Conditional release

Conditional release allows you to tailor the availability of course materials based on specific actions or criteria met by students. You can use this feature to differentiate instruction and manage course materials efficiently. Effectively setting up and managing conditional releases helps to ensure that students receive the appropriate materials based on their performance and actions. 

Setting up conditional release 

1. From the main navigation, select Courses, and then choose your course.

2. From Materials, select the material or folder for which you want to set release conditions.

3. Click the gear icon, and then choose Set Release Conditions.

4. Choose the prerequisite materials that will prompt the targeted material to display. You can only choose from materials within the same course.
   You can set conditions based on: 

   • Score: Choose whether the score should be equal to, greater than, greater than or equal to, less than, less than or equal to the score value, or within a value range. For example, you might set a condition for a pre-assessment where students who score between 51 and 85 will receive a specific assignment.

   • Viewed: The material must be viewed by the student. 

   • Submitted: The material must be submitted by the student. 

   • Comment Count: Sets a minimum number of comments the student must make in a discussion or any material where comments are allowed. 

5. Alternatively, the Advanced Conditional Release option allows you to apply multiple conditions or groups of conditions. You can apply a single condition, one condition group, or multiple condition groups. You can set up to 10 conditions per target material or folder with any number of groups. 

   • If you apply a single condition, students must meet the condition of a single material before moving on to the next material or folder.

     • For example, you may choose to apply a condition that requires students to score above an 86 to receive the next material or subset of materials. Students must submit the material and receive a score greater than 86 before the next material or folder will be available to them.

   • If you apply a condition group, students must meet the condition of a subset of materials before they are allowed to receive the next material or folder. Within this group, only one operator can be used. This means when you choose AND or OR, that is the only option available for subsequent conditions within that same group.

     • For example, you may apply a condition group that requires students to complete all of the following to reveal the next material or folder: 

       • Students must score above a 75 in an assessment AND complete a discussion AND submit an assignment before they can receive the next material or folder. 

     • Alternatively, you may choose to apply a condition group in which students must complete one of the following to reveal the next material or folder: 

       • Students must score above a 75 in an assessment OR complete a discussion OR submit an assignment before releasing the next item or group of items.

   • If you apply multiple condition groups, students must meet the condition of a subset of materials before they are allowed to receive the next material or folder. With multiple condition groups, you can use both operators, AND or OR.

     • For example, you may apply multiple condition groups that require students to meet all of the following criteria to reveal the next material or folder: 

       • Students must score above a 75 in an assessment AND complete a discussion AND submit an assignment.

       • An alternative condition may require that students score above a 75 in an assessment OR complete a discussion OR submit an assignment before releasing the next item or group of items.

Example use case for conditional release

You can use conditional release for differentiation in student learning to tailor instruction to meet the needs of all students.

In this scenario, you can use a pre-assessment to determine student levels. 

1. Create three assignments: introduction, practice, and extension. 

2. Apply release conditions to each assignment so that, based on their pre-assessment scores, students will receive the assignment that matches their level: 

   • Students who obtain low scores on the pre-assessment will receive the introduction assignment. 

   • Students who obtain medium scores will receive the practice assignment. 

   • Students who achieve high scores will receive the extension assignment. 

Student completion and release conditions

It’s important to understand the difference between student completion and conditional release.

• Student completion refers to the completion rules applied to a folder. Student completion provides assignments to all students but may or may not be actionable depending on the sequential order activation status. The next assignment becomes actionable upon completion of the previous one. Use this when every student will complete all materials within the student completion set. 

• Release conditions refer to the release conditions applied to a material or folder. The material or folder is also known as the target of the release condition rule. Conditional release individually displays assignments based on specific actions taken by the student, such as the scores achieved on a pre-assessment. Use this option when different material needs to be assigned to students. 

Applying release conditions and student completion rules

After a folder has student completion rules applied to it, any descendant material or folders can’t have release conditions applied to them. This means:

• The parent folder can have release conditions, but any materials or folders that follow the hierarchy can’t have release conditions.

• If a material or folder has release conditions, none of the parent folders or folders that precede it in the hierarchy can have student completion rules.

There are restrictions when setting release conditions, depending on whether the parent or grandparent folders in the hierarchy have release conditions. The conditional release feature uses the Individually Assign functionality to assign students to folders or materials. This means that when a folder is assigned to a student, all contents of that folder are also assigned to that student. Because of this, the following release condition rules are applied:

• If a folder has release conditions, you can’t set release conditions for any of its children and grandchildren materials and folders.

• If a material or folder has release conditions, you can’t set release conditions to any of its parent and grandparent folders.

• A material can have release conditions as long as it does not break the previous two rules.

Best practices 

Consider the following best practices when publishing and unpublishing materials with release conditions.

• When a release condition is set, the target material is automatically unpublished. When a student meets the release condition, the material will be individually assigned to the student and published.  

• Release conditions are not updated retroactively. After a material is released to a student, it will not be removed from that student even if the release conditions are updated.

• You can set a condition on an unpublished item; however, you must manually publish it before it will be available to students. 

• When setting a release condition on a material with published dates, the published dates will be cleared. You can add the published dates back after you set the release condition. However, setting publish dates on a material with release conditions will make the assignment available on the scheduled date regardless of students meeting the criteria. This means that the material will be published to all students after the published date. 

• Users should consider their Student Information System (SIS) when deciding whether to apply release conditions. Not every SIS will support individual assignments during passback, which means all students will have access to all assignments in their gradebook even though they won’t have those assignments in Schoology.

• Copying a material with release conditions will not copy the release condition.

• When you search for material within the Release Conditions page, only materials in folders that have been reviewed in the current release condition session are displayed.   

Consider these student completion limitations when using conditional release:

• You can’t apply student completion rules and conditional release to the same materials.

• You can’t apply student completion rules and conditional release to the same folder. You must choose one or the other.

• To use both student completion rules and conditional release within a course: 

  • Apply student completion rules to a folder before applying conditional release to a folder. Sequential order must be activated to release the conditional release paths because conditional release requires an available target item to validate the release of the material.  

• Apply conditional release to a folder before applying student completion rules to a folder that has sequential order activated or deactivated.