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Release Conditions Guide
by others. The mandatory pre-submission checklist helps her to
ensure that all of the project requirements have been completed.
WHAT ARE RELEA SE CON DIT IO NS?
Release conditions allow a user to release locked items by fulfilling
CREATING RELEA SE CON DITION S
criteria. Items locked by release conditions will not be visible to the
Depending on the tool, release conditions can either be found on the
user until the criteria are fulfilled. These criteria can be actions,
main Create/ Edit page (i.e. News) or in the Restrictions tab (i.e.
enrolment in groups or sections, or having a specific role.
Dropbox, below).
WHY USE REL EASE CON DITION S ?
Use release conditions in your course to:

Create custom learning paths through the materials in your
course by restricting the sharing of content.

Control the delivery of assessment.

Regulate the distribution of communication.

Require learners to perform specified tasks prior to
attempting a learning activity.
US ER STORY
Professor Alves teaches a graphic design class. She feels that students
RELEA SE COND ITION S I CON
learn a lot from seeing each other’s work and she also wants them to
The Release Condition Icon will be displayed any time a release
learn how to provide constructive feedback to each other. To prevent
condition is involved with a tool. It looks like this:
students copying from others by viewing their projects before
finalizing their own, she put a condition on the discussion topic so
that the student must submit their work to the dropbox folder first.
She also wants to ensure that all students complete every
Always place the release condition on the item that you would like to
be released, not on the item that triggers its release. For example, if I
want a quiz to be released after a content topic has been viewed, I
will place the release condition on the quiz, not the content topic.
requirement for the project before submitting, so she puts a
condition on the dropbox folder that the pre-submission checklist
must be completed prior to submission.
Megan Polanski is a student in Professor Alves course. She enjoys
sharing and discussing her work with other students in the course.
Having to submit her work prior to sharing ensures that she is
focused on her individual material rather than becoming influenced
R EUS E AND ATTACH MULTIPLE RELEA SE CON DITION S
Once a release condition has been created in one tool, it can be
applied in any other tool that supports release conditions by choosing
Attach Existing. Multiple conditions can be applied to one item. For
example, a news item could be released if a user scores over 90% on
a quiz and submits to a dropbox folder.
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TOOL S AND COND ITION S :
Variables that trigger Release
Avoid impossible conditions: Ensure that your conditions are not
Items that can be released:
impossible for users to satisfy. For example, a condition that users
must achieve greater than 100% on a grade item would be impossible
Conditions:
- Checklist
- Discussions
- Checklists
- Custom
(unless bonus marks are available for the item). If users are unable to
completion
authored/
- Content
widgets
satisfy a condition, they are unable to access the content or tools to
- Classlist
scored
modules and
- Quizzes
which the condition is attached.
enrollment
- Dropbox
topics
Surveys
- Competencies
submission/
- Dropbox
- Discussion
RELEA SE COND ITION S S CENARIO S
- Content topic
feedback/ score
- Grade items/
forums and
Scenario 1: Release content based on learning ability and course
or all topics
- Grades
categories
topics
performance
visited
- Quiz score/
-News items
- Survey
attempt
attempt
You can 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.
BE ST 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.
Avoid unnecessary conditions: Each condition you associate with a
tool takes additional time for 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.
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
a dropbox folder, and then set a condition that they must submit a
file to the dropbox 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.
Alternatively, you could release a special dropbox folder to users who
attain a high score.
Scenario 2: Release content in stages
To reveal content topics to users only after they have read prior
content, attach release conditions on the later 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.
Scenario 3: Use a checklist to organize activities
You can create a checklist that lists the activities users should
complete throughout the course. You can set release conditions
based on users checking off items from their checklist. For example,
you might release a news item on your course’s homepage once
users check off that they have completed the first week’s activities.
WANT MORE INFORMATION?
Visit the Brightspace Community
(https://community.brightspace.com) or D2L
Resource Centre
(https://documentation.desire2learn.com) for videos,
documents and other resources.
D2L | Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @Brightspace | Web: www.brightspace.com | www.D2L.com
Toll Free: 1 888-772-0325 (U.S. & Canada) | Telephone: +1 519-772-0325 | Fax: +1 519-772-0324
3
About D2L
A global leader in EdTech, D2L is the creator of Brightspace,
the world’s first integrated learning platform. The company
partners with thought-leading organizations to improve
learning through data-driven technology that helps deliver a
personalized experience to every learner, regardless of
geography or ability. D2L’s open and extensible platform is
used by more than 1,100 clients and 13 million individual
learners in higher education, K–12, healthcare, government,
and the enterprise sector—including Fortune 1000 companies.
The company has operations in the United States, Canada,
Europe, Australia, Brazil, and Singapore.
© 2014 D2L Corporation.
The D2L family of companies includes D2L Corporation, D2L Ltd, D2L Australia Pty Ltd, D2L
Europe Ltd, D2L Asia Pte Ltd, and D2L Brasil Soluções de Tecnologia para Educação Ltda.
Brightspace, D2L, and other marks (“D2L marks”) are trademarks of D2L Corporation,
registered in the U.S. and other countries. Please visit D2L.com/trademarks for a list of
other D2L marks.
D2L | Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @Brightspace | Web: www.brightspace.com | www.D2L.com
Toll Free: 1 888-772-0325 (U.S. & Canada) | Telephone: +1 519-772-0325 | Fax: +1 519-772-0324