The v12 version is yet another release that brings loads of administrative goodies š. The biggest single addition is the completion criteria feature that allows you to control the criteria for course completion and how the course should behave once it's been completed. But there are loads of larger and smaller features and updates.
Click on a feature to automatically scroll down to it:
Completion Criteria
We know that our customers use Learnster in many different scenarios and for different purposes and that the way courses should function and behave in different situations varies a lot. One use case is better support for courses where the course content is frequently updated, but it's not necessary for learners that have already completed the course to redo new or updated content. To address this scenario, and possibly other complex use cases in the future, we have introduced a feature we call Completion Criteria.
With Completion Criteria, you will be able to control the criteria for course completion and how the course should behave once it's been completed. In version 12, we have implemented four different completion criteria:
Off - in this mode, course progress will not be tracked and the course can never be completed. This mode is useful if you would like to have a course that never can be completed.
Static - in Static mode, course completion is connected to course progress and scheduled events. A course is completed when the user reaches 100% progress and the date of the last completed event has passed. Once a user has reached a completed state, the course will stay completed no matter how course content is changed or added to. Course progress will however stay updated with content changes. Meaning that if new content is added, progress will be recalculated and will go below 100% for previously completed users. But, as stated above, this will not affect the completion status for already completed users.
Static mode should be used for courses where content updates should not affect already completed users course status.
Dynamic - in Dynamic mode, using the same logic as in Static mode, course completion is connected to course progress and scheduled events. A course is completed when the user reaches 100% progress and the date of the last completed event has passed. But, in Dynamic mode, course completion is always directly connected to user progress and if a user's progress goes below 100% due to new course content being added, the course will automatically be moved from "Completed" to "In Progress". This means that adding new content to the course will change completed users course status and the course will be automatically moved from the course history to "In Progress".
Dynamic mode should be used for courses where it's important that new course content is completed by both new and old course participants.
Manual approval - in Manual approval mode, course completion is manually controlled by an administrator or a Content designer. Course progress is tracked the same way as in Static and Dynamic modes but does not affect course completion in any way. Rather, an administrator or a Content designer sets the course as passed or failed for users.
Manual approval should be used when a human should make the judgment whether a course participant has passed the course or not.
Completion criteria settings are found in course settings: Course > Settings > Completion Criteria
In case the completion criteria is changed for an active course, the rules and logic of the mode you change to are applied. The completion criteria for Static and Dynamic modes is that users are set as completed when they reach 100% progress and the date of the last completed event has passed. This means that when changing to Static or Dynamic modes, all users that have 100% progress will be set as completed if the date for the last scheduled event has passed. All other users will not get the completion state. For Manual Approval, the completion criteria is for administrators or instructors to set the course as passed or failed. When switching to Manual Approval, users will have to be set as passed to be completed, no matter their earlier state.
In all versions before v12, all courses were effectively in Dynamic, Manual Approval or Off modes. During the update to v12, courses will automatically keep their current mode and will be set as Dynamic, Manual Approval or Off. Starting with v12, all new courses will be set as Static by default.
Updated Course Statistics page
To better reflect the course states introduced as part of the completion criteria feature and to improve the overall representation and usability, we have updated the course statistics page to include the following data:
Learners - the name and email address of users
Enrolled - the course enrollment date
Attendance - attended X out of Y scheduled events (only shown if course attendance is enabled)
Progress - the course progress percent
Status - user's course status which can have one of the following states:
NOT STARTED - the user has not done any course activities or the date of the first scheduled event has not passed
IN PROGRESS - the user has done some course activities or the date of the first scheduled event has passed
WAITING FOR APPROVAL - the user has assignments pending approval
FAILED - the user has failed assignments or failed quizzes without attempts left
COMPLETED - the course is fully completed which for Static and Dynamic modes mean that the user has reached 100% progress, there are no pending assignments or quizzes and the date of the last scheduled event has passed and for Manual Approval mode it means that an administrator or instructor has set the course as passed
Completion date - course completion date
Pass/Fail - whether the course is set as passed or failed (only shown in Manual Approval mode)
Changes to CSV and Excel exports
To reflect the completion criteria changes, we have updated CSV and Excel exports with the following changes.
course/Learners & course/Progress
Added Course Status column that can have the following status data: Not Started, In Progress, Waiting for approval, Failed, Completed.
Removed Course Passed since the same information is available with Course Status (see above).
Removed Last Activity Date/Course Finished Date since this was a combination of the new User's latest course Activity Date and Course Completion Date. By splitting them it's easier to understand and process this data.
Added User's latest course Activity Date which shows the latest date a user finished some course activities.
Added Course Completion Date which is the date the course got a course completed status for the user.
team/Learners
Added Course Status column that can have the following status data: Not Started, In Progress, Waiting for approval, Failed, Completed.
Removed Course Passed since the same information is available with Course Status (see above).
Removed Last Activity Date/Course Finished Date since this was a combination of the new User's latest course Activity Date and Course Completion Date. By splitting them it's easier to understand and process this data.
Added User's latest course Activity Date which shows the latest date a user finished some course activities.
Added Course Completion Date which is the date the course got a course completed status for the user.
