Tutorials

Course Tracks

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COURSE TRACKS

OVERVIEW

image3002For Premier and Enterprise account holders, LMS Managers can manage course Tracks. Instructors can attach a course track to a course but cannot edit them.

At its base level, a Course Track is a Course Category. As such, you may choose to use Course Tracks as an organizational mechanism. However, Course Tracks have two notable features associated with them:
  • Course Tracks have both notification and engagement triggers attached to them. This means that you can, for example, award a certificate upon completion of all courses within a track.
  • A Course Track may be configured as a prerequisite for another course, allowing you to ensure that your students complete several courses defined by the track before beginning a course.
  • USE A COURSE TRACK WITH AN ENGAGEMENT TRIGGER

    Course Tracks have both notification and engagement triggers attached to them. This means that you can, for example, award a certificate upon completion of all courses within a track.

    Engagements can be created by heading to the main menu ADMIN > ENGAGEMENT > CREATE ENGAGEMENT :

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    If you are on the ALL ENGAGEMENT screen, select the Create New Engagement Button: course5d-image015

    WarningBEFORE creating an engagement, you must create the related content to add to the engagement either achievement, emails, or certificate to trigger the event.

    Steps To Create an Engagement

    • Enter the engagement title, then under Engagement Options
    • Set the Triggering Event:

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    • Select a course track.

      For example, if you choose ‘Student completes a course track’ the next field will ask you to ‘Select a Course Track’:

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    • Set your Engagement Type:

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    • Select an Engagement. Put your mouse in the field and wait for the engagement to populate:

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    WarningYou must create an achievement, email, or certificate engagement otherwise nothing will appear in the Select an Engagement dropdown.

    If you have created the related achievement, email, or certificate engagement, choose it from the Select an Engagement dropdown:

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  • Engagement Delay: If desired, you can enter the number of delays before the event is triggered. Enter 0 (the number zero) or leave blank to trigger immediately.
  • When complete, in the PUBLISH panel, select the Publish button.

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image3002Learn more by viewing the user guides on Engagements.

USE A COURSE TRACK WITH AS A PREREQUISITE

A Course Track may be configured as a prerequisite for another course, allowing you to ensure that your students complete several courses defined by the track before beginning a course.

In the Course Settings page under COURSE OPTIONS > Restrictions tab you have the option to toggle the Enable Prerequisite to on.

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By selecting the desired prerequisite course and/or course track requires students to complete specific courses and/or course tracks before they can access the content.

image3002Go to the Create Course section in the User Guide for more information on Course Settings.

CREATE A COURSE TRACK

To create a Course Track, navigate to the main menu, select COURSES > CREATE & MANAGE > navigate to COURSE TRACKS:

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Course Tracks page:

  • On the left side of the page, you can add a new course track. Type in the name, add a slug, decide if it is a parent or child and add a description. Select the Add New Course Track button at the bottom.
  • To the right is a search box where you can enter a word, or series of words, and click the “Search Course Tracks” button to search and display all the Tracks meeting your search words.
  • To delete multiple Tracks all at once, use the check boxes then select the Bulk Actions drop down, select Delete, and then select Apply.
  • If you already have tracks, you will see a table of tracks and when you scroll your mouse over the title you can choose to Edit, Quick Edit, Delete, or View the track:

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ADD A NEW COURSE TRACK

There are four pieces of information associated with each new Track: the name, slug, track parent, and description:

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Track Name

To reiterate, the Track Name  must  be unique.

Track Slug

The Track slug must be unique. The Track Slug is used in the URL. For example, setting a Track Name of “Recipes” and a Track Slug of “food” would show all “Recipes” posts with a URL like example.com/course/food/.

Track Parent

Use this drop-down if you want to make this Track a sub-track; you will select the sub-track’s Parent here. For example, you may have a Track called “Photos” but want to add further clarification about the subject of a particular “Photos” post. You could add “Oregon Coast” and “Ice Storm” as sub-tracks to the “Photos” Track; “Photos” would be the Parent of these two new sub-tracks:

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Description

Track Descriptions are optional. You may still find them useful from an administration point of view.

Add Track

The most important part is the Add New Course Track button. Once you have entered in all the information about your new Course Track, use this button to save it.

TABLE OF TRACKS

This table (on the right) lists all your tracks by row. Sub tracks are displayed beneath their parents and are prefaced by long dashes. These dashes are not part of a tracks name; they are there only to show hierarchy.

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The table of tracks contains the following columns:

A checkbox that when clicked (checked), ‘selects’ that particular Track to be deleted when the Delete button is clicked.

EDIT TRACK

This part of the Sub-panel only displays when you click on a Tracks’ Name. It is possible to edit four pieces of information associated with each Track: the name, the slug, the parent, and the description.

Category name

To reiterate, the Category name  must  be unique.

Category Slug

Again, the Track slug  must  be unique.

Category Parent

Use this drop-down if you want to make this Track a sub-Track; you will select the sub-Track’s Parent here. For example, you may have a Track called “Photos” but want to add further clarification about the subject of a particular “Photos” post. You could add “Oregon Coast” and “Ice Storm” as sub-Tracks to the “Photos” Track; “Photos” would be the parent of these two new sub-Tracks.

Description

Track descriptions are optional. Some themes take advantage of Track descriptions, others do not, so having Descriptions may or may not modify the way tracks are displayed for your site.

Update

Once you’ve changed the Track information, use this button to save the changes.

Delete

Select this button to delete your track.

QUICK EDIT

Quick Edit allows you to quickly change the track name and/or slug if desired:

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image3002After you make your changes, don’t forget to select the Update Course Track button.

VIEW

After creating a Course Track and adding a course to a track you can view and share a filtered Course Catalog of only courses in a specific track by using the COURSE TRACK Page.

This page is generated dynamically and will look like your base Course Catalog except it will only display courses from the specified track.

You can find a link to a COURSE TRACK page by following these steps:

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Select Edit Course Track to return to the EDIT COURSE TRACK page make any necessary changes:

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ADD A NEW COURSE TRACK

Adding a track to a course is easy. For an existing course, go to COURSES > ALL COURSES > find the course and select EDIT COURSE SETTINGS. Or if you are creating a brand-new course, go to COURSES > CREATE COURSE.

In the COURSE TRACKS panel, select one of the tracks that are already in the list:

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If you have an LMS Manager role you can quick add a new top-level track.

For an existing course, go to COURSES > ALL COURSES > find the course and select EDIT COURSE SETTINGS. Or if you are creating a brand-new course, go to COURSES > CREATE COURSE.

In the Course Tracks panel, select ‘Add New Course Track’.

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To make a Track a sub-Track, be sure to select the Parent Track from the drop-down list. In this example, Safety Measures is a sub-track for Aviation:

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When done, in the PUBLISH panel, select Publish or Update:

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On the ALL COURSES page, you can view and filtered by your Course Tracks. Every Course Track is a hotlink, making it easy to filter:

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