Introduction
As an instructor, you play an important role in shaping the learning experience of your learners.
The goal of your learning platform is to help you manage the courses, sessions and/or events that you instruct by giving you access to the settings needed to handle training material, customize the course layout, check enrollments, and track the activities of your learners through reports.
For Instructor-Led Training (ILT) courses, also use your platform to mark attendance and manage evaluations.
This article focuses on how instructors can manage courses. Have a look at the Learner guide to learn more about navigating your platform as a learner.
Instructor types for ILT courses
When working with ILT/VILT course, instructors are either assigned to sessions or events:
- Session instructor. If you are the instructor of a session, you will be automatically assigned to all of the events included in the session and you will be able to mark the attendance for all of the events in the session and set whether the participants have passed it or not. You will also be able to create and update the training material for the course.
- Event instructor. If you are the instructor of an event within a session, you can mark the attendance for the learners attending that specific event but you will have no control over the other events or the session. You can neither upload nor manage the training material assigned to the course.
Accessing courses as an instructor
To access a course in which you are an instructor, log in to your learning platform, then access the Main menu and select My courses and learning plans. This page shows the courses you are enrolled in as a learner as well as those you are an instructor for. You can identify the courses you are an instructor for because their cards show the Instructor label. Click on the card to access the course.
- If you are the instructor of a session or an event within an ILT course and you are also enrolled as a learner in any session composing the same course, the instructor label will not show on the course card.
- If you are the instructor of an ILT session or event but you are also enrolled as a learner in any of the sessions of the same course, when you click on the course card on the My courses and learning plans page, you will land on the page of the session you are enrolled as learners (with learner view). Click on Manage in the top right corner of the page to handle the sessions for which you are an instructor.
Uploading training materials in courses
As an instructor, you can upload training materials for the courses you manage. Training materials are also referred to as lessons. To do so, access the course from the My courses and learning plans page, click on Manage in the top right corner and select the Training materials option.
The Training material tab of the course lists all of the training materials already uploaded. To upload new training material, select the Add training material button, then select which type of training material you want to upload, import, or create.
Find out more on the training material options, but remember that the articles in this section of the Knowledge Base are written from the perspective of the platform Administrator, therefore some information may not relate to you as a course instructor.
For most training material, you will need to select how learners will view the content, set a name, a description, and a thumbnail. Once the new content is successfully uploaded, it is listed on the Training material tab, and you can edit or delete it, or change its settings and prerequisites.
Warning. Depending on the course settings, you may not be able to upload and manage training materials.
Managing the course layout
Besides training materials, you can display additional information about the course using one or more widgets that will be displayed on the course page. Once on the Training material tab of a course you are instructing (see the Uploading training materials in courses chapter of this article), select the Add course widgets button underneath the Training material area. A pop-up box will appear.
Use the drop-down menu to choose among different course widgets.
Viewing the course report
Access the report of the courses you are the instructor for by clicking on Manage in the top right corner of the course page and selecting the Reports option.
More details on how to navigate the course report.
E-learning courses: viewing enrollments
To view all of the users enrolled in the e-learning courses that you are in instructor for, from the course main page, click on Manage, then select the Enrollments option.
The Enrollments tab lists all of the learners enrolled in the course, providing different details for every learner. You can customize the layout of the enrollments table by clicking on the columns management icon in the top left corner of the table and selecting the columns you are interested in. You can select up to 9 columns. The table layout is refreshed in real time when columns are selected or unselected from this area.
Use the search bar at the top of the table to search for a specific learner, or click on Filters to filter the enrollments by user status, user level, or enrollment status.
Please note! If you are the instructor of an e-learning course, you are enrolled in the course as an instructor, so you will see your name listed in the Enrollments tab as well as your staus in the course on the course card on the My courses and learning plans page.
You cannot edit enrollments for the courses that you are an instructor for. You only have View permissions.
View your ILT sessions and events
From the My courses and learning plans page, click the card of an ILT course for which you are instructor. The ILT course page will open showing the list of sessions that make up that course.
You will see a Manage button alongside the sessions for which you are an instructor: You can click this to open the session page, which provides details of the events that make up that session.
→ If you are a session instructor, the session page will show all the events of the session. If you are an event instructor, you will only see those events for which you are instructor.
Instructor actions
Alongside each event, you can click the Instructor actions icon to access your instructor actions for that particular event:
- Manage attendance: Mark learners’ attendance at this event. For details, see the chapter Mark attendance at ILT events
- Attendance sheet: Configure a printable attendance sheet that you can use to manually take attendance as learners arrive at an onsite event. For more informatio,n see the article on Managing attendance sheets for ILT events.
- Evaluation: Evaluate learners as having passed or not passed the session. Note that this action pertains to the session as a whole, and not to any individual event. It is available only for sessions configured with evaluation-based completion. For details, see the chapter Evaluate a learner for an ILT session.
For events with a videoconference tool, you will also see the options to Start event (on the date of the event) and to Add recording (after the event has ended).
Note that Superadmins (even if not set as instructors) can also access these instructor actions from the learner view of the course, for the sessions in which they are enrolled.
Instructor overview
You can also access list views of all your sessions, events and enrollments for an ILT course as follows:
From the ILT course page, click the Manage button in the top right corner and select Sessions. This will open a list of all the sessions of this ILT course for which you are instructor.
- From this list you can quickly see the details of each session: its start and end date, duration, the number of events composing the session, the number of enrolled users, and more.
