Lms Admin Guide
Lms Admin Guide
Lms Admin Guide
Version 2.2
Web site: www.e-learningconsulting.com E-mail: info@e-learningconsulting.com 1722 232nd Avenue NE Sammamish, WA 98074 Copyright 2008 e-Learning Consulting. All Rights Reserved.
Table of Contents
ABOUT THIS GUIDE...................................................................................................... 4 WHO SHOULD USE THIS GUIDE ....................................................................................... 4 HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE ................................................................................................ 4 TYPOGRAPHIC CONVENTIONS .......................................................................................... 4 RELATED PUBLICATIONS ................................................................................................. 4 OVERVIEW ...................................................................................................................... 5 LMS CAPABILITIES .......................................................................................................... 5 WHAT IS A COURSE ......................................................................................................... 6 COURSE PUBLISHING, LAUNCHING AND TRACKING ......................................................... 6 LMS SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE ......................................................................................... 8 LOGIN AS THE LMS ADMINISTRATOR .................................................................. 9 ACCESS ADMINISTRATOR FUNCTIONS .............................................................. 11 MANAGE USERS .......................................................................................................... 13 MY PROFILE PAGE ......................................................................................................... 13 MANAGE USERS PAGE ................................................................................................... 14 ADD USERS PAGE .......................................................................................................... 14 FIND USER PAGE ............................................................................................................ 15 USER LIST PAGE ............................................................................................................ 15 AUTOMATICALLY REGISTERED USERS........................................................................... 17 VIEW REPORTS............................................................................................................ 18 ALL COURSES REPORT ................................................................................................... 19 FIND A COURSE .............................................................................................................. 20 COURSE ENROLLMENT REPORT ..................................................................................... 22 COURSE RESULTS REPORT ............................................................................................. 23 SCO DETAILS REPORT ................................................................................................... 24 FIND A LEARNER ............................................................................................................ 25 LEARNER COURSE ENROLLMENTS REPORT.................................................................... 27 LEARNER COURSE RESULTS REPORT ............................................................................. 28 LEARNER SCO DETAILS REPORT ................................................................................... 29 LEARNER STATUS REPORT ............................................................................................. 30 MANAGE GROUPS ....................................................................................................... 31 CREATE A GROUP .......................................................................................................... 32 FIND GROUPS ................................................................................................................. 33 CHANGE GROUPS ........................................................................................................... 34 MANAGE COURSES .................................................................................................... 35 PUBLISH A COURSE ........................................................................................................ 35 LMS Administrators Guide Page 2 of 57
UPLOAD A SCORM PACKAGE ....................................................................................... 36 READ SCORM MANIFEST ............................................................................................. 38 FINDING A COURSE TO ASSIGN, UNASSIGN, EDIT, ACTIVATE OR DELETE THE COURSE . 40 ASSIGN A COURSE.......................................................................................................... 42 UNASSIGN A COURSE ..................................................................................................... 44 EDIT THE CATALOG .................................................................................................. 47 SETTING SYSTEM OPTIONS .................................................................................... 50 REGISTRATION REQUIRES ADMIN APPROVAL ................................................................ 50 USE EMAIL AS USER NAME............................................................................................ 51 MAXIMUM TIME LEARNER CAN BE INACTIVE BEFORE BEING LOGGED OFF.................. 51 MAXIMUM TIME TO UPLOAD A COURSE ........................................................................ 51 WELCOME MESSAGE ..................................................................................................... 51 MAX NUMBER IN SELECT GROUP LIST .......................................................................... 52 APPENDIX A: SCORM ................................................................................................. 53 APPENDIX B: SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ............................................................. 54 SERVER REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................ 54 USER PLATFORM REQUIREMENTS .................................................................................. 54 APPENDIX C: ERROR MESSAGES .......................................................................... 55
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Typographic Conventions
Bold Arial Font is
used to identify user interface elements such as the names of pages and the names of buttons.
Related Publications
The LMS Installation and Configuration Guide describes how to install and configure the LMS.
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Overview
LMS Capabilities
The Learning Management System (LMS) manages the delivery of web-based courses to learners. The web-based courses must conform to the SCORM 1.2 and the SCORM 2004 standard (see Appendix A: SCORM for more details about the SCORM standard). The LMS manager can perform these functions: Manage Users. The users of the LMS include the administrator of the LMS, the administrators of groups and learners. The LMS and group administrators can add, delete and edit users in the groups that they control. View Reports. The LMS provides reports on courses and learners. Manage Groups. The LMS initially contains a group called "everyone". The LMS administrator can create one or more additional groups. Each group contains learners. A learner can only belong to a single group. Manage Courses. The LMS administrator can publish SCORM-based courses. A published course can be set to active or inactive. An active course can be placed in the catalog and can be assigned to learners. Edit The Catalog. The catalog is a collection of courses. The learner browses the catalog to find courses that he or she would like to launch. The catalog can be organized by headings. Headings can contain multiple levels of sub-headings. Set System Options. The LMS administrator sets system options to control the behavior of the LMS.
A group administrator can perform these functions: Manage Users. A group administrator can add and delete users for his/her group. A group administrator can edit information about each user. View Reports. A group administrator can get reports on his/her group.
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What Is a Course
A course is one or more web pages that provide a self-paced learning experience to the learner. The learner can begin the course at any time, stop it and resume it at a later time. The learner decides how quickly he or she will move through the course material. The learner can come back and review the course after it has been completed. All courses must conform to the SCORM 1.2 or SCORM 2004 standard. Any authoring tool that creates a course that conforms to the SCORM 1.2 or SCORM 2004 standard can be used to create courses for delivery by the LMS.
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Learner
LMS
Courses
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Database Server
Figure 2 shows a high level view of the LMS system architecture. Every user accesses the LMS with a web browser. The web browser provides the user interface. The web browser communicates actions to the LMS software running on the web server. The LMS software requires the Windows operating system and Microsofts IIS Web Server. The LMS software stores information in a SQL Server database.
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You should change the administrative password if it is still set to the default value (admin). To change your password: 1. Login 2. Click on the Edit Profile link 3. Change you password on the Edit Profile page and click on the Submit button (see figure 4).
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Manage Users
The LMS database keeps track of registered users (the LMS administrator, group administrators and learners). Registered users have a username and password that they use to login into the LMS. There are three ways to register users. 1. Users register themselves without any approval by the administrator. 2. Users start the registration process. The administrator must approve their registration before they can login to the LMS. 3. The administrator registers all learners.
My Profile Page
The user can modify his or her registration information. The user does this by clicking on the My Profile button on the Welcome page. Clicking on the My Profile button takes the user to the My Profile Page. The My Profile page contains required data items. These are: User Name Password Email First Name Last Name The My Profile page can contain many other optional data items. These optional items can include Salutation, Middle Initial, Jr/Sr, Company Id, Company Name, Department, Job Title, Address 1, Address 2, Address 3, City, State/Province, Country, Postal Code, Work Phone, Home Phone, Cell Phone, Pager, Fax Phone and 10 other optional fields to use as needed. The person who installed the LMS may have configured the fields on this page and modified the titles of the data.
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Figure 9 - The User List Page You