ARCHIVED: E Training for content contributors

This ARCHIVED: E Training information is for content contributors. Learners seeking assistance should see ARCHIVED: E Training for learners.

• Accessing the content contributor portal
• The test environment
• Creating courses
  • Importing an online course from existing materials
  • Creating a new online course from scratch
• Editing course details
• Instructor Led Training courses
• Adding resources
• Assessments and surveys
• Converting PowerPoint materials to Adobe Captivate presentations
• Publishing to SCORM
• Course bundles
• Enrollment keys
• Reporting

Accessing the content contributor portal

If you need access to the content contributor portal, fill out and submit the Administrative Access Request Form; you only need to do this once.

If your request for content contributor rights in E Training has been approved, go to Manage E Training Content in One.IU, and click Start. You may be prompted to authenticate to the Central Authentication Service (CAS).

The test environment

Course managers will be sent instructions for accessing the E Training test environment, which is identical to the production environment. Materials cannot be copied from the test environment to production. Keep the original file(s) for any materials loaded into E Training in a place where you can continue to access them. E Training applies settings to your materials, so the actual information stays the same; these are the settings you will want to make note of as you move courses from one environment to another.

The E Training testing environment (beta) is refreshed periodically to clean out all of the practice courses that new content contributors make. You will receive email prior to any changes to allow adequate time to prepare.

Creating courses

SCORM is a set of technical standards for e-learning software products, and E Training courses must be SCORM compliant.

You can either purchase materials directly as SCORM compliant, or purchase another platform that can be converted to SCORM compliant. Before you finalize any purchase of third-party materials to place in E Training, work with Purchasing and the E Training support staff. Purchasing can work with you to decide if the agreement you make with the vendor allows it, and the E Training support staff can help ensure compatibility. To work with the E Training support staff, contact the UITS Support Center and ask for your request to be passed to the E Training team.

E Training support staff do not create training materials or load them into E Training; this is the responsibility of departmental personnel and course administrators. Staff are available to answer questions and offer guidance on the types of materials that can be created in E Training, as well as support for any technical or function problems, such as importing the training or troubleshooting any errors.

Importing an online course from existing materials

If your materials are SCORM compliant (see Publishing to SCORM), import them directly into E Training by following the steps below. If your materials are left in PowerPoint format, E Training will offer the file for download but will not "present" it in the web browser.

1. From the Courses menu, select Import Courses.
2. Select the location where your course will be placed. This will be the folder you are responsible for.
3. Enter the course title, and select SCORM (Auto).
4. Click Browse..., and select the SCORM file you wish to use
5. Click Upload. This process may take a few minutes.
6. After the upload is complete, the system will unzip the file and create the course. To verify that the upload worked correctly, scroll down and look for a confirmation that says "Import Complete". When you have finished uploading, verify the course exists where you placed it.
7. Select Manage Courses from the menu at the left.
8. Select the location you imported to which you imported the course, and verify that the course is listed. Often, the title is overwritten and changed to "Captivate E-Learning Course". Open the course and change the title.
9. If you need assistance renaming the course or configuring options, see Editing course details.
10. To test that the course is working for learners, launch the Learner platform and complete the course.

Creating a new online course from scratch

To add a course without using existing materials:

1. Under the Courses menu, select Manage Courses.
2. Locate the folder where the course will be located, and select Add Online Course.
3. Give your course a title. All other options can be updated now or later; see Editing course details.
4. Click Submit.

Editing course details

Once you have created or imported a course, you are presented with a number of settings. To view and configure these settings, navigate to the "Online Course Details" page, which displays by default when you are creating a new online course. To access it from the Courses menu, select Manage Courses, and click the Edit icon next to the desired course.

If at any time you need to save your edits, click Submit at the bottom of the box.