- Click the column icon to select more values to show in the list view.
Click a session name to view its details. Here:
- The Enrollments and evaluations tab will list all the learners enrolled in this session, and if the session is evaluation-based, you can access the Evaluate action for each learner. See the chapter Evaluate a learner for an ILT session.
- The Events and attendance tab will list all the events that make up this session, with overview information about each event. You can click an individual event name to mark learners’ attendance at that event. See the chapter Mark attendance at ILT events.
Please note: If you are the instructor of an ILT course, you are not enrolled in the course as an instructor, you are either assigned to the session or to the event without being enrolled in it, saving seats for learners.
Evaluate a learner for an ILT session
If an ILT session is configured with evaluation-based completion, you can manually evaluate each learner, by marking them as passed/not passed. You can also optionally enter a score, add some remarks or comments, or upload a file.
To do this, from the ILT course page, in the top right corner select Manage / Sessions, then from the list of sessions that appears select the [session name]. Then select the Enrollments and evaluations tab.
Here you will see a list of all the learners enrolled in this session. To evaluate a learner, from the ellipsis menu at the end of their row, select Evaluate. In the right panel that opens, set whether that user has Passed or Not passed the session:
- If you set Passed, the session will also be marked as completed, with the Completion date automatically populated with the evaluation date, but you can edit it if needed.
- If you set Not passed, the session is not marked completed for the user.
Then you can optionally enter a Score, add a Message with your comments or remarks, or upload an Attachment.
Select the check box Mark the user as present at all the events of the session to also automatically mark this learner as having attended all the session events.
When you are ready click Evaluate.
To evaluate multiple users at a time, select them by clicking on the checkboxes next to their usernames and then on Choose action at the bottom right corner of the page. Finally, select the Evaluate option.
Please note: When you complete the evaluation process for a session whose completion is based on evaluation, the session is marked as completed for the users you have evaluated.
Tip: The evaluation applies to the session as a whole, whereas attendance can be marked separately for each event of the session.
Mark attendance at ILT events
You can mark learners’ attendance at each ILT event for which you are instructor. To do this:
- From the ILT course page, in the top right corner select Manage / Sessions, then from the list of sessions that appears select the [session name].
- Then, select the Events and attendance tab, and from the list of events that appears select the [event name].
You will see a list of all the users enrolled in this session, showing their attendance status for this particular event.
To mark a learner’s attendance, from the ellipsis menu at the end of their row select Mark attendance. Then in the right panel that opens set whether the learner was Present or Absent at this event:
- By default, a user marked Present will be marked as having attended all the hours of the event’s duration. And a user marked Absent will be marked as having attended zero hours.
- If needed, you can enter a custom value in the Hours attended field to mark a partial attendance.
When you are ready click Mark attendance.
You can mark the attendance for several users at a time by selecting them with the checkbox next to their names, clicking the Choose action button in the bottom right corner of the table, and selecting the Mark attendance option.
Please note: If an ILT session has attendance-based completion, when you mark a learner as having attended the requisite number of events, the session will be marked as completed for them.
Use the attendance QR code
As an alternative to manually marking attendance at onsite events, you can have learners self check-in as they arrive at the venue by scanning a QR code. To do the self check-in, learners will need to use the Go.Learn or the branded mobile app. See the article Courses on the Go.Learn app / Attending an ILT training / In person events
The attendance QR code will be available for an event only if enabled by an administrator.
To check this, from the ILT course page, click Manage next to the relevant session to open it in instructor view. Then locate your Event and click the Instructor actions menu alongside it:
If the QR code is available you will see an Attendance QR code option listed in the Instructor actions.
To continue, select the Attendance QR code option to display the QR code for checking in to this event. You can download it as a PNG or PDF to print it out, and display it to your learners at the event venue. When they arrive, instruct them to scan it with their Go.Learn or branded mobile app to self-check in.
- When users self check in with the QR code, they will be automatically marked as Present for the full number of attended hours. You can check this from the Instructor actions menu of the event, by clicking Manage attendance.
Start an online event
To start an online event (webinar), while on the course main page, click on Manage sessions, select the event planned for the current date, and click on Start event.
The Start event button is displayed when the event is scheduled to start, or even before the start time, depending on the event configuration made by the Administrator.
Add a webinar recording
If you are the instructor of an ILT event configured with a video conference tool (Online or Flexible event type), when the event is over you can upload a recording for learners to access.
To do this, from the ILT course page, under My sessions turn on the Show ended sessions option and then select the session for which you want to upload a recording.
The session’s events will be displayed in the main area of the page. Next to any events that had a videoconference tool, you will see the Add recording button available, alongside the instructor actions.
To upload a recording, click Add recording alongside the event, and in the right panel that opens select whether you want to add the recording by uploading a file or by linking to a video URL.
- If you are uploading a file, the formats allowed for upload are 3GP, 3GP2, AVI, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPEG, MPEG4, MPG, MPG2, OGG, OGM, WMV. The maximum file size is 800MB.
- If you are linking a video from a URL, remember that the URL must be listed in the Iframe allow list of the E-learning tab of the Advanced settings section of the platform. Contact the Administrator if you encounter uploading problems.
Select the file or paste the recording URL and press the Confirm button. The time needed to import and convert the video depends on its size.
When the upload is over, the Add recording button is replaced with the Play recording button.
To delete the recording, click on the Instructor actions button and select Delete recording.