Introduction

The main goal of your platform is to help you in creating and managing courses, from training material to the course layout and properties, up to course reports. Other than using your learning platform for e-learning courses, you can also take advantage of  ILT (Instructor-Led Training) and VILT (Virtual Instructor-Led Training) courses in the platform to manage and deploy courses led by instructors either in a physical location (a classroom) or online (webinars).

As a Superadmin, you can monitor the course attendance and manage the course waitlist. In addition, you can upload training material in the course area (such as the slides used during the training, a video of the most important or key moments in the classroom, or the webinar recording) that learners will be able to access before, during and after the training, depending on your configuration.

All ILT and VILT courses are tracked for transcript and certification purposes, allowing learners to have full visibility of how their performance was evaluated. ILT and VILT courses are made up of one or more sessions, scheduled on pre-set dates.

You can plan, manage, and track a course that will be delivered in different sessions and locations, either fully on-site or fully online or a mix of both options. If needed, you can turn an on-site session into an online session on the go and vice versa, updating the session details.

This article is a guide on the creation and management of ILT and VILT courses. Find more info on the Course management page, on how to send the course URL to learners, and on decommissioned courses in the Introduction to the Course management article of the Knowledge Base.

Refer to the Knowledge Base article on e-learning courses for more details on how to manage your e-learning courses.

Use case scenarios

Take advantage of ILT courses to manage blended learning. Add SCORM, AICC, or xAPI (TinCan) training material to ILT and VILT courses to mix live and online experiences offering comprehensive training to learners. As an example, you can 

• ask learners to take online tests or exams after a live course event
• enrich your instructor-led classes with online materials to provide extra support over time

Prerequisites for VILT (Webinar) courses

Before configuring a webinar session for a VILT course, make sure you have integrated one of the supported webinar tools or you have set up your own custom tool.

To learn more about the third-party integrations with webinar hosting software, you can refer to the corresponding manuals in Docebo’s Knowledge Base: Zoom, GoToMeeting, Webex, Adobe Connect, and Microsoft Teams.

Also, note that webinars can be attended on Go.Learn, the Docebo mobile app. Learn more about ILT and VILT courses on mobile devices.

Prerequisites for ILT (Classroom) courses

Organizing a classroom course includes the management of the locations and the classrooms needed to host the course. You can plan, for example,  a course that will be delivered in different sessions and locations.

Before configuring an on-site session for an ILT course, the best practice is to create the location of the classroom session. Find out more on how to set up your environment in a dedicated article of the Knowledge Base.

Creating an ILT / VILT course

In order to create a new ILT / VILT course, press the plus button in the top right corner of the Course management page and select New course. In the slideout panel, select the ILT (Instructor-Led Training) course type, then fill in the course title and the course description. 

Configure the course title so that it is simple and clear. Users should instantly understand the topic of the course upon reading the title. For security reasons, the text of the course title is checked according to the OWASP guidelines (opens in a new tab) and will be sanitized to avoid injections. Make sure that the title is not made up of special characters only, as they may corrupt the course URL format.

The course description will help users to have a better idea of what they will learn in the course. You can configure the description thanks to the available formatting options, as well as include links, emoticons, images and videos. When embedding videos and links, remember that you can only use the URLs listed in the Advanced settings menu, E-Learning tab, Iframe Allow list section. Also, remember that:

• The URLs on the allow list do not accept wildcard characters, such as placeholders as (*)
• If you upload images, the file name for those images cannot contain special characters

Accessibility hint: When adding images to the course description, enter an alternative text by clicking on the image and then on Alternative Text. The alternative text makes sense of that image when it can't be viewed for some reason ensuring that users with visual impairments can comprehend the context.

Optionally, assign a code to your course. Though you can use the same course code for several courses, we suggest using unique course codes. If you try to use an existing course code, a warning message will inform you that the code is already in use, but the platform will not prevent you from using it. Please note that:

• If the Extended Enterprise app is active on your platform, when a Power User tries to set a code already in use in another domain of the Extended Enterprise, the system will not display the warning message not to disclose the course data structure of the different domains.
• Changing a course code will not affect current enrollments. The new code will be visible throughout the platform, except for the already issued PDF certificates (if you have the course code printed on them).

You can assign skills to your course manually, let the platform Artificial Intelligence assign them, or both. Learn more about skills management. Finally, you can assign the course to a category.

If there are mandatory additional fields for courses defined in the platform, you will be required to fill them in in the Additional information tab of the right panel, or you will not be able to create the course.

Click on Create and edit to create your course in the platform and start configuring and managing it straight away. 

Starting on November 12, 2019, when a course is created, the platform automatically calculates a unique alphanumeric ID, in addition to the existing course code. The course ID cannot be edited and will be calculated for the courses created before November 12, 2019, too but only when they are updated. The course’s unique ID makes it easier to identify courses in various areas of the platform and in the platform’s global search.

Configuring the course properties

Once a course is created, use the Properties tab to configure the course properties.

Adding training material and course widgets

Move to the Training material tab to start adding training resources prior to enrolling learners in the course. From this area, you can add and manage training material and configure the layout of the page of your course in the platform. Training materials are shared among all of the course sessions. To add new training material, click the Add training material button, and choose the type of training material you would like to upload.

You can also organize training material into folders. Folders are very useful when you need to organize your material by topic or chapter. The root folder will take the same name as the course. Click on the Add training material button and then select New folder in the dropdown menu to create a new folder. Define a name and save your changes. Once created, you can delete the folder or edit it by clicking on the menu icon at the end of the folder row in the training material area and then selecting the corresponding option. In case you want to delete a folder containing training material, the system will ask you whether you want to set the course as completed for users who have completed all of the other training materials in the course.

