User Modules Overview

Paideia LMS has a comprehensive activity module system that allows instructors to create engaging and interactive learning experiences. The system supports five distinct module types organized into two categories: informative (read-only) modules and interactive modules.

Module Types

There are five activity module types defined in the activity-modules collection:

Informative (Read-Only) Modules

These modules present content without requiring user interaction or submissions:

• page - Static instructional content using rich text HTML
• whiteboard - Drawing and diagramming content stored as Excalidraw JSON

• 

  Page

• 

  Whiteboard

Interactive Modules

These modules require user participation and track submissions:

• assignment - File/text submissions with attempt tracking
• quiz - Assessments with auto-grading capabilities
• discussion - Threaded forum discussions for student engagement

• 

  Assignment

• 

  Quiz

• 

  Discussion

Module Status

All modules progress through three statuses:

1. draft - Default initial state; visible only to creator and granted users
2. published - Ready for student access; visible to enrolled students
3. archived - No longer active but preserved; hidden from students

Creating Modules

Modules can be created by users with the appropriate permissions:

• System-wide admin, instructor, and content-manager roles can create activity modules
• Course teacher and manager roles can create modules within their courses

When a module is first created, it starts in the draft status, allowing you to refine the content before making it available to students. Once ready, you can publish the module, which makes it visible to enrolled students. Modules can be archived when they’re no longer needed but should be preserved for record-keeping purposes.

Module Organization

Modules are organized within courses and can be arranged in a specific order. Instructors can reorder modules to control the learning sequence, ensuring students progress through content in a logical order.

Activity Modules and Courses

Activity modules and courses are different entities in Paideia LMS. You can create activity modules independently without having a course.

In this sense, it is better to understand them as “user modules” and “course modules”:

• User modules are activity modules that you create and own. You have full control over these modules - you can create, update, and delete them (subject to dependency checks).
• Course modules are activity modules that have been added to a course. Once added, the course maintains its own reference to the module, independent of your personal access.

This terminology helps clarify the relationship: user modules are personal content you create, while course modules are shared content used within courses.

Access Control

Users will only see modules they have access to, and they can only add modules that they have access to their courses. When a module is added to a course, it becomes a “course module” - the course “has access” to the activity module. Even if a user loses access to a module afterwards, it does not affect the course - the course retains access to that module as a course module.

Module Dependencies

An activity module cannot be deleted if some courses depend on it. This ensures that course content remains intact even if module permissions change. When you attempt to delete a user module, the system checks if it’s being used as a course module in any courses. If it is, the deletion is prevented to protect course integrity.

This dependency system means that:

• You can freely delete user modules that aren’t used in any courses
• User modules that are used as course modules cannot be deleted until they’re removed from all courses
• Course modules remain accessible to their courses even if the original creator loses access

Course Instructor Access

When a user module is added to a course (becoming a course module), the course gives its instructors read-only access to that module. Instructors can:

• View the module content
• Add the module to other courses they have access to (making it a course module in multiple courses)
• Cannot update or delete the module (only the module creator or users with appropriate permissions can do this)

This design allows user modules to be shared across multiple courses as course modules while maintaining proper access control and preventing unintended modifications. An instructor might discover a useful user module created by another user, add it to their course as a course module, and even add it to additional courses - all without needing edit permissions on the original user module.

Learn more about each module type in their respective documentation pages.