Completion tracking is a terrific feature in Moodle. This allows the teachers, and I would argue even more importantly, and the students to keep track of what they have accomplished (completed) and how much is left to go. Of course, since this is Moodle, the teacher has the option to control both of those settings. Sometimes it is important to just let students know what they’ve done. The course may be a work in progress and not have everything completely entered. In that case, the completion total would not be turned on.

There are actually two parts to completion tracking: Activity completion and Course completion.

Completion tracking works really well in conjunction with badges.

Activity completion is a great way to provide students with visual evidence that they have done something. Activity completion comes in two main flavors, students can mark something as complete, or students have to do something in order for the activity to be complete. What the students have to do varies by the type of activity. Generally, students have to view, submit or receive a grade for something to be automatically marked as complete.

This can be very powerful for students. It can help teach them responsibility and provide the with useful information.

The second portion, Course Completion, works in conjunction with Activity completion. (Though there are also other parameters that can be used). Completion tracking must first be enabled by the site administrator. Once the site administrator has flipped the switch to make it available, Course Completion tracking can be turned on in any course. Just visit the Course administration settings. (Click on “Edit settings” under Course Administration. You will see a section called (surprise) “Completion Tracking”. Set the “Enable completion tracking” to Yes.)

Once all the activities are set up, the teacher can select them as part of the Course completion requirements. Visit the Course Completion link under Course administration.

I also suggest that the teacher add the Course Completion Status block to the site. This gives the students a quick view of what they have completed.