You can change the order of the folders by dragging them to the desired position. To add a subfolder, select the destination folder and once you are inside of it, create a new folder following the same steps described above. We suggest not going too deep into the hierarchy in order not to confuse users in the navigation. To assign training material to a folder, drag it to the Folders area on the left.

Learn more about the types of training materials supported in the platform and how to manage them.

As an option, you can import training material from the Central repository, as described in the Adding training material chapter of the article of the Knowledge Base on the Central repository.

Please note! If an ILT course has no sessions but includes content as training material, learners will not have access to the content. Only the learners enrolled in an upcoming ILT session have access to the course training material.

Press Add course widgets to add specific areas to the page of your course, providing your learners with additional information about each session (such as the instructor name, related files, and Iframed content) and making their experience more interactive through comments and forums. Learn more about the course widgets.

Creating a new session

In order to create a new session, while in the course management area, click on the plus button in the top right corner and select the New session option.

Tip: When scheduling sessions for an ILT course, consider creating the course with no sessions as a first step and allow users to enroll before creating sessions. Once you have enough users enrolled, create the sessions according to the number of course enrollments and notify users via the New ILT session created notification by selecting the users not enrolled in any session as recipient, so that they can enroll in the session that suits them the best.

Check out the Creating and managing ILT and VILT sessions article of the Knowledge Base for further information on sessions and events.

Enrolling users

Learn more about enrolling users in ILT and VILT courses and sessions in the dedicated article of the Knowledge Base.

Remember that for ILT and VILT courses, Instructors are not enrolled in the session but assigned to it. Learn more about assigning instructors to sessions.

Session statistics

To view statistics related to the different sessions of the course, access the course’s main page, then move to the Sessions statistics tab. On the top of this page, use the Session dropdown menu to select which session you want to view.

Once you’ve selected the session, statistics related to it appear below, including:

• Percentage and total number of users that have passed the session
• Total number of enrolled users
• Total session effective time

Session details section

• Session schedule: including session name, date, time and effective duration
• Location and classroom information

Session statistics session

List of every user enrolled in the session with

• Attendance time
• Evaluation status
• Score

Reports

From the Reports tab, you can view the course report and check course progress and statistics of users on courses and training materials, and check learners’ assignments.

Assigning a course to catalogs, learning plans, and channels

You can assign and unassign courses in catalogs, learning plans, and channels directly from the course area. Click on the plus button in the top right corner of the page, and select Assign to learning plans, Assign to catalogs, or Assign to channels. Make your selection in the right panel that will open and press Confirm to complete your action.

The course associations to catalogs, learning plans, and channels are available in the corresponding tabs of the course edit view. From those tabs, you can check the associations already available for the selected course (if any) and also remove existing assignments. To do so, click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the course row and select Unassign.

Please note! As a Power User, when editing a course you will have visibility only on the catalogs for which you have editing permissions.

Publishing a course

When a course is created, its status is Under maintenance, meaning that it is not visible to learners. When you are ready to make it visible, change its status to Published using the Status dropdown at the bottom of the course page. Click Save changes to confirm.

As an option, while in the Course management page, use the option button in the Published column to change the publication status from Published to Under maintenance. You can change the publication status for more courses at a time by selecting them using the checkboxes at the beginning of their rows and then clicking Choose action at the bottom of the table and selecting the Change status > Published option.

Duplicating an ILT / VILT course

It is not possible to duplicate ILT / VILT courses as a whole. You can duplicate the sessions composing the course, as well as the events composing the course’s sessions. More details on sessions and events duplication.

Deleting an ILT / VILT course

In order to delete a course from the platform, click on the ellipsis menu at the end of a course row, and then click Delete. When a course is deleted from the platform, all of its trackings are lost, together with the training material uploaded in the course and not also available in the Central repository.

Upon deletion, the course is also removed from the catalogs, the channels, the certifications, and the subscription plans it is associated with. Finally, the course will be also removed from the learning plans it belongs to, including the prerequisite rules related to the course.

If a course is associated to an Enrollment status based condition regulating the population of automatic groups, you will not be allowed to delete it, unless you first remove it from the condition of the group(s) it is involved in. 

Session recordings

As a Superadmin, Power User with the appropriate permissions, or instructor, you can upload the recording of a session in the course, so that those who were not able to attend the session can watch them.

Recording can be uploaded either via API, by loading a video file or by sharing a link to a video. To add a webinar recording, find the VILT course in the list of courses on the main Course Management page. Click on the course description and click on Learner view in the top right corner. On the Sessions’ main page, find the session for which you’re wanting to upload a recording from the list, then press the arrow at the end of the session date’s row to show more details. Here, you will find the Add recording button.

In the slideout panel, flag whether you want to add the recording via API, by uploading a video file, or by linking to a video URL. You can only add the video via API for the following video conferencing tools: GoToTraining, WebEx, and Adobe Connect. When integrating with Zoom, you can directly upload a recording from the Zoom Cloud. When you’ve selected the recording and method for adding the recording to the platform, you will then see a progress bar under the option you flagged.

When the video is finished uploading, press the Confirm button. Please note that from here, the time it takes to import and convert the video for the platform depends on the size of the video. When the video is ready, you will see a message informing you that it was successfully converted. Learners can then press the View recording button to view the recorded session. To delete the recording, press the X next to this button.

Please note! You can upload one recording per webinar session, the maximum recording file size is 800MB.

Learner view

When the course configuration is over, click the Learner view button to see how learners will see the course upon enrollment.

Please note! When a Superadmin or a Power User clicks on the Learner view button, they will be automatically enrolled in the course.