Make Learning Objects Optional

Is there an update on this item? I see it's been reviewed, but wondering where it sits in the queue as far as probability of further consideration/development?

Yes, we still have a need for a few SCORM, videos, pdfs to be optional within a chapter that has "Must complete all lessons, in any order" selected. For example, we have a scorm learning object on laws in CA which most of our learners/customers need to view BUT not those from other states.

Fantastic! I'll take this information back to the team for discussion. In the meantime, please make sure to keep voting and provide any additional input in the comments, as this helps us prioritize our list of feature and enhancement requests :)

Yes, correct! Thanks Amanda! Having this kind of optional content directly in a course would be really great.

For my comment, yes, this is a fair confirmation. Thank you.

That additional context is incredibly helpful, thank you!

Here's my understanding so far, please let me know if this is a fair summary:

• Admins need a way to include truly optional content in a course

  • Building a curriculum every time this ability is required is too time consuming, and adds an extra layer to the workflow

  • These options should not be required for course progress

  • It should be very clear to the Learner that these are optional items

• Course Resources work sometimes, but they are not prominent enough to the Learners and cannot facilitate all the required types of content

  • More visibility is required

• It would also be preferable to have the optional content "in the flow" of Learning (as opposed to trying to direct Learners to a different section of the page)

  • Allows content to be strategically placed among the mandatory lessons

• Admins would still like to track the uptake and use of these optional resources

• The type of optional content could be anything that a regular lesson can, including:

  • Documents

  • Assessments

  • Third-party Lesson Objects

These could be any type of lesson, including SCORM, yes. We may want to add a lesson as optional to supplement, AND because it's a lesson, we can more cleanly track its use, or even throw in an assessment to capture in reports, instead of having to create new courses to provide supplemental learning only if necessary. The lesson still cannot restrict a learner from completing the course if they don't need to consume.

The other use case we have come into is more simple, visibility. We may want learners to be able to find more easily than using the Resources section. This use case would be more like taking "resources" and displaying them more similar to a lesson, but the status is not started/complete etc, it's maybe just "resource". When building a course, this can help strategically place resources to make them more relevant and efficiently accessible for learners vs using the Resources section.

Example: They could ABSOLUTELY be full SCORMs or Videos... on parts of the topic that don't apply to them.

Thanks,
Rick

Thank you for the continued input, everyone! As a follow-up: what types of content are these optional learning objects? Are they something static like a PDF for reference, or something that requires active input from the Learners like a SCORM lesson?

What are your thoughts on a per chapter "counts toward progress/doesn't count" setting? -> Thanks Paul, I think this would be a very good start ;o) and would already help a lot!

Yes! When you set up a curriculum, there is a setting for "must complete all", "minimum courses", and "minimum credits" so say there are two courses under that group name in a curriculum and I set it to Minimum Courses, I could select one course so they can pick which course they want to take (user vs manager, as an example). This same theory could work at the course level, have that same option or something similar. We have many objects that we'd love to make optional and can't.

I think that would work for us.

I can see per chapter working to a large extent if a details toggle, like 'contains assessment,' can't be used to include or exclude from progress.

Hello Admins!

Because of the way progress calculation works, this may be difficult to do in a way with unlimited flexibility. What are your thoughts on a per chapter "counts toward progress/doesn't count" setting?

The ability to hide/show learning objects would be useful. If a mistake was made e.g. in an assessment question, you could then switch the old one off and switch the new on on and not need to make any new courses and enrolment changes, meaning reporting would be a lot simpler as there would be only the one course to report on.

YES! Our old LMS had this feature and we used it A LOT. Now our learners think EVERY object/lesson is required and many of them are supplemental only. Not everyone can find the Resources tab either so it's nice to have them in the course content.

These kinds of documents can go in the Resources section, but I agree it would be great to be able to make them front-and-center for our learners. Not everyone clicks into the Resources tab, and the most important resources can sometimes get lost among all the other documents we place there.