The Course Group Delivery Method provides an easy and flexible way to bundle multiple LMS courses together for a single training completion requirement. Instead of containing learning material, the content of the Course Group is a set of Component Courses, which already exist in your LMS.
When a student enrolls in this type of course, a corresponding training widget appears on their classic LMS Home page or on the Courses to Complete page in our new User Interface. It will display component courses until the entire set is complete. Students can then navigate to their History tab to print a certification of completion for the entire Course Group (and the individual component courses, if desired.)
This document assumes a prerequisite knowledge of course creation basics, and therefore will only reference those points relevant to setting up a Course Group. For more detailed instructions, please refer to related document: Add a New Course in the LMS .
Create a Course Group
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From the left navigation menu, click Courses > Add Course.
- Complete the basic requirements for adding a new course and for the Delivery Method, select Course Group.
- Click Submit to save the course and open up additional tabs for developing the course group.
Add Required Training Components
Once a Course Group has been added to the catalog, Portal Administrators must navigate to the Components tab to define required coursework. While you cannot nest Course Groups into each other as component courses, all other delivery methods are available: Assessment, Classroom, eLearning, Self-Study, and Virtual Classroom (with Add-On).
NOTE: Component courses retain their own enrollment attributes (e.g. Tuition, Prerequisites, Series, Approval requirements, enrollment restrictions) within the group, so configure them accordingly.
Build a component course list in the order (A – Z) you want them displayed on students’ Home page training widget.
- On the Components tab, click Add Courses to find and select components from the LMS Course Picker.
- Use the Type field to define how credit should be provided for each component course:
Course – Any completed transcript meets the rule, whether achieved by the student or granted by administrative override.
Course by Exact Match – Course completion was achieved by student.
Course by Equivalency – Student received equivalent credit for the required course.
- Click Remove to delete a course from the list.
- Click Submit to save changes, or Cancel to discard.
The Course Group is then ready for student enrollment. Its Component Course list can be edited at any time, but should be finalized before students are able to enroll in the group so that completion requirements remain standard for all, if that is an important consideration.
The Portal Administrator Experience
Portal administrators should know that students with prior credit for the courses listed in the Group's components will not be retroactively awarded credit for the completion of the Course Group itself. When you enroll a student in a Course Group, the completion logic only looks for future completion of the components, not those attained in the past. If awarding the Group completion is important, consider establishing an Equivalency rule so that students who have completed all the component courses in the past get equivalent credit for the Group in their history.
The Course Group is forward-looking and until users get credit for the entire group, they are subject to any midstream adjustments in the components list, even if you remove a course they've already completed. The behavior is as follows:
- If someone already has credit for the group, they retain it (even though it may have been for a slightly different list of components). There is no revocation.
- If users are already enrolled in the group and are in various stages of working through the component list, any changes made to the component courses prior to completion of the overall course group will change the enrolled users' working list of courses to complete. Whatever shows on the Components tab is the users' current requirement for completion.
The Student Experience
Students will find Course Groups listed in their course catalog when conducting a course search. Managers and administrators may enroll users in Course Groups using the standard Enroll Others and Interest List features.
Every user with an active enrollment in a Course Group will see a corresponding training widget appear on their classic LMS Home page or on the new Navigation menu's Courses to Complete page. Students can expand the “Course Group” section to view the list of component courses they have yet to complete. Enrolling in the Group does not automatically enroll the user in each component course. They can do so by clicking the linked course name or the View/Enroll button to view Course Details. Students are also provided a “Cancel” button to terminate current enrollments in the group or any component course.
Component Courses are automatically removed from the Course Group section as the student completes each one. Upon finishing all components successfully, the student will receive credit for the group and the widget will disappear from their home page. Students can navigate to their “History” tab to save or print transcripts for all component and group coursework.
