Release Notes: 2022.01 - Flexible Learning

Introduction

Version 2022.01 contains a variety of minor enhancements, additional flexibility for course designers, and some important scalability enhancements.  In principal, though, this version was part of our continuous quality improvement process.  Not listed individually in these release notes are a number of bug fixes reported by our clients or uncovered through our internal quality testing.    Contact support@accordlms.com if you have any questions.

CATALOG

Flexible Learning

Flexible Learning is a significant enhancement to the Accord Folder functionality.  Folders are a feature which facilitate the creation of Learning Paths, Collections, Courses, Chapters and other containers designed to organize and deliver training content.  This description will reference Courses, but the functionality applies to all folder types.

Previously, a course would only be marked complete if all scorable contents of that course were themselves completed.  Flexible Learning allows course designers to create a course which can be completed without completing all content.  Some use cases include:

• A Course which includes a Challenge Exam.  Successful completion of the challenge exam will serve as completion of the course itself.
• A Course with SCORM Learning Content in both Spanish and English can be completed when either the Spanish or the English language SCORM has been completed.
• A Learning Path containing three courses.  One course includes primarily video learning, once course contains primarily text learning, and one course includes primarily interactive online courses.  Completion of any one of the courses could lead to the completion of the Learning Path.

This functionality is highly configurable.  The optional completion concept can be built into a hierarchy.  For example, a course can include five chapters which all must be completed, but each chapter might require a predetermined number of Learning Elements for its own completion.

Flexible Learning can be found in Folder Details within the Scoring Tab.  Checking "Items are Optional" will allow you to set the number of items (Child Folders or Learning Elements) required for completion.  Note:  Weighting must be set to "Equal" to enable this feature.

TEAMS

New Column on Userlist:  Rule Assignment

This new column allows admins to see whether a learner is a member of a team due to a Team Membership Rule assignment or if they were added to the team through a bulk import or some other mechanism.  Team Members who were added by Rule can't be removed while they still meet the criteria set by the rule.  Admins can filter by this column to quickly find learners based on how they were added to a specific team.

Team General Rules

The Accord LMS allows for the creation of rules at each team which can assign learners to that specific team based on user profile properties.  In order to place any new user in all the right teams, each team rule must be processed.  In a site with thousands of teams, this can take a very long time to process.  Team General Rules allows an administrator to select a Profile Property which actually contains the name(s) of the Team(s) to which the Learner should be assigned.  Clients with a large number of teams in the database will experience a dramatic improvement in the time required for each new learner to be assigned to necessary teams. Team General Rules exist only in the All Members team details and require a specific admin privilege to set.  Team General Rules work with specific Team Membership Rules with the specific Team Membership Rules taking precedence in case of a conflict.

UserID added back into User Details

Prior to the Kore updates a unique id was displayed with each user.  This was removed for clarity during the Kore update last summer.  We've recently received requests to place that ID back in the User Details.  The UID can be found in parentheses to the right of the username in the upper left corner of User Details. 

Deleted and Unauthorized Columns added to Bulk Learner Import Process

These columns have been added to the bulk import feature to facilitate the automatic soft deletion or de-authorization of learners based on bulk imports from an external source such as an HR system.  Care should be taken with this feature and clients should test on a small number of users to verify that the data file has properly configured these columns.  Please see your Solutions Engineer or contact support for more information on this feature. 

Reports

Start Date added to Folder and LE Detail Reports

Start Date is a specific date assigned with a Learning Role.  The addition of this column to these reports allows for filtering report results based on the Learning Role's start Date.  For example, Show me the status of everyone with a February Start Date for Fire Safety.  Assignment Date, Activation Date, and Start Date are all discrete values in each Learning Role.  A Role could be assigned in January, Activated in June (which can show the content), and Started in July.  This feature specifically speaks to the Start Date value.

Completion Date added to Attempt Records

Previously, the Accord LMS assumed that a successful completion occurs on the same date as the attempt was started.  In fact, a learner could open a learning element today and complete it tomorrow.  By adding a specifically articulated "Completion" date, the LMS now tracks when an attempt record was completed, regardless of it's actual start date.

General Enhancements

Learner Module - More Space for Long Course Titles

Based on customer feedback, the default Accord LMS Learner Tiles Template no longer presents two lines from the course description to accommodate longer folder titles.  Titles which still do not fit in the title will be terminated with an ellipsis and provided a hover tool tip with the complete title.

Active Learner Report added to Configuration > License Key and Details

This useful link will download a list of Active Learners with the date that they became an active learner and the activity that caused them to become an Active Learner.

Continuous Quality Improvement

This release includes several minor interface improvements, improved tool tip language and bug fixes.