Interface changes in Learnster Studio
To improve usability and make administration easier and more efficient we have made a number of design and interface changes in Learnster Studio.
Groups feature in Learnster Studio
To make it easier to manage many items we have added a grouping feature in Learnster Studio. With groups, you will be able to create folder-like groups to easier manage large quantities of items.
Groups are available for:
Library > Pages
Library > Quiz
Library > Survey
Library > Custom Messages
Automation > Tags
Automation > Advanced Rules
Settings > Location
Redesigned implementation of calendar invitations
In previous releases, we tried to find a unified way to send calendar invitations that will work with all major calendar services and clients and where we would send one single invitation email for courses with multiple scheduled events. Unfortunately, due to technical limitations and differences in how different calendar services, clients and client versions work, we have found that it's not possible to send multiple scheduled events in a single email in a way that will work across all services and clients. Because of this, we took a step back and reevaluated our approach, and made the decision that the only way to make calendar invitations work reliably is to send a separate email per scheduled event. starting with v12, we will send one calendar invitation email per scheduled event (physical or online/webinar). To support this, we have added a new calendar invitation notification that can be found under Settings > Notifications > Course Enrollment > Learner invited to scheduled event via calendar.
We have also moved the "add to calendar" button in Learnster U from the course information page to the course outline next to the date of the scheduled event.
Log of administrator and other actions to course progress
Since it's possible for administrators, instructors, and machine (API or automation rules) to make changes to a user's course progress, it can sometimes be useful to know exactly what has happened with a user's course progress. If an administrator or other will make any changes to the course progress, we will now show information about these actions under course > Progress > user.
We have moved all settings to child level
In previous versions, for parent-child courses, some settings had to be configured on the parent level and some on the child level. To simplify administration and prepare for future features we have moved all settings to the child level.
Publish course block X days after previous block was completed
It is now possible to publish a course block X days after a user finished the previous block.
Keep users assigned to courses when removing tags?
Tags can be used to assign users to courses. In previous releases, when deleting a tag or removing users or courses from a tag, users that were assigned to these courses via the tag were removed from the course. Sometimes, it's desirable to be able to delete tags or remove courses or users from tags, without affecting assigned users. In v12, the system will ask you if you would like to remove or keep assigned users.
Clear SCORM progress for ongoing users
One of the SCORM features Learnster supports is for users that pause their SCORM training somewhere in the middle to be returned to the same place they left the next time they open the SCORM. If you publish a SCORM file and at a later point want to make changes to it, as long as you don't make too big changes that will alter the internal layout of the SCORM, returning users to where they left off after the change will work fine. But for larger changes, loading of the SCORM might fail for returning users. To resolve this, we have added the possibility to clear the SCORM progress when replacing SCORM files. Please note that this will not affect the SCORM activity progress in Learnster for users that have already done the SCORM activity, they will keep their completed status.
Send direct emails using your email client
In previous versions, Learnster has used its internal email sending system when administrators, instructors, or team managers wanted to send direct emails to users. To improve the deliverability of emails and use a familiar interface when sending emails, we will now automatically open your email client pasting in selected users' email addresses.
Please note that this will not affect the system emails in any way.
Allow navigation between questions in quizzes
We have added the option to enable users to navigate between questions, going back and forth, in quizzes. You can find this setting for the respective quiz under Quiz Settings > Allow navigation between questions.
Course Certificate improvements
We have made a number of improvements to course certificates:
You can use a custom certificate logotype per course. If a course-specific logotype is not used, the default logotype from Settings > Customize > Certificate > Logotype will be used.
You can use up to 1000 characters for the certificate description.
You can use a course-specific custom name for the course instructor.
You can use a custom Issued by name per course. If a course-specific Issued by name is not used, the default one from Settings > Customize > Certificate > Issued by will be used.
You can choose if the course completion date or the date of the user's last finished activity should be used.
You can choose to include the course length in the certificate.
You can easily preview the certificate.
We have also adjusted the design of the certificates. See below for an example of the new design.
Callout text activity
We have added a callout text activity that you can use in your content. With the callout activity, you can choose the text and background color and the avatar icon.
Change order of checklist items
It's now possible to change the order of checklist items using drag and drop.
Change text color
We have added the possibility to choose which text color you want to use in text activities.
Other changes
We have removed the Video and SCORM activities choices when creating a new page from the course outline since these choices were not widely making the call to action interface cleaner and easier to use.
"Tags" menu is now called "Automation" and "Tag rules" are now called "Advanced Automation".
We have added support for integrating with Teamtailor. Learnster will be listed in Teamtailor's Marketplace shortly and you can find Integrations under Settings > Other > Integrations in Learnster Studio.
Update to SCIM data mappings - we now map the AD attribute physicalDeliveryOffice to the user attribute Company in Learnster.
We have added UK English as a language choice.
To unify support and contact paths, the support chat in Learnster U function will be turned off during the rollout of v12. If learners want to contact their administrator or other support, they can easily navigate to Support i Learnster U and use the contact field āCourse Administratorā. The message will be sent to the email of your choosing in Settings > General > Workspace email. Please check your workspace email to make sure your contact information is updated!
(The support chat function will still be available for administrators in Learnster Studio!)
That's all for this time. We hope you will enjoy this release! š