Equivalences

Equivalences feature enables administrators to define relationships between courses or templates that contain overlapping or equivalent content. This is particularly valuable in large or complex learning environments where multiple courses cover similar competencies, are offered in different formats (e.g., virtual vs. in-person), or evolve over time.

What organizations gain from configuring Equivalence rules

• Eliminate redundant training by automatically marking related courses as "Covered" when a learner completes an equivalent one.

• Accelerate learner progress by recognizing previously acquired knowledge, certifications, or versioned content.

• Maintain curriculum flexibility by allowing learners to voluntarily enroll in Covered courses for review or additional practice—without requiring them to.

• Simplify compliance tracking by ensuring learners are credited for meeting learning objectives, even if course formats or versions change over time.

• Support diverse learning paths by recognizing different combinations of courses as valid alternatives for a shared learning outcome.

Use Cases

There are two use cases: 

• One course is replaced by another course with updated content and the learners must not be required to re-take the similar content. However, they should still be able to re-take it if they wish (A = B). 

• Some courses are a combination of other courses. In this case, the learner can be required to take either the overall course or the courses from that it is combined but not both (C = A + B). 

Currently, all equivalences are bidirectional, which means, there are no use cases where A is equivalent to B, but B is not equivalent to A.  

The multiple equivalence relation is possible, meaning that taking course A gives the learners credit for course B and C, taking course B gives the learner credit for both A and C, etc. 

Equivalences are valid for all processes and trigger them accordingly, e. g. if a course is used as a prerequisite for another or assigned to a learning path. 

However, the course passed by the equivalence is not considered as a course passed directly: it does not appear in the learning history, it can still be started and completed by the learner (but it is optionally and never required). Therefore, the new flag "Covered" is introduced. 

Equivalences functionality is part of the base license, no additional add-on components are required to be purchased in order to use it.

Functions in the Equivalences Administration

A new manager is available that allows defining equivalence relations between courses and course templates. 

On the start page of the manager, all available equivalence relations are displayed. This list is paginated with a default number of 50 elements on page. Search is also available and can be done by Name, Identification code, Description, Object ID. The following columns are also available and they can be activated or deactivated from expanding the Columns section: Name, Identification code, Learning mode, Relations type, Last update, Planning status, Language 

An element is present in this list as long there is at least one type of relation defined for it. 

New

Further equivalence relations can be defined. 

The user has the possibility to add a new component and define relations for it: 

By selecting the "+" button, a selection of course templates and courses is available. 

The list is paginated with a default number of 50 elements per page. The list can be searched by Name, Identification code, Description, Object ID. The available columns are: Name, Identification code, ID, Learning mode, Last update, Planning status, Language. Then can be activated or deactivated from clicking on the arrow and selecting Column section. 

At this stage, only one component can be selected. 

After making the selection and clicking on Add, the edit mode will open, which allows the possibility to define the equivalence relations for the selected component.  

Categories of Equivalence Relations 

Category 1 → Triggers completion of → (Covers)

Goals: Defines which learning items (courses or templates) are automatically credited when a primary course is completed.

Benefit: Reduces unnecessary effort, shortens time to compliance and simplifies learner experience..

Rules/Constraints

• Administrators can only select individual items to be marked as Covered. No grouping or complex logic (eg: sets).

• One-way relationship: Completion of the main course triggers coverage of the others — not vice versa.

Category 2 → Completion triggered by (Is covered by)

Goal: Defines which courses or templates must be completed (individually or in combination) for the target course to be automatically marked as Covered.

Benefit: Enables flexible learning strategies, supports microlearning, and aligns with competency frameworks.

Rules/Constraints: Allows both simple OR and complex AND/OR combinations (eg: sets).

Category 3 → Mutual equivalence (Both ways)

Goal/Behavior: Defines a bidirectional equivalence between two learning items, where completing either one covers the other.

