Managing Courses
As a site manager, you have the ability to manage settings of courses and activities at a site-wide level.
To manage Course Formats, go to the admin menu (settings cog) and select Plugins. Then on the dropdown menu, select Course formats > Manage course formats:
Here, you can enable/disable which course formats (i.e. course layouts and how they appear) can be selected when creating a course by clicking on the eye icons:
To manage Activities, on the dropdown menu select Activity modules and Manage activities:
. Here, you can enable/disable the activity types that can be utilised when creating course content by selecting the eye icons:
Creating a Course Category
A Category is used to group courses together.
To create a Category, go to the admin menu (settings cog) and select Courses and categories, followed by then click Create new category to complete the page shown below under the Course categories section:
Here, you can give the category a name and select a Parent Category to group a Category under another level. If selecting Top instead then the Category will show on its own.:
Once complete, click Create category
Creating a Course
To create a Course, go to the admin menu (settings cog) and select Courses and categories followed by Create course so that this page will appear:, under the Awards section, click Create new course:
You will then be directed to the below page where you can fill out your course details, any fields with an asterisk must be completed:
Here you can complete the course setup by choosing from the following settings:
- Course Category - which category the course sits within
- Course Visibility - the course can remain hidden whilst it is in its setup phase
- Course Type - whether it be e-learning, seminar, or blended
- Course Start and End Date - if applicable
- Course Format - the layout of the course (format examples are detailed to the right)
- Appearance - how you would like the course to appear
- Completion Tracking - whether you would like to course completion to be tracked
- Enrolled Audience - you can enrol an audience to a course rather than individual users
- Groups - whether you want users to be grouped i.e. if they have attended a seminar as a cohort, for instance
Once you are happy with the course set up, click 'Save and return' to return to the main Courses & Categories page, or click 'Save and display' to display your newly created course:
Adding an Activity
Activities make up the course content and is what candidates see when they enter a course.
Once your course has been created, you will be able to add activities to it by selecting the 'Turn editing on' button button in the top right:
Once editing is turned on, site managers and course creators will then be able to access the option to add activities to the course by clicking '+ Add an activity or resource':
Enrolling Users onto a Course
Once your course has been created and content added, you can enrol candidates to the course. You can either do this by enrolling an audience i.e. a group of users in bulk via the Course settings (outlined above), or by enrolling individual users.
To enrol individual users, when in the course you wish to enrol users to, select Users > Enrolled users on the dropdown menu in the top left:
On the following screen, you will be able to search for users already enrolled onto the course as well as enrol new users via the Enrol users button in the top right:
Backing up a Course
Backups can be performed on AssessBook allowing you to copy a course to save content and then restore a course to an external site.
To back up individual courses, navigate to the selected course, and on the dropdown menu in the top left, under the Administration block select Backup:
Once selected, you will be prompted through the backup wizard which will allow you to select which aspects of the course are backed-up via:
- Initial settings i.e. which components will be backed up, e.g. users, blocks, activities, etc.
- Schema settings i.e. which parts of the course to back up
Restoring and Importing a Course
Once a course backup has been performed, the course can then be restored. This is a common way of moving/copying specific courses. This can be useful to add content from one course to the existing content of another course, for instance.
To do this, select Restore on the dropdown menu:
From here, you can:
- Select File - select the course you would like to restore
- Destination - select in which category you would like the course to be located
- Settings - select which parts of the backed-up course you wish to include
- Schema - name and start date of the course
- Restore the course
Another way to add activities and resources from one course to another course is to use the import function.
To do this, select Import on the dropdown menu Administration block:
From here, you can:
- Course selection - select from which course you want to import content
- Initial settings - select which components will be imported
- Schema settings - select which parts of the course are imported
- Import the course
Recycle Bin
Another useful feature is the Recycle bin which is used to restore deleted courses, activities and resources.
Once on a course, on the dropdown menu, select Recycle bin, followed by the activity, resource or course you wish to restore:
Any course materials that are available for restoration will be listed below:
