Can I enforce completion?

A common question we get is whether you can force a learner through the Path in a rigid order.

Laurie Garcia avatar
Written by Laurie Garcia
Updated over a week ago

We do not currently have a feature for unlocking future content based on completion of earlier material or for automatically locking down content that has already been completed.

On one hand, we've never liked the idea of locking down content because we don't want to discourage a learner from looking ahead and learning something new or reviewing past work. However, in the future we many add an option to lock upcoming lessons or steps until another is completed as more of a game-like way of motivating people to keep moving to see what's coming up next.

Here is a list of what we currently support regarding course completion for learners.

Order of completion

While we don't enforce the order of completion, the path order is very strongly encouraged. For instance, the "Next step" button at the bottom of each page is always the next incomplete step. The Path itself opens to the next step for learners to take and collapses past and future lessons. We encourage it so strongly that it's unusual for a learner to go out of order, even though it's not enforced.

Require step completion

Under the step settings, you'll be able to choose whether or not a particular step is required for completion of the course (defaults to required).

To complete a required step, the learner will need to complete 100% of the following activities on the step:

  • Assessment questions: multiple choice, checkboxes, tasklists, paragraph questions, etc.

  • File submissions (submit block)

Once all answers and/or files are submitted, the Complete Step button will unlock and they can mark the step complete.

We do not require any minimum number of characters per response and we do not track video plays.

Require a minimum passing score

Here's how to set a minimum passing score in the step settings. Learners will have to complete all required steps and meet all auto-graded minimum score requirements in order to complete the course.

They will be able to complete steps that require manual review after submitting all assessments. If you don't want to allow learners to complete a course before steps pending manual review have been graded, we recommend adding a password-locked step at the end of the course and having your grader provide the password once all manual grading is complete.

Require a password for completion

You can lock any step using a password lock. The learner will need to receive and enter the password before they are able to view the step content or mark the step as completed or skipped.

Making content optional

Under the step settings, you can toggle off "require completion" in order to mark a step as optional and allow learners to skip the entire step.

If you wish to make some assessments optional, put them on a separate step and toggle off "require completion" under the step settings.

Scheduled completion

You can lock down material according to a schedule by setting dates. Set a start date on access to the course or on the registration window. Or set start dates on individual lessons and steps within the course and opt to "lock" the content until the start date is reached. This will prevent a learner from viewing or completing a certain lesson or step before the start date is reached. 

When using dates, keep in mind that dates are set on the cohort and will apply to all learners in that cohort.

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