The LatitudeLearning LMS offers several ways to highlight important training opportunities for students, such as developing a “Featured Courses” list per Location, which then displays on users’ homepage. However, if you want to make LMS coursework a centerpiece item to a broader population of learners, you may consider placing a link to it on your organization’s web site, or perhaps incorporating direct links within your Home page “Welcome” message.
You can accomplish these setups by using a course’s Uniform Resource Locator (URL) as a deep link from the desired web page directly to the course. When users click on the deep link, if they are not already logged in to the LMS, they will be directed to the login page where they can enter their credentials. After logging in, they are taken directly to the Course Details page where they can read a course description, enroll in the course, and launch content.
Note: A linked course must reside within the LMS user’s Course Catalog to allow him or her access (i.e. the user’s profile and the course must be shared with the same Business Unit). If you embed a course link in an external website or on your portal Home page, any employee may be able to click that link, but only those with rights to view the course can actually open it.
Using embedded links bypasses the users’ Home page experience and eliminates the need to search for a course. The steps required to embed a course link are described below.
Capture the Course URL
Before you can link to the course from a website, you must first capture the unique URL for the course.
- From the left navigation menu, select Courses => Search Courses.
- Search for and select the course by clicking on the course title in the search results.
- While you are on the Course Details page, select and copy the URL from the browser window to your clipboard. Be sure to select the entire URL by pressing [CTRL+A] on your keyboard, then copy it by pressing [CTRL+C]. It is now ready to use as a link on your web page, or on the Home page “Welcome” message in your LMS portal.
Note: Do not cut or copy anything else until you finish this process. Doing so will overwrite the URL on the clipboard and you will have to re-copy it.
Insert the Course URL into Website Content
If you choose to make a direct link to the course from your website, the actual procedure will vary depending on the tools you use to edit your site. Most web development applications allow you to add links using an Insert Link or Insert Hyperlink icon (e.g.  or  ) in the Rich Text editor or by directly editing the HTML code. The ability to do this is not controlled by the LMS, but by your organization’s access restrictions to the web authoring environment.
In general, it will require you to:
- Log in to your web authoring tool.
- Open the Rich Text or HTML editor for the particular page or page location on which you wish to display the link.
- Insert the link and its display text or image as required by the web authoring application. If the URL is still copied to your Clipboard, press [CTRL+V] to paste it.
- Save the change.
- Test the link on the site to make sure it successfully directs to the correct course.
Add the Course Link to Your LMS "Welcome" Area
Portal Administrators can use the Site Management tool to deep link a course directly from the Welcome area on the LMS Home page. This places added emphasis and direct attention to the course because it will display above the Featured Course list and is the first thing most users will notice upon log in.
To add the course to the LMS Welcome area:
- From the left navigation menu, select Site Management => Edit HTML.
- In the HTML Content File field, select home_page from the drop down list.
- In the Content area, add or modify text and graphics as desired. You may want to provide learners an introduction to the course or instructions for completing it.
- Use your mouse to select the text or image you want to link out to the course.
- In the Rich Text Editor toolbar, click the Insert/Edit Link icon.
- In the Link pop-up window, paste the course URL into the URL field. If it is still copied to your Clipboard, press [CTRL+V] to paste it. Change the Protocol (e.g. http://, https://) if necessary, then click OK.
- Upon returning to the Edit HTML Content page, complete content updates and click Submit to apply your changes.
- Navigate to your LMS Home page to review the changes and test the course link. Repeat this process as needed until the course link and related texts appear as desired.
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