This refers to Moodle 4.13 from August 2024 onwards

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.

Visibility of completion tracking for students in the Moodle module

 If completion tracking is enabled, students will now see the 'To Do' and 'Completed' boxes to the right of any content item to which this applies.

By clicking the completion dropdown you can see the conditions and edit the options. Students will then see what they are required to do in order to complete the activity.

How to turn on completion tracking

1. Navigate to the Moodle module you want to work in
2. Click the tab 'settings' underneath the title of the module.
3. Scroll down to Completion tracking and set "Enable Completion tracking" to 'Yes'
4. Click 'Save and display'

 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: 

• 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.  You can give a date you expect the resource to be viewed and completed by.  When the date is coming up the activity will be listed in the timeline block on the dashboard to remind students to complete.

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 posts": 'Student must post discussions 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 show to students on the module page and is only displayed in the Activity completion report for teacher use - a sort of reminder to yourself.  When the date is coming up, the activity will appear in the Timeline block on the dashboard to remind students that there is an activity that requires action.

List of possible Completion Requirement Options for Activities

Change the default settings for activity completion.

You can change the default settings for 'activity completion' rather than use the standard Moodle default. This means when you create an activity, the changed default settings will be applied automatically when completion tracking is set to 'show activity as complete when conditions are met' within the activity settings.

1. To change the default settings for activity completion,
2. Go to the module page you would like to change default settings for activity completion within.
3. Click on the 'More' tab under the module title 
4. Choose the option 'Module Completion' with in the list that appears

Within the dropdown menu choice the option 'default activity completion'

Scroll down the list of activities and resources to find the activity or resource you would like to change the default settings for.  Check the activity whose defaults you want to edit.  Moodle default is none meaning the activity completion will not be shown.

Click on the tick box next to the activity you would like to change the default settings to and then click 'edit'.

Then change the default settings to your required behaviour and press 'save changes'.

The default settings will now have been changed for that activity type.  This only affects new instances of the resource and doesn't affect any existing ones.

Self or manual student completion

It's also possible to allow students to manually mark an activity as 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 click 'Mark as done'.

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

For activities requiring students to manually mark an activity as completed, a 'Mark as done' button is shown on the activity page.

To mark this activity complete, the students will need to click on the checkbox and the status will change to 'Done'.

If activities or resources are set to 'Show activity as completed when conditions are met' and 'Student must view this activity to complete it' is selected, then students will see a checkbox 'To do: View' . When the student has clicked on the activity/resources the checkbox will change status to 'Done: View'.

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:

1. On your Moodle page, click on the tab 'Reports' under the module title.       
2. Scroll down to Reports and select Activity Completion.

This will show a table of your students and their progress. 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