Benefit: Minimizes duplicate effort across global or multi-brand learning programs, ensures continuity during course migration or rebranding (eg: when companies offer regional, language, or vendor-specific variants of the same content, or when transitioning between course versions).

Rules/Constraints: Completing either item marks the other as Covered.

"Covered" is not an enrollment status, but an additional information which, when applicable for a user, will determine that the user has already completed objects which determine in turn that the component marked as "Covered" does not need to be processed anymore.  

However, if the learner chooses to, he can still enroll and process that component. 

Adding items to a preferred relation is done in the following way. User has to select a folder (each relation has the corresponding folder dedicated) and then click on “+” button where he/she can select either courses/course templates or by clicking on “New” button where set of components can be defined (excluding the 1st rule for which is not possible).

After defining all the needed equivalence relations, the changes can be saved. 

By selecting Save, the defined equivalence relations are created and the user is redirected to the start page of the manager, showing the outcome. 

For each object that did not previously have any relation defined, an entry in the manager will be now available. 

Sets of components: Adding multiple components via add component creates an OR relation between them. The components added within a set have an AND relation. 

When a course template is set to covered by an equivalence rule, all courses from this template will be set to covered. 

The coverage rules defined for a template apply for all versions of the template. It will not be possible to define different coverage rules for different versions of the course template. 

Learning path: All components that are marked for the learner as Covered, are displayed accordingly.

Import

Edit

When editing such an entry from the manager, the defined relations for that object will be visible: 

Delete

At the start page level, where all objects that have equivalence rules defined are displayed, the admin has the possibility to select one or more entries and remove them. 

This will have as effect deleting also associated entries that will therefore be left without any equivalence relation. 

In the example above, when I delete object A, all 5 entries will be deleted. 

Equivalence Export 

The equivalences manager provides also the possibility to export the rules via a dedicated export button available in the action bar. 

The export is a csv export that can be opened and converted to a table in MS Excel by using the function Text to Columns. 

The exported file will contain the rules in the following order: Last updated > descending.

Equivalence Import

For a correct import of the equivalences rules into the system this file containing the instructions should be used → Equivalency Import.pdf

Handling ACLs within the Equivalences Manager

Only the courses for which the user has at least Execute ACL will be visible in the manager.

The rule can be edited and deleted though the user does not have access to all components.

User will not see the courses for which he had NO ACL in the manager, nor in the export file.

Impact of the Equivalences Functionalities

Impact of the Equivalence Relation Definition 

Based on the available equivalence relation rules, the outcome is that courses and course templates will be marked for learners as "Covered". 

Impact in the Learning Path 

All components that are marked for the learner as "Covered", are displayed accordingly. 

The outcome is also that the "Covered" component will count towards the progress, even if it is not completed by the learner. 

Prerequisite Handling 

When courses/clusters or course templates are available as prerequisites for other courses or learning paths, the prerequisite object will be considered fulfilled if the user has this object covered. 

There is no visual distinction on the prerequisite overlay screen indicating that the object is only covered and not fully completed. The prerequisite which is covered will be displayed as fulfilled. 

Equivalences Behavior for Courses and Course Templates 

A covered Course template has as effect that all courses created from any version of the template are set to covered as well. It will not be possible to define different coverage rules for different versions of the course template. 

When a specific course is covered based on a rule, that course will be set to "Covered" if the other conditions apply, but it will not have as effect the propagation of coverage to the template or the other courses created from the same template. 

Limitations 

The columns in the manager are fixed and no advanced search or filtering is possible.  

It is not possible to define clearances for the rules created in the manager. 

Media assigned to a course cannot be passed by equivalence. 

If skills are assigned to an entity passed by equivalence but not to the entity passed by the learner directly, these skills are not set to achieved. 

At this point we don’t offer the possibility of searching by courses which are included in an equivalence relation. Only the icon which is displayed on the Catalogue and Description pages for the corresponding courses/course templates is the indicator for the Equivalences function.

Test Cases