Details tab

• Title: The course title should be set upon creation of the course, but you can edit it later.
• External ID: If you wish, use an external ID to track the course or assign it an identification number.
• Vendor Name: This field may be helpful if your materials are from a vendor.
• Description: Add any relevant information about the course.
• Status: Inactive courses do not allow enrollment and do not show up in the course learner's catalog.
• Enrollment: Selecting Allow self-enrollment displays the course in learners' course catalogs, and allows them to choose to take the course if available.
• Certificate: Selecting this allows you to send learners a certificate upon completion of the course. For learners in the system, the initial screen of the "My Transcript" section displays only those courses for which they received a certificate.

  To add additional information to the certificate, in the course's Details tab, select Add notes to certificates.

Outline tab

Here you build the outline of your course, adding chapters, lessons, and assessments as needed. To access this tab, you must have already provided a title for the course on the Details tab and clicked Next. All other tabs will then be available.

By default, SCORM courses are imported as the Exam lesson type because a SCORM course will usually report a score based on an assessment. If your course does not contain an assessment, it is best to change the lesson type from Exam to Lesson.

Detailed information about editing course outlines is available in the Managing Courses area of the Absorb Anywhere Administrator Guide.

Settings tab

For more about settings and other options, see the Managing Courses area of the Absorb Anywhere Administrator Guide.

• Enrollment: Set the the course availability date if you choose to release it at a later date.
• Expiry Date: Set when the course will no longer be available.
• Format: Set the format for the course. UITS recommends SCORM (Launch Page). If your materials are HTML compatible, check This course is HTML friendly.
• Completion: Define the lesson completion requirements for the course.
• Lesson Size: Allows you to specify the window size of the Flash files. This properly masks the SWF files to hide off-stage graphics.
• Absorb Exam: For exams created and stored in the E Training system, options in this section allow you to control exam settings such as required grade, max number of attempts, and time limit.
  Note:

  Exams created in Captivate (SCORM files that are uploaded) work differently and are controlled by settings created in the Captivate file prior to publishing the materials to SCORM. UITS recommends creating exams in E Training, enabling you to update exam questions and answers directly in the system. Otherwise, you will need to edit questions in the original Captivate file, and then again publish and upload.
• Course Length: Set a maximum amount of time to work through the course.
• Evaluation: This gives learners the opportunity to evaluate the course. If you select Mandatory, learners must complete the evaluation before they can complete the course.
• Require Terms: This option requires learners to accept Terms and Conditions before starting a lesson. If you select it, a text field will appear for you to type the Terms and Conditions.
• Administrators: Notifies the email addresses provided when a learner enrolls in the course and completes the course.

Prerequisites tab

This section provides the capability to require learners to complete courses in a specific order, determined by rules you create. For more on setting prerequisites, see the Managing Courses area of the Absorb Anywhere Administrator Guide.

After you've finished configuring all settings, click Submit at the bottom of the box.

Instructor Led Training courses

Instructor Led Training courses (ILTs) allow learners to sign up for courses that are taught in person and choose the sessions that are best for them. ILTs also allow attendance records, and can be taught over one or more in-person sessions. A course may have many sessions. To begin setting up an ILT:

1. From the Courses menu, select Manage Courses.
2. Click the Add Instructor Led Course button at the bottom of the page.
3. Complete the information in the Details tab and click Next.
   Note:

   This is the same information covered above in Editing course details.
4. From the Sessions tab, click the Add Session button. This will open a new window in which to set up your session.
5. From the Details tab in the new window, give your session a title and description.
6. From the Schedule tab, you may select a preset venue (physical location) for the course or add a new venue. You will also set the start time and duration of the session, and you may optionally designate an instructor.
7. Check the Planner tab to see a calendar of events and courses that you previously set up.
8. From the Enrollments tab, select whether or not you want to allow learners to self-enroll, and add any enrollment rules if necessary. You will also need to specify the enrollment start and end times, the minimum and maximum class size, and whether or not you want to use a wait list for this session.
9. When you are finished, click the Complete button to return to the "ILT Course Details" window.
10. Complete the remaining information in the Settings and Prerequisites tabs. When you are finished, click the Submit button to complete the setup of the ILT course.
    Note:

    The information in these two tabs is mostly the same as that covered above in Editing course details. For more about any options not mentioned here, see the Managing Courses area of the Absorb Anywhere Administrator Guide.

