Introduction

The main goal of your platform is to help you create and manage courses, from training material to the course layout and properties, up to course reports. E-learning courses are completely delivered online, do not involve instructors, and do not require learners to attend them at the same time, and from a physical location.

This article is a guide on the creation and management of e-learning 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 course management article of the Knowledge Base.

Please take a look at the Knowledge Base article on ILT and VILT courses for more details on how to manage classroom courses and webinars.

Creating an e-learning course

To create a new e-learning 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 E-Learning course type, 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.

The course description helps 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, and 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 the 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 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 its 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. 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 hamburger menu 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 from the Central repository into a course chapter of the article of the Knowledge Base on the Central repository. 

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

Enrolling users

Move to the Enrollments tab to enroll users in the course and manage enrollments and waiting lists.

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 un-assign courses in catalogs, learning plans and channels directly from the course edit view. To do so, click the ellipsis menu at the end of a course row, and then click Edit. On the next page, 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 and learning plans 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 e-learning course

To duplicate an e-learning course, access the Course management page from the Admin Menu. Find the course in the list, then press the ellipsis button at the end of the course's row and select Duplicate.

In the right panel, use the corresponding text area to set a title for the new course.

In the Options section, set if you wish to:

• Duplicate the training material of the master course
• Copy the course widgets of the source course. When duplicating widgets, the widget settings are restored to their default values in the new course, make sure you re-configure them as in the source course if needed.
• Enroll users from the master course into the new course. When Power Users (with granted permissions) duplicate a course and choose to duplicate the enrollments from the master course, only the enrollments of the users they are currently managing will be duplicated. If you select this option alone or with the Copy widgets option, you can duplicate up to 3,000 enrollments. However, if you combine this option with the Duplicate training material option or select all three options simultaneously, the duplication limit may be lower.

If there are mandatory course additional fields set in the platform, the Additional Information tab is also displayed in the right panel. You'll be required to fill in the mandatory course additional fields to be able to duplicate. You can either keep the additional data of the master course or set new values.

When finished, press Confirm. The new course will be listed in the course management page.

When duplicating a course, remember that:

• Non-mandatory course additional fields and the enrollment additional fields are not duplicated.
• When Power Users duplicate a course, associations to catalogs are duplicated only if assigned as resources and the Power User has Courses / View, Courses / Edit, Course Catalogs / View, and Course Catalogs / Edit permissions.
• When Superadmins duplicate a course, associations to catalogs are not duplicated.
• Associations to learning plans are not duplicated.
  

If you select the option to duplicate the training material, any changes made to any of the training material that was duplicated will be handled as follows:

• SCORM, TinCan, slides (from Slides Converter) and files: if you modify the copied training material, it will be also modified in the course from where it was copied, and vice-versa. If you delete the training material from the source course, it will not be deleted from the copied course, and vice-versa. 
• AICC, HTML page, survey, test, LTI, Youtube video and assignment: if you modify the copied training material, it will only be modified in the copied course.
• Video files: if you modify the copy of the training material, the platform creates a new file and you will modify only the file associated to the copied course

Deleting a 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 certifications, the channels, 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. 

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.

Notifications

If you want your users and managers to immediately know when certain events have occurred, make sure that the Notifications app is active in your platform, and that you have correctly created and configured the relevant notifications.

Notes about notifications

• Users and managers will only receive notifications if the Notification app is active in the platform and if you, as the Superadmin, have properly set up the relevant notification.
• Users, Power Users and Superadmins enrolled in a course as a learner will receive notifications as a learner, regardless of their other access levels. This may cause an individual to receive duplicate or similar notifications on the same subject matter.