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The '''Certificate module''' creates PDF certificates/diplomas for students of the course and is completely customizable. You can add borders, watermarks, seals and even show grade information. A contributed module, it was originally created by Hugo Salgado, July, 2004, updated by David T. Cannon, July, 2005 to use FPDF and include printing grades, updated and currently maintained by [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=3239&course=5 Chardelle Busch] to include backup/restore, types, reporting, emailing, unicode support, etc.  
The '''Certificate module''' creates PDF certificates/diplomas for students of the course and is completely customizable. You can add borders, watermarks, seals and even show grade information. A contributed module, it was originally created by Hugo Salgado, July, 2004, updated by David T. Cannon, July, 2005 to use FPDF and include printing grades, updated and currently maintained by [http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=3239&course=5 Chardelle Busch] to include backup/restore, types, reporting, emailing, unicode support, etc.  


There are different certificate modules for 1.6 and 1.7.  They are not compatible.  These instructions were written for 1.6.  Chardelle Busch has made sure Certificate is updated for every version through 1.9.  The 1.9 version has a few more printing features and has expanded the number of activities upon which the teacher can set conditions for issuing a certificate to a student.
There are different certificate modules for 1.6 and 1.7.  They are not compatible.  These instructions were written for 1.6.  Chardelle Busch has made sure Certificate is updated for  
every version through 1.9.  The 1.9 version has a few more printing features and has expanded the number of activities upon which the teacher can set conditions for issuing a certificate to a student.




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'''Important Note''': For this trick to work you must have Show Grades set to Yes in the Course settings page or this trick won't work (and you'll get very frustrated wondering why :) )
'''Important Note''': For this trick to work you must have Show Grades set to Yes in the Course settings page or this trick won't work (and you'll get very frustrated wondering why :) )
==Customizing==


==See also==
==See also==

Revision as of 14:21, 18 April 2008

The Certificate module creates PDF certificates/diplomas for students of the course and is completely customizable. You can add borders, watermarks, seals and even show grade information. A contributed module, it was originally created by Hugo Salgado, July, 2004, updated by David T. Cannon, July, 2005 to use FPDF and include printing grades, updated and currently maintained by Chardelle Busch to include backup/restore, types, reporting, emailing, unicode support, etc.

There are different certificate modules for 1.6 and 1.7. They are not compatible. These instructions were written for 1.6. Chardelle Busch has made sure Certificate is updated for every version through 1.9. The 1.9 version has a few more printing features and has expanded the number of activities upon which the teacher can set conditions for issuing a certificate to a student.


Certificate companions

Certificate Site-wide Report

As of February 2008, there is a Certificate Site-wide Report which can be added in Moodle 1.9, as a supplement. This is an add-on to the certificate module--if installed, you will have an option when creating a certificate to send that certificate's info to the report. A block is included that provides a link to the report. Students will see a list of all received certificates. Administrators (or those who have the capability of viewing site reports) will see a link on the Certificate Report page to view/download a report of all students' received certificates.

Certificate validation block

A companion to the Certificate module for Moodle 1.9. This is a block with a form for entering a given certificate code for verification. The verification page shows the student name, course name, date received and grade (if a grade is printed on the certificate). The certificate code can be printed on a certificate.

This feature is useful when a Registrar, supervisor or administrator wishes to verify that the printed certificate is valid for that student.


Installing

  1. Download and Unpack the Certificate zip file in a temporary area,
  2. Copy the "certificate" folder to your moodle mod folder located for example at yourhost\moodle\mod . This will include folders db, lang and all the subfolders located under pics.
  3. Note: It is not necessary to move the lang file into the Moodle lang folder, the certificate lang folder can stay in the mod/certificate folder.
  4. Go to your Moodle, and click on the Notifications link in the administation block. Moodle knows something has been added and it will proceed to install the certificate module.

Settings

Help buttons give more information about each setting.

File:Certificate1 8 Settings page top.JPG
Moodle 1.8 Certificate Settings

Tips & Tricks

  • Want to indicate specific credits to display for a course? Use the Course ID field to record this information. For example "IS101- CREDIT HOURS 5.0" or simply "5.0 CEUs"

If you are using your own theme you have to put the icon.gif inside a folder called certificate and put in your mod folder image

Lesson dependency trick 1

The best trick to enable a conditional certificate is to upgrade to Moodle 1.9 and use the new Certificate version. The 1.9 Certificate allows the teacher to set a dependency on different activities.

Many Moodlers issue a certificate upon successful completion of a course. For those who use Questions in a Lesson to determine if a student can receive a certificate, here is one way to hide the certificate until the student passes. At the end of a lesson we will provide the student an option to select a link that will print a hidden certificate activity. The only non standard Moodle feature this uses is the Certificate module itself. Lesson dependency is available from 1.6 onward.

  • Create a Certificate activity. Hide it.
  • Create a lesson. We will call it "Certificate Qualification". This is the lesson that needs to be passed to get a certificate. We might add questions to this lesson as a means to automatically determine that student qualifies for a certificate.
  • Create another lesson. We will call it "Certificate Gateway". In lesson settings make it dependent upon the "Certificate Qualification". For example we might say a student must answer 80% of the questions correctly. Still in lesson setting go to the link to activity setting and link it to Certificate.

Student view of the above example. The student will see a course with 2 lessons. If they try to enter the Certificate Gateway Lesson, first, they will be told that they must pass the Certificate Qualification Lesson with a score of 80% or higher. When the student takes the Certificate Qualification Lesson and only scores 70%, they will not be able to take the Certificate Gateway Lesson. The only way they can get to the certificate is to qualify to take the Certificate Gateway Lesson.

Important Note: For this trick to work you must have Show Grades set to Yes in the Course settings page or this trick won't work (and you'll get very frustrated wondering why :) )

Customizing

See also

The links below will lead to the current download areas