Creating, modify, and publish courses

To learn how to create courses, certifications, and learning programs in Learning Manager, read this article.

Authors can create learning objects such as courses, certifications, and learning plans. Learners can consume these learning objects, while administrators can track learners’ progress.

Courses in Learning Manager coursesincaptivateprime

Adobe Learning Manager enables authors to create courses using one or more modules related to virtual training, self-paced training, classroom training, and activities. Administrators can further use these courses to create course instances, enroll learners, assign badges, and enable feedback for these courses. They can also create learning programs, learning plans, and certifications using these courses.

Authors can use e-learning content that is created using any eLearning tool. Other supported course formats include video files, PDF, doc, docx, PPT, and PPTX.

Create a course - Basic workflow createacoursebasicworkflow

To create a course, follow the steps below:

Create a course - Advanced workflow createacourseadvancedworkflow

Gamification points

You can allocate gamification points at the course and course instance levels. With this, you can award points to different courses or instances. Learners are incentivized to take specific courses or prefer a particular course instance over others.

Set points for gamification

Aggregate learning resources

An author can decide if they want to aggregate the learning resources at the Learning Plan level or let them remain at an individual course level.

As an author, select Learning Path > Settings. Click Edit.

In the Resources section, the checkbox, Show constituent course resources aggregated at Learning Path level, when enabled displays whether resources present at course level would be shown on Learning Path level.

Scheduling Assistant

Manage conflicts in booking instructors and classrooms. If you want to know at what time and date any instructor is available before assigning him to the course, use the Scheduling Assistant.

While creating a course, for a VC or CR course, click Scheduling Assistant.

Launch scheduling assistant

The Scheduling Assistant window launches.

The Scheduling Assistant dialog

On the Scheduling Assistant, you can:

Search instructors by their names

On the Instructor field, type the name of the instructor or search for a partial instructor name. A list of instructors appear, from which you can choose an instructor.

Search for instructors

Multiple instructors can be selected but only one instructor can be assigned at a time. The selected time will be highlighted in the time conflict window. Near the instructor, a cross icon appears, which you click to remove the instructor.

Search for multiple instructors

Search instructors by skills

Search for an instructor with single or multiple skills. The search uses the AND operator.

Skills can be searched by partial or complete skill name only, not by skill level.

On the Assistant, enter the name of the instructor, location, and seat limit.

Also, you can search skill, which would be displayed after clicking on the filter icon present on the right side of Instructor search box. The screenshot below displays the button.

Search for instructors by skills

User group filter

Select the filter in the Instructor field. There is a User Group filter an Author or Custom Author can find the right instructor by using the values in the User Group.

If both filters are applied, a list of instructors displays who belong to the user group and has the selected skills.

This applies to Scheduling Assistant on the Courses or Instances page.

Filter by User Groups

Instance page

You can also access the Scheduling Assistant from the Instance page, as shown below.

The Scheduling Assistant is also available on the Instance page as well for admins, and custom admin/author.

Schedule instructors from Instances page

Search for a location

You can search for a location by specifying both the classroom name and the location region name on both the module and the Scheduling Assistant pages.

Rich Text Formatting

While creating a Course, Learning Program, Certification, or Job Aid, Authors can input different types of content such as text, image, or apply various text formatting options.

When creating a course, you can see the Rich Text Editor in the Course Overview field. You can format your content, add images, add hyperlinks, and so on.

Launch the Rich Text Editor

Similarly, you can use the Rich Text Editor to modify the description when creating a:

Learning Program

Use Rich Text Editor for a Learning Program

Certification

Use Rich Text Editor for a Certification

Job Aid

Use Rich Text Editor for a Job Aid

In addition, you can use the Rich Text Editor for other languages.

Rich text description support for headless user Interface

Why is CSS required?

Rich text is composed of HTML markup. Rendering the markup as-is would result in default styling applied by the browser. This often doesn’t go well with the style guidelines of the company. A CSS is required to meet the guidelines.

Default style

The attached CSS stylesheet contains the styling that is applied by Learning Manager. The styling is tweaked considering majority of the usecases. Download the attached CSS file and import it to your webapp according to your conventions and build system. The CSS classes defined are namespaced under ql-editor class and they don’t interfere with your existing styles.

Customize styles

The default styling may not meet everyone’s needs. The customisations can be done by overiding CSS supplied. All the styling is wrapped under ql-editor as descendant selectors. The following classes are used:

CSS file to be used for customization.

API CHANGES TO ENABLE RENDERING RICH TEXT OVERVIEWS

When customers build a headless interface, they have a need to display the learning objects in that custom user interface they are developing. For doing this, one would typically use the GET /learningObjects API that is exposed. Now that Learning Manager supports capturing “rich text” for the overview field, the data model of Learning Objects in the API responses also exposes the same. See the field named “richTextOverview” in the fragment of the model in the API response below. Also note that the field exposed earlier (“overview”) remains unchanged for backward compatibility.

{
 "data": [
 {
 "id": "string",
 "type": "string",
 "attributes": {
 …
 "localizedMetadata": [
 {
 "description": "string",
 "locale": "string",
 "name": "string",
 "overview": "string",
 "richTextOverview": "string"
 }
 ],
 …
 },
 "relationships": {
 …
 }
 }
 }
 ]
}

Customers who are already using the overview field remain unaffected in their headless interface will see just plain text as before. If customers want to take advantage of the rich text overview, they will have to create richly formatted overviews for their learning objects in the Author UI and after that Learning Manager will start returning the rich text overview as well, in addition to the plain text (as before) in the API response model.

However, to render this rich text in their UI, the customer will need to include a CSS. This is explained in detail in the following sections.

Allow multiple attempts allowmultipleattempts

Once the admin has enabled multi attempts, as an author you can configure multi attempts for an interactive e-learning module at a course or module level.

Configure multi attempts for an interactive e-learning module

Course modules coursemodules

Add modules addmodules

You can now add Content, Prework, and Testout modules. Content modules are the main modules that make up the course. Prework modules include some basic information, which can help learners get ready for the course. These modules are not mandatory for the learners to complete. Testout modules help learners skip the content and take the test if they are already aware of the content and want to take the test to fulfill the compliance requirement.

To add a content module, perform the steps below:

Checklist create-checklist

Evaluation is an important aspect of any LMS. Online assessments are one of the top ways of evaluating a learner’s understanding of a topic. But often, it’s necessary to evaluate a person’s understanding while she’s/he’s on the job by observing him/her carry out the necessary tasks.

Consider store employees or warehouse workers undergoing evaluation for the tasks they are supposed to carry out on a day to day basis. It could be the steps carried out to repair a coffee machine or the steps involved in packing a material. Instructors can evaluate employees for such tasks based on a checklist and evaluate them as Pass or Fail in the evaluation activity.

Create a checklist createachecklist

Only an Author can create a checklist. A checklist is a type of Activity module. While setting up an Activity module, you, an Author, can select an Activity as Checklist, as shown below:

Create a checklist

Once you choose the option Checklist, you see a few additional options.

Checklist Type: Choose any option, Yes/No or 1-5. If you choose Yes/No, the checklist will contain questions that can only be answered with Yes or No. If you choose 1-5, you can see a Likert checklist, where you can grade a question on a five-point scale.

Pass Criteria:

Choose an instructor or instructors who will evaluate the learner.

Also, if you have anything to comment or a note, you can add that in the Note to instructor text field.

Now, add the checklist questions. Click Add. You can only add up to 150 questions.

Add checklist questions

To add more questions, click Add more.

Save the changes, add the module, and publish the course.

Add skills addskills

On this page, enter the following details:

Assign instructors for modules assigninstructorsformodules

Observation checklist

A Checklist module can now be reviewed by managers in addition to instructors. People managers, as well as non-hierarchical managers, such as store managers or location managers, can review and complete the checklist.

Course authors can add people managers as well as non-hierarchical managers (if applicable) as reviewers by selecting these role options in the “Reviewers” section while setting up a Checklist module. This can be done at a course instance level.

Add reviewers in an activity module

Selecting the “+Managers” option will automatically enable a learner’s manager in the organization hierarchy to review the checklist. You don’t need to search and add manager names individually.

If your account administrator has set up non-hierarchical manager roles (such as location managers or site managers) by using the Active Fields option, those manager roles will be available for you to select and enable them to review the checklist.

You don’t need to search and add manager names individually. When learners enroll in the checklist course, it will automatically send a notification to their managers/store managers for review along with any selected Instructor. This workflow makes it simple for authors to not mention individual managers’ names.

In the sample screenshot provided above, selecting the “+Store Managers” option will automatically enable the non-hierarchial manager aligned to the learner to review the checklist. Note that “store” here will be replaced by the active field defined by the administrator.

Updates to the checklist module also include notifications to instructors and managers when a learner is enrolled in a course that has a checklist module in it. The reviewer gets a notification in the Learning Manager notification center as well as in the instructor/manager dashboard that checklist action is due.

The reviewer will be able to view information about all pending checklist review items from the Checklists menu as well as the Notifications menu when they log in as an instructor/manager.

Approvals for certification

After clicking Review Checklist, the reviewer can complete the evaluation.

Review pending checklist review items

Reporting can be downloaded on checklists, which include detailed information on learner evaluation, reviewer name, role, and e-mail.

The Checklist Report csv has the new and updated fields:

Preview a course previewacourse

Once the course is created and saved as a draft, you can preview the course as a learner, and then publish it to make it available in the course catalog.

To preview the course, click Preview as learner.

