Introduction
In your learning platform, your admin may consider you as an expert in a certain field or topic, which means that you can help other learners better contribute to your platform’s knowledge repository by peer-reviewing the content that they’re sharing, answering questions, and more. Channels in your platform may relate to the topics in which you’re considered an expert, and thus you may be assigned as the expert of that channel.
As a channel expert, you will be assigned to manage one or more channels in the platform. This means that you can review content uploaded by the learners and, through the peer review process, approve or reject the content. You can also answer questions from learners about the channel that you manage or about specific assets. This article outlines all of the tasks that you may have as an expert.
Depending on your platform configuration, you may not have access to all expert tasks, including the ability to view and answer questions.
This article outlines how to use the informal learning approach in your platform as an expert. Learn how to share assets and use the informal learning approach as a learner.
My expert tasks
Once new content has been uploaded to a channel that you’re managing, you will see a notification in the platform. To see all of your notifications, press the bell icon at the top of your platform. To see all of your tasks, press the My expert tasks item in the main menu.
You may see one or two sections, depending on your platform configuration:
- Assets to review/approve. This tab shows assets that have been uploaded by users but have not been published because they are waiting to be approved by you as the channel’s expert via the peer review process. You can view all content to review, only new content, and muted content. To review an asset, you need to use the peer review process. Refer to the next section of this article to learn more about it.
- Questions to answer. This tab shows all questions from channels or training material in courses that are assigned to the expert. You will see all the open questions, new questions, and silenced questions.
Please note: when the Allow users to mention other users, channels, and assets in the platform option is active in the Discover, Coach & Share Settings menu, the layout of the Assets to review/approve tab of the My expert task page is aligned with the layout of the Questions and answers page.
The peer review process
You can find the content needing to be peer-reviewed by you in the Assets to review/approve tab in the My expert tasks area (access this page from the main menu).
To silence an asset, click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the asset’s row and select Silence asset. The asset will be removed from the In review tab and placed in the Silenced tab of the My expert tasks page.
To review an asset, click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the asset's row and select Review and approve. Now you are on the page of the asset that a user uploaded and shared in one or more of the channels that you manage. The user’s content will be published in the channel (or channels) that you manage only after you as the channel expert review and approve the content. You will see an indication of the channels where the user wants to publish their asset at the top of the asset page.
Editing an asset
Before approving or rejecting the asset, you can also edit it. To do so, click on the ellipsis button in the action bar in the top right corner, then select the Edit button that appears below.
You as an expert can edit the details of any assets in the channels that you manage, but please note if an asset is shared in different channels managed by different experts, no expert can edit or delete the asset.
Here, in the General tab of the page, you are able to edit the details of the content, change its thumbnail, add new tags and skills or edit existing ones. Please note that you cannot replace the asset’s link or file. You can also set the option to disable and hide questions, answers and comments related to that specific asset. If you flag this option, users won’t be able to add questions, answers or comments on the asset page. Remember that users won’t see this option on the edit page of the assets they uploaded.
In the case of file uploads, you will also be able to change the setting to allow or prevent users from downloading the file on their devices.
Finally, you can delete the asset by pressing the corresponding button.
Learn more about editing and sharing assets.
Reviewing an asset
Once you have edited the content (only if needed), you can go back to the asset’s page and decide to approve or reject it.
To approve the content, press the Approve asset button. The asset will be published in the channels where the user chose to share it and for which you are an expert, and the user will be notified about your decision.
To reject the content, press the Reject asset button. This asset will not be published in the channels where the user chose to share it and for which you are an expert. Please note that the asset could be published in other channels where you are not the expert and the channel’s expert approved the content. The user will be notified about your decision.
Additionally, from the asset’s page, you can also rate the content using the stars. These ratings will be visible in the channels where the asset is published.
Notification for the expert’s peer review
When a user uploads an asset sharing it within a channel which requires expert’s peer review, you as an expert receive a notification in the platform’s Notification area, informing you that you have a new asset to review. Simply click on the Review asset button in the text of the notification to open the asset’s page and start your review.
You can also find the assets that need your review in the Assets to review/approve tab in the My expert tasks area as explained in the previous chapters.
Managing questions and answers
Once the content has been published, any user can ask questions about it, which triggers the coaching process, whereby you as an expert (and other users, if the administrator has granted them permission) can respond and evaluate the responses of others. A discussion is only considered complete when a response is tagged as the best one. Learn more about questions and answers.
In the Questions to answer tab of the My expert tasks page, you will find the questions associated with channels or training material in courses assigned to you as an expert.
To silence a question, click on the ellipsis menu at the end of the question’s row and select Silence question. The question will be removed from the Open questions tab and placed in the Silenced tab of the My expert tasks page.
To answer a question, click on Answer now below the question, then type your answer in the text box and press the Answer now button to send the answer. The user asking the question will be notified of the new answer.
Adding video tooltips
Tooltips are short overlay messages (up to 100 characters) that you, as an expert, can add to screen recordings or videos to provide learners with extra information on the content or to stimulate users’ attention.
You can add tooltips to the video you upload, and to any video uploaded by any user in the channels that you manage, but note that you cannot add tooltips when you upload a link of a video (a link of a video from YouTube for example).
In order to add tooltips to a video, once it is uploaded to the channel, enter the video page, and click on the ellipsis button in the top right corner, then select Video tooltips. The tooltip editor page shows the video in the upper area, and the video timeline in the lower part of the page.
Click the plus button in the tooltip editor area to add a new tooltip in the video timeline. Place it in the correct position, and make it last as long as you need by extending the tooltip length in the timeline. You can choose between a dark or light style for better visibility according to your content. Add your text, then press Save.
The tooltip will be displayed at the playbar position. You can add more than one tooltip for the same timing, in this case, a new layer will be added to the timeline. You can select a tooltip from the video timeline to edit, position and duration in time. The minimum duration is 3 seconds without any limitation in max length. To remove a tooltip, click on Delete. To edit a tooltip, select the tooltip and proceed with the changes, then press Save to confirm. Click Back to view mode to go back to your video.
My coaching activities
You can view a summary of your expert activity in the platform by accessing the My coaching activities page in the main menu. At the top of the page, you will see the list of the channels for which you were appointed as an expert.
Your activity is divided into two tabs: Coaching activity and Peer review activity. You can switch between the two tabs to view the different statistics. You may see one or both tabs, depending on your platform configuration.
In both tabs, you can use the Time frame filter to choose whether you want to view weekly, monthly, or yearly stats. In the Coaching activity tab, you can view an overview of statistics of your answers: number of answered questions, average answer time, number of likes and dislikes, and how many times your answers were marked as the best. You will also find graphs showing your activity per channel, the received likes and dislikes, and the number of questions answered over time. Finally, you will see a ranking of your answers with regard to:
- Quality. Number of best answers, liked answers, or unsatisfactory answers provided
- First-to-answer. How many times you were the first expert to answer a question
- Participation. How many total answers you provided.
In the Peer Review Activity tab, you will see the number of assets you have reviewed and published and graphs showing your activity per channel and the number of assets reviewed over time. Finally, you will see a ranking of your reviewed assets with regard to:
- Participation. How many total assets you reviewed.
- First to review. How many times you were the first expert to review an asset.
Viewing a user's personal channel
As an expert, you have the ability to view a user’s personal channel, which will display all of the shared assets of the user. When viewing an information learning asset within a channel that you manage, press the content author’s name.
You will be redirected to their personal channel, where you can see all of the content updated by the user.
Please note that as an expert, you can only view published content in channels that are visible to you when viewing another user’s personal channel.