based on a set of criteria including:

  • Date and time
  • Specific users
  • Group membership
  • Grades or attempts on a particular test or assignment
  • Review Status of another item in the site.

Adaptive Release is made up of rules consisting of a set of criteria that defines the visibility of a content item to users. Criteria are the parts that make up the rule. Each content item may have multiple rules (set up through Advanced Adaptive Release), and each rule may consist of multiple criteria. When more than one rule is created on an item, the content will be visible to the user if ANY (one or the other) of the rules are met. However, users must meet ALL criteria - including date, grade, users/groups, and/or review status - defined within the rule itself in order to view an item.

Example 1:

Instructor adds an Assignment to a site. One rule for this Assignment may allow all users in Group A to view the Assignment after a specific date. This rule would consist of Membership criteria and Date criteria. Another rule for this Assignment may allow all users in Group B to view the Assignment once they had completed Homework #1. This rule would consist of Membership criteria and Grade Center criteria.

Example 2:

Consider another example: the Instructor creates a content item called “Introduction” and makes the item available on a page called Module Documents. At this point, all course users would be able to see Introduction. The Instructor then creates a rule restricting the item to Group A users. Now, only members of Group A can see Introduction—all other course users (who are not a member of Group A) do not see Introduction. The Instructor then adds other criteria to this rule, restricting it to Group A members who have received at least an 80 on Test #1. Now, only members of Group A who have also received an 80 or greater on the Test #1 will see Introduction. All other site users, including Group A members who scored less than an 80 on the Pre-Test, will not see Introduction.

In both examples, visibility of the item is restricted to those users who meet the criteria of the established adaptive release rules. If no Adaptive Release Rules have been created, the item is available to all users in the site depending on the item availability and date/time restrictions set on the Create or Edit Item page.

Options

The following Adaptive Release options are available:

Basic - The basic settings allow you to set a single rule for determining which students can have access to content. This rule can consist of multiple criteria. This option can be useful if posting different folders of content for different groups of students.

Advanced - The advanced settings allow you to set multiple rules to determine, among other scenarios, different sets of students, who may be able to access the content at different times, based on multiple rules. This option can be useful if deploying the same set of content to different groups at different times.

Review Status - requires the students "read" (i.e. "Mark Reviewed") a particular content item before the item on which the criteria is set becomes available to them.

User Progress - shows a list of students and whether or not they are able to view this particular content, based on the release criteria set.

 

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