Preview a course as learner

This opens the course Overview page for you where you can see the modules, their order, and other details related to the course.

View modules and other related details

To see how the learners can experience this course, click each of these modules to start playing it. This starts playing the course in the Fluidic Player.

Publish a course publishacourse

After previewing the course as a learner, you can publish the course, so that it becomes available for learners to consume. Note that the course is still in a draft mode.

A typical course life cycle looks as follows:

Workflow of a course lifecycle

To publish the course that you had created, click Publish on the top-right corner of the page.

Publish a course

On the confirmation pop-up message that appears, click OK.

The course is now available in the course catalog.

View a course viewacourse

You can view a list of all available courses as an author. To view all the courses in Learning Manager account, click Course Catalog. To view all your authored courses in Learning Manager, click My Courses.

On the course card, hover on the options, and click View Course.

View a course

The course information window displays. The course is in a read-only mode. To modify the course, click Edit.

Retire a course retireacourse

If you retire a course, you cannot enroll new learners to the course. Learners who are already enrolled can take the course.

To retire a course, on the course card, hover on the options, and click Retire Course.

Retire a course

On the confirmation pop-up that appears, click Yes.

Duplicate a course duplicateacourse

You can create a copy of the course and then modify the course. If you want to back up your course, you can duplicate the course.

Search for courses searchforcourses

Adobe Learning Manager makes it easier for you to find the courses of your choice quickly. You can search for your courses in the following ways:

Search field: Click the search bar on the upper-right corner of the Course Catalog page. Type the course name or any keywords associated with your courses. You can also search using tags that are added during course creation. Tags are searchable inside Search Courses field, which means the tags are displayed in search field as you type.

Search for courses

Filter list of courses: You can filter the courses by state such as All, Published, Draft, and Retired. Based on your choice, you can view the filtered list of courses and select the required courses.

As an author, you can also sort the courses to better locate your required course. Click Sort by and choose alphabetical ascending order, alphabetical descending order, course created date, course updated date, and effectiveness of courses.

Filter list of courses

Enroll learners in a course enrolllearnersinacourse

To enroll learners to the courses, or to allow managers to nominate learners for the courses, you must switch to the Administrator mode, as only administrators have the rights to enroll learners for the courses.

To switch to the Admin mode,

Changes to the Course Instance page for Connect VC modules connect-vc

While retrieving a Connect course, you can create two types of rooms:

A persistent url is always fixed. But for users who do not have Connect and their own meeting room, then they must use a dynamic meeting room at runtime. People can then join their meeting.

Dynamic meeting room options

You can now change the url of the persistent room on the Course Instance page.

Unenroll learners from a course unenrolllearnersfromacourse

While creating a course, an author can enable the option Learners can unenroll themselves, so that learners who are taking the course can unroll from the course.

An Administrator can also unenroll learners from the course.

Unenroll learners from a course

For more information see Unenrolling learners.

Add course modules for Captivate and Presenter addcoursemodulesforcaptivateandpresenter

You can also publish the course modules to Learning Manager from Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter software using the Publish menu.

You can see the published module on the Learning Manager modules page. For more information, see Publish project to Adobe Learning Manager.

Course effectiveness courseeffectiveness

Course effectiveness score helps the authors to evaluate the courses which are not working as per learners needs and modify them accordingly. Course effectiveness is evaluated to understand the usefulness of a course to the learner. It is a combination of results from learner feedback on the course content. The course quiz results for a learner and the manager’s feedback evaluating a learner based on learning from the course.

In My Courses, an author can view the course effectiveness rating on the course thumbnails as shown in the below snapshot. You can see the rating for this course as 100.

The course effectiveness rating value is arrived considering L1, L2 & L3 feedback values. To view the breakup of each feedback, click the course effectiveness value. A pop-up menu appears as shown below.

Calculation of course effectiveness

In this sample snapshot, 1 out 1 user received all the three types of feedback, hence the score is 100/100. From this table, you can understand the missing feedback to improve overall effectiveness. To view how course effectiveness is calculated, click the down-arrow at the lower-right corner of the pop-up menu.

As per the pie-chart shown above, more weightage is given to L3 feedback from manager.

Certifications and Learning Programs certificationsandlearningprograms

Both Author and Admin can create certifications and learning programs for learners from the Author app. From the home page, click either Certifications, or Learning Programs to create the respective learning objects.

To know how to create and manage certifications and learning programs, see Certifications and Learning Programs.

Mandatory courses for external certification mandatorycoursesforexternalcertification

In earlier releases of Learning Manager, course completion from learner in External certification was not mandatory to complete a Certificate.

You can now make courses mandatory by enabling the option Set required courses as Mandatory for Certificate Completion in the Curriculum tab.

Set mandatory courses to complete a certificate

When courses are set as mandatory:

Frequently Asked Questions frequentlyaskedquestions