Marking attendance

Attendance is marked through the Grades report in the E Training system. This report shows the course list by session. You can mark a course as complete and the date it was completed. If an in-person quiz/exam was completed, the score can be captured here as well. To access the Grades report:

1. From the Reports menu at the left, select Grades.
2. Select the course and session from their respective drop-down menus. You should see a list of learners who were enrolled in the course.
3. Choose the correct options indicating learner attendance and related scores.
4. Select Save when you are finished.

Any learner who enrolls for an in-person course session but doesn't show up should be marked "Absent" in the Grades report as well. When a learner is absent from a course session, that learner cannot register for a new session until marked "Absent" for the original session.

Managing ILT venues

Rather than adding venues during the creation of a new ILT session, you can set up all your available venues ahead of time. You can also add descriptions for the venues that will become visible when a learner looks at their ILT course details. For example, if a venue has free parking, this can be a permanent note associated with the venue. You can also use this to enter directions or other information.

To manage your venues, click the Departments menu at the left, and then select Manage Venues.

Setting up instructors

Instructors who are not content contributors or course managers do not have administrative rights in E Training. By default, instructors teach and mark attendance; this is their only function in E Training.

When you create an ILT course, you can add an instructor on the "Add Session" page. However, an email address is not created for that person. Instructors who will mark attendance are required to have an email address in the system.

Content contributors and course managers can also be instructors. Their email addresses are already stored in the system.

Wait lists

As mentioned above, E Training allows you to set a maximum class size and optionally activate a wait list for each ILT session. The wait list itself does not have a maximum size, so it is possible that people on the wait list will not make it into the session.

A space may open up in the session because a number of people canceled their registration or switched sessions. In this case the learner will receive a proper course registration email confirming they are to attend the session.

Adding resources

General information

Resources can be web links, PDF files, Microsoft Office files, etc. Resources are not tracked by the system, and access is not required to complete a course.

To add a resource, go to Courses > Resources and click Add Resource.

Choose whether you want the resource to be course related (available by taking a course only) or global (available to all learners in the "My Resources" section).

Course-related resources

When choosing to provide a course-specific resource:

1. Select the course for which you will associate this resource.
2. Enter a new category (typically your department or functional unit), or choose one previously entered.
3. Provide a file name and enter a description for the resource.
4. Upload the resource or provide the web link.

Global resources

When choosing to provide a global resource, follow the same steps as above, except do not select a course. Set the department to Departments>IU.

Assessments and surveys

Creating an assessment or survey

Before creating a quiz, exam, or survey, you should be familiar with the differences:

• Quiz: Does not need to be passed in order to be completed
• Exam: Must be passed with a minimum score, per the percentage set up on the Course Settings tab
• Survey: For data-gathering, in which no score is generated and answers are neither right nor wrong

To get started, first create an assessment or survey, and then set up question pools and configure other options:

1. Select the course you want to add it to, and choose the Outline tab.
2. From the Courses menu, select Assessments & Surveys.
3. In the Courses drop-down menu, locate your folder and the course to which you would like to add the assessment/survey. Select Add Assessment or Survey.
   Note:

   Sometimes the system will hide a new assessment until the course has an active learner. If you cannot locate your assessment after adding it, enroll yourself in the course via the Enrollments link or by launching the user interface and enrolling.
4. Choose whether you will be adding a Quiz (scored or not scored) or Survey.
5. Assign a title. This is what your learners will see. Descriptions, pre-messages, and post-messages are optional. A few examples may include:
   • Pre-message: Let learners know how many attempts you are giving them.
   • Post-message (fail): Reference specific materials a learner should have studied.
   • Post-message (pass): Congratulate the learner's success.
6. Set up your question pools, which allow you to:
   • Determine if you want all provided questions to be asked, or if you want a random sample of questions.
   • Determine the level of exam difficulty.
     Note:

     This is only needed if you will be using a random sample of available questions, to help ensure that all learners experience similar levels of difficulty; otherwise, some learners could get an easier set of questions than other learners. Rank each question individually as you add them, so the system will know which questions are more difficult than others.
7. Configure options:
   • You may select options such as randomizing the question and answer order. If you randomize the answer order, avoid using "All of the above" as a possible answer option.
8. Select Submit.

Adding questions

Once your assessment or survey is created, you can add questions:

1. Under Assessments & Surveys, locate the title of the item to which you would like to add questions.
2. In the drop-down box, choose the course where the exam is located, and select Search.
3. In the "Questions" column, click the Edit link that corresponds to the exam to which you're adding questions.
4. Select Add Question.
5. Type the question as you would want to have learners view it.
6. Select whether the question type is Multiple Choice or Text Input.
   1. Multiple Choice: Add the answer options you want available, and indicate which answers are correct and incorrect.
   2. Text Input: Enter as many possible answers as are available for the question.
7. Select each question's level of difficulty. If all questions will be randomly assigned, this is important to ensure the same overall difficulty level for all learners. If all questions will be asked to all learners, it is not important to rank each one.
8. Indicate the messages you wish learners to see depending on their answers.
9. Choose a learning objective to allow the learners the ability to reference the training material related to the question (this will appear in a pop-up window). More often than not, this can be the lesson where the answer is located.

Adding to the course outline

Once your assessment or survey is created and you have added all of the desired questions, add it to the course outline:

1. Under Courses > Manage Course, select the course to which you would like to add a quiz.
2. Click the Outline tab, and then select Add Lesson.
3. Give the lesson a title and description.
4. Select the type (Quiz, Exam, or Survey, as previously described).
5. Check the Absorb Quiz box.
6. From the drop-down menu, locate the quiz you will be adding. Select Add.

From here, you should finish setting up the course as described in Editing course details. If this is the last step of creating the course, click the Submit button at the bottom of the box.

Converting PowerPoint materials to Adobe Captivate presentations

Edit your PowerPoint

It is convenient to convert an existing PowerPoint (PPT) presentation into Captivate 5.5 or 6.0, but you may encounter issues. Following the steps below prior to bringing the PPT presentation into a new Captivate file may help prevent problems.

1. Open the PowerPoint presentation that you wish to use, and remove any slide transitions (e.g., "swipe from left" or "fade in").
2. Remove any timing that has been set. Timings might have been placed if a presentation was set to run without a presenter.
3. Add two or three blank slides at the end of the presentation. Remove any text boxes or other placeholders from these new slides; later, if needed, you can use Captivate to add text boxes or other visual items. If you do not have blank slides in your PPT presentation, it will be more difficult to add slides to Captivate with the same "look". You can achieve the same result in Captivate by creating a master slide, but using this method saves time.
4. Make any edits directly in the PPT presentation. If there are text boxes heavy with text, make sure they are programmed to shrink text upon box size change. Otherwise, once converted to Captivate, the slide may display strangely if the box expands to fit the text.
5. For slides with a lot of narration, consider breaking one slide into two before integrating into Captivate.
6. Save the presentation with a new name and keep it in a location convenient to the Captivate files and PowerPoint files you will use. Close PowerPoint.

Create in Captivate

Now that your PowerPoint presentation has been optimized, you will need to import it into Captivate:

1. Open Captivate. On the right side of the pop-up box, choose create from existing Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
2. Find and click your PPT presentation to bring it in to Captivate. Captivate will take a few seconds to incorporate the slides.
3. A box appears, titled "Convert PowerPoint presentations", showing the name of your presentation and then an area for height and width of each slide. For viewing in Oncourse, choose 790 x 545 from the preset sizes. If it is not a choice, you may establish this as a regular preset for later use.
4. You will also see the "Slides Previewed" area. Ensure that all slides are selected. You can import all slides now, and delete any you don't want to keep later from Captivate.
5. In the "Advance Slide" section, remove the check from Advance on Mouse Click, and check the box for Automatically.
   Note:

   If you don't do this, there will be a click box at the top of every slide in your presentation and you will have to remove each one. If you don't remove the click boxes, your slides will not advance without a manual click. This doesn't work for presentations uploaded to the web. Choosing Automatically allows you to set the timing of the slide to match the audio later.
6. Check the box for Link Slides. This enables Captivate to link back to the original PowerPoint file in case you must edit as you are preparing the Captivate presentation.
7. If you see a pop-up warning you about a height and width difference between the PowerPoint presentation and the Captivate project, click Yes.

If slide notes were included in the PowerPoint presentation, they will also be in the Slide Notes tab once converted into Captivate. This is located near the bottom center of each screen. If the notes are not there, you may add your own by clicking + (plus sign). A line will appear for you to add text.

Adding narration

To add audio narration to your Captivate presentation:

1. At the top of the screen, click the Audio menu and select Settings....
2. Select your audio input device (microphone) from the drop-down menu. You can check the audio level by clicking the Calibrate Input... button. If you select Auto calibrate, the system will listen and deem whether or not the audio input is calibrated. You will see a message that says auto calibration is okay. Click OK until you return to the Captivate project.
3. To begin narrating, click Audio > Record to > Slide.
4. On the Add/Replace tab there is a red button. Click this to begin recording, and click the square Stop button when you are finished speaking for that slide.
5. Click the Edit tab to edit your audio clip. To adjust the audio levels, click the Adjust Volume... button. When the "Adjust Audio" window appears, choose the center radio button (Normalize), and click OK. This will adjust the audio to the most appropriate volume.
6. For more tips on narration and editing audio, see Tips on Narrating Presentations in Captivate.

Publishing to SCORM

This section gives an overview of publishing presentations to SCORM compliant materials. First create your materials using PowerPoint or Adobe Captivate; see the section above for assistance. For more, see SCORM Explained.

Once the training material is in Adobe Captivate and ready to be published to SCORM, ensure the course name does not contain special characters like the pound (#) and ampersand (& ) characters. File names containing these characters won't upload. However, characters such as underscores (_), dashes (-), letters, and numbers are appropriate for title names.

1. Open a completed Adobe Captivate project.
2. Open the File menu, and then select Publish....
3. From the left side of the "Publish" window, select the SWF/HTML5 tab.
4. Type a project name and select the location where you want to publish your SCORM file.
5. Leave the Publish to Folder box unchecked.
6. Under "Output Format Options", select SWF and HTML5.
   Note:

   If you have video embedded in your presentation, make sure you know which format option the video is compatible with.
7. Under "Output Options", select Zip Files and Flash Player 10.
8. Under "Advanced Options", select Scalable HTML Content.
9. On the right side of the window, click Preferences. A new window will open.
10. Under the category box, select Project Information, and add any information you desire in the provided fields. Only the project name is required.
11. Select Start and End from the category box.
12. Make sure the Auto Play, Preloader, Fade In on the First Slide, and Fade Out on the Last Slide boxes are all checked. In the "Project End Options" area, choose Close Project from the drop-down menu.
13. Select Quiz Reporting from the category box.
14. Select Enable reporting for this project.
15. Make sure the drop-down menu is set to SCORM 1.2.
16. "Status Representation" should be set to Incomplete>Complete.
17. "Success Completion Criteria" should be set to Slide View and/or Quiz. If a quiz is embedded into the presentation, the Quiz box should be checked. If there is no quiz, select Slide View only.
18. "Data to Report" should be marked as Percentage. The Interaction Data box should be checked. Select the Advanced button.
19. Check the boxes for Never Send Resume Data and Escape Version and Session ID.
20. Select OK, and then select OK again to return to the "Publish" screen.
21. Click Publish.

Course bundles

Bundles of courses can be created to automatically enroll learners into a course (or multiple courses) based on a specific data criterion. To create automatic enrollment of learners in a single course or group of courses:

1. From the Learners menu, select Course Bundle.
2. Click Add Course Bundle.
3. From the Details tab, add a title and description to the course bundle. (These are for your purposes. Learners will not be aware of the course bundle itself; they simply get access to the courses.)
4. From the Outline tab, click the Add Courses button. Browse to a course category and select the courses you want to add to this course bundle.

   You can select an entire folder at once by checking the box next to it.

5. From the Settings tab, select Automatic Enrollment.

   If you do not wish to use Automatic Enrollment, it is recommended that you use enrollment keys rather than create a course bundle with Self Enrollment.

6. Check the box for Allow automatic enrollment based on rules, and set the access rules based on your preferences. You can add more than one condition by clicking the + (plus sign) button to the right.
   Note:

   The rules are run as soon as you save the course bundle. Whenever a new account is created in E Training, the rules will automatically be applied. You will receive a notice before you save a rule that indicates how many learners are affected by your course bundle at that instance. You can correct your rule set if this number does not match your expectations.
7. If you wish to set up an automated enrollment email for the course bundle, click the Enrollment E-mail tab. You will be presented with an in-browser editor to configure the email notification.
8. Click the Submit button to save the course bundle and finish.

Enrollment keys

Enrollment keys allow you to distribute a key name and password, which can be used multiple times to create new E Training enrollments. The key system designates which courses are made available to the learners.

You can control which demographic fields are required to create an account, and you have full control over the number of times a key is used. In addition to allowing reusable keys, E Training can create a large number of single-use keys which can be distributed at your discretion.

Creating an enrollment key

1. From the Learners menu, select Enrollment Keys.
2. Click Add Enrollment Key at the bottom of the page.
3. Complete the "Name" field. Include a reference to your department and compliance purpose. This will help you identify the enrollment key later.
   Note:

   This is not the same as the "keyname" value referenced later.
4. Click Add Course, and select the course(s) to which this key will provide access.
5. Indicate the department where the learners are stored. This should be IU > Users.
6. Enter the number of times the key can be used in the "Number of Seats" field, based on your anticipated number of uses.
7. Type in the keyname and password. Alternatively, you may click the Generate button, which will generate a random value for each. These will later be entered by a person wishing to create an account. After the keyname and password are entered, the new learner is prompted to create an account.
8. To send instructions on how to use a multi-credit key, check the Send Enrollment Key Instructions box. A new tab will appear, containing an editable template with instructions.
   Note:

   UITS recommends that you send the instructions from your IU email account instead, to ensure proper delivery.
9. You can override the standard system and course email templates for users of the key system. To do so, check the following boxes and edit each template in the new tabs that open:
   • Use a custom New User e-mail notification.
   • Use a custom Course Completion e-mail notification.
10. When you are finished configuring all options, click Add to save your enrollment key.

Creating bulk keys

To create a large number of single-use keys:

1. Follow steps 1-5 above.
2. Set the "Number of Seats" field to 1 and check the Generate bulk enrollment keys box at the bottom. You will see a new tab for the setup of the bulk keys.
3. Click the Generate Bulk tab, and indicate the number of keys to be generated.
4. Set the keyname format to Randomly Generated or Beginning With, and add a term you wish to include in the keyname.
5. Set a password length. Passwords are randomly generated based on the password length you have identified.
   Note:

   The "Reference" field is used to locate those accounts that were created with this process.

Reporting

E Training offers the ability to run various reports to see information about courses, learners, and grades. Click Reports from the left menu to see the following options:

• Courses Summary
• Course Activity
• Course Sessions
• Grades
• Quiz Heuristics
• Learner Activity
• Course Evaluation
• Course Approvals
• Certificates
• Learner Progress
• Department Progress
• Waitlist & Absent
• Manage Reports

To run a report, select the course from the list, and then click the Search button. If you want to filter the results, you can provide your filtering option in the empty box, and then click the magnifying glass.

All reports can be exported as a .csv file and managed within Microsoft Excel. There is also a "Display Columns" feature that enables more information to be shown if selected. Some reports allow you to right-click them and access additional information. You can find an overview of the reporting process, along with much greater detail on each report, in the Reporting section of the Absorb Anywhere Administrator Guide.

Help

For additional detailed help, see Absorb Anywhere Administrator Guide, also available from the Online Web Help link within the "My Summary" area of the content contributor portal.