When courses are created in the LMS, tutors are often assigned without their knowledge or notification. As tutors are responsible for delivering these courses, it is important that a central function is available for all tutor roles, providing a complete overview of all courses to which they are assigned; this is the "Course Overview" function in the "Tutor" role category.
All functions tutors need to perform their tasks are accessible from here, including attendance tracking, detailed course instruction features for viewing or interacting with participant learning progress, news creation, component editing, report generation, and course previewing.
What Is the Course Overview?
The "Course Overview" function provides tutors with a list of all courses for which they are responsible, together with summary information. Results return courses for which the logged-in user is an assigned tutor; unlike other course functions, results are based on clearances. Results can be sorted, filtered, and saved in many ways. Important information displayed in the summary includes the ability to view upcoming training deliveries, identify whether something has changed in a course, and know which courses have specific tasks for the tutor to action, for example tests available for grading.
The functions available to a tutor vary per course according to the "Tutor Role" assigned within that course. The standard tutor roles are configured under "Configuration" → "Tutoring":
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Tutor Role |
Access |
|---|---|
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Course Manager |
Access to all functions in "Course Overview" and "Course Instruction", except "What's New". |
|
Tutor |
Access to all functions in "Course Overview" and "Course Instruction", except "Audit Log". |
|
Trainer |
Can view the course in "Course Overview", view participants in "Course Instruction", communicate with participants by e-mail, view test and feedback submissions, and preview the course. |
|
Expert |
Can view the course in "Course Overview", view participants in "Course Instruction", and receive communication. |
|
Guest Instructor |
No functional access to the course. Receives e-mail updates only. |
Course Instruction
The "Course Instruction" icon provides two functions, "Course Instruction" and "Attendance Tracking", which allow a tutor to mark participant attendance and grade component completions, for example confirming a participant's completion of a component or downloading test certificates.
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Participants: Displays a progress summary for each participant, participant enrolment details, and functions to communicate with participants by e-mail, mark progress, award certificates, and export participant lists.
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Syllabus: Displays the course syllabus and progress per component, and provides functions to generate attendance QR codes, grade tests, assess on-the-job tasks, launch virtual classroom meetings, view feedback, and run reports.
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Social Media: Moderates forums assigned to the course.
The range of functions available to a tutor in the "Course Instruction" function varies according to the "Tutor Role" assigned in the course "Tutors" tab.
See Course Instruction for the full set of functions.
Attendance Tracking
The "Attendance Tracking" function is a simplified, mobile-friendly alternative to "Course Instruction" for marking participant attendance and component completions, either in bulk or individually. Multiple clicks or taps toggle between statuses shown with colours and symbols.
Certain media types can be excluded from marking at client level, shown with a lock symbol, since types such as SCORM and WBT normally mark themselves when configured correctly. The following media types are available for marking by default:
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Adobe Connect / Webex / GoToMeeting meeting
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Event (used for attendance and QR codes)
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File - document
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Multimedia
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WBT
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SCORM WBT
The tutor group requires navigation access to the "Attendance Tracking" authorisation for this function to appear in "Course Overview".
Cancellation Reason
A cancellation reason can be defined via a speech-bubble icon in "Attendance Tracking" when a participant's status is changed to "Cancelled", individually or in bulk. Any relevant cancellation fees are calculated and displayed.
Newsroom
The "Newsroom" function is available to the "Course Manager" and "Tutor" roles and allows the creation of course-specific news, such as articles or blog posts, shown in the news panel within the course room. Content can include text, links, images, and videos, and is sorted chronologically by publication date. News from the main "News" function, which primarily serves to display news in portal dashboards and personal homepages, can also be displayed in courses. Creating course-specific news through "Newsroom" works the same way as standard news, without needing to assign dashboard panels or clearances.
Edit Components
The "Edit Components" function is available to the "Course Manager" and "Tutor" roles and allows tutors to edit the course "Components", "Library", and "Social Media" tabs to add, remove, or rearrange media, so tutors can participate in designing the course to their preferred delivery methods. If participants have already started processing the course, further changes should remain an exception, in particular for progress hierarchies and scheduling dates.
See Edit Components for the full set of functions.
Reports
The "Reports" function is available to the "Course Manager" and "Tutor" roles and provides two CSV exports giving a complete overview of participant progress for each course component:
|
Report |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Formatted Report |
Displays results in individual sections per participant, each with a progress overview row and detailed rows for component completion. |
|
Tabular Report |
Displays results in a single table, with the course and participant name repeated across rows, one row per participant per course component. |
Preview
Displays the course content as it appears to a learner, allowing the tutor to verify that content is displayed and functions correctly before it is delivered.
Hints & Tips
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In the "Course Overview" function, the list of displayed courses can be restricted by planning status ("Released", "Locked", "Fixed", "Concluded", "Cancelled"). Restricting the list to "Released", "Planned", or "Fixed" courses is useful for tutors who deliver a lot of training. This is done by maximising the filters, selecting the desired planning statuses, saving the search, and selecting the "Default" checkbox.
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Column sorting and result ordering can also be changed in the default search. If tests are used, moving the column "There Are Tests Ready for Assessment" forward can be useful. Sorting courses by "Course Start" can also be beneficial.
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Tutor role access rights can be reconfigured by Scheer IMC consultants if needed. There are restrictions on adding extra tutor roles, but renaming tutor roles is possible via the "System Texts" function.
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"Attendance Tracking" has a maximum display limit of 3,000 cells, calculated as the number of participants multiplied by the number of components. The default configuration therefore displays up to 99 participants and 30 media items; these limits are configured in "Configuration" → "Course". This limitation exists because there is no pagination. The load time is optimal for 30 to 50 participants with 10 to 30 media elements; anything beyond this increases page load time, so "Attendance Tracking" is recommended for courses with a reduced number of participants, media items, or both.