[ARCHIVED] How to make it so one student can't participate in the course until a prerequisite is met?

[jawmedina]

How can I keep only one student from participating in the course until she or he completes a prerequisite? 

For example, all students will be moving to module 4, but I want one student to have to complete a quiz before she or he is allowed to move on to module 4. Is that possible? If so, how would I set that up? 

[scottdennis · Accepted solution]

Hi @jawmedina 

If you set a quiz to be just for one student, other students will not see it listed in the grade report, etc.

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-assign-a-quiz-to-an-individual-student/...

[lshulman]

I do not have an answer for you but I am wondering WHY you would want to apply a prerequisite to only ONE student? That does not seem fair to me. Why not require ALL students to do the quiz in question?

Or maybe this quiz is a remedial task that only this one student needs to do?

In that case, perhaps set the quiz setting just adjust the "assign to" status for only that one student?

[jawmedina]

Hi Ishulman,  You mentioned, "I am wondering WHY you would want to apply a prerequisite to only ONE student? That does not seem fair to me." This would be in the case of plagiarism. Sometimes students don't read their messages or emails, and some don't understand plagiarism so I would want to create a quiz that notifies the student of the issue and provide a tutorial that they have to pass before they can continue on in the course.  You also mentioned, "perhaps set the quiz setting just adjust the 'assign to' status for only that one student." Does that appear in the gradebook for everyone or just the one person? Does it make it so it is required and the student can't move on in the course? 

[lshulman]

It should appear in the grade book and only impact on the one student you assign to the quiz. 

Can also do the same process for a regular assignment:

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-assign-an-assignment-to-an-individual-s... 

[scottdennis · Accepted solution]

Hi @jawmedina 

If you set a quiz to be just for one student, other students will not see it listed in the grade report, etc.

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-assign-a-quiz-to-an-individual-student/...

[jawmedina]

That is good to know. How can I make it required so the student cannot move forward in the course until it is completed and so It won't affect other students?  

[scottdennis · Accepted solution]

You will definitely want to test this, but I believe you can make a quiz only for one student, make that quiz a completion requirement for a module and then make completion of that module a prereq for the next module without affecting students who don't have the assigned quiz.  Again, you will need to test this with test accounts.

[KristinL]

@scottdennis - I like this solution a lot! I second the suggestion to test out the module requirements using a test account. Since you can't assign to Test Student, it may be something that @jawmedina needs to collaborate on with their Canvas Admin. 👍

@jawmedina - When you differentiate items through Modules, those "specialty" items only appear for students to whom they are assigned. It's a great way to be a gatekeeper without it being known to others in the course. I hope this works for you!

• How do I assign an assignment to an individual student? 
• How do I add requirements to a module? 

[scottdennis]

Thanks, Kristin!  If I remember correctly this worked, like five or six years ago, the last time I needed to do something similar but things change over time so I would most definitely recommend testing it with fake students, maybe in FFT.

[gnoack]

@jawmedina , @KristinL , @lshulman , @scottdennis 

I'll be curious to find out if this solution works.  The issue I see is that other students won't see the quiz, but they will see the module. You can't assign a module to just one student.  Since the prerequisite in this case would be set in the Unit 4 module settings, and only one student has access to the prerequisite, I worry that all of the other students won't be able to access Unit 4 because they don't have access to that activity.  The issue is that I don't think the Unit 4 Module will be able to distinguish that only one student has the quiz assigned to it. 

[scottdennis]

The way it used to work was that if you set a module completion requirement and then a prereq that the previous module needed to be complete before accessing, and the student didn't have access to the completion requirement, the prereq didn't apply to them, but definitely test this.

[lshulman]

I imagine this could be tested, after setting it up for a specific student (not the test student), then switch to the test student view and see how the modules look for that test student. Can the test student access the module that is otherwise blocked for the one student assigned to the required quiz?  Does the test student see any indication that there is a "requirement" or "prerequisite" (even if they don't have to do it)?

[scottdennis]

When you are testing something this complicated and mission critical I would advise not using the test student feature.  I would use 'real' students in a test course, either that your admin sets up or you could create a course in FFT and invite one or more students via email invites, just FYI.

[Chris_Hofer]

To piggyback on what @scottdennis said... another option for you would be to work with your school's local Canvas administrator and do this all in your school's "test" environment.  That way, you don't have to set up a separate FFT account, and you can do as much (or as little) testing as you want without disturbing anything in your school's "production" Canvas environment...which is the environment that you are typically used to accessing every time you log in to Canvas.  Here are a couple Guides all about the "test" environment:

• What is the Canvas test environment? - Instructure Community
• How do I access the Canvas test environment as an ... - Instructure Community

I also always remind people to make sure to log out of "test" before returning to "production".  How do I log out of Canvas as an instructor?

I hope this extra bit of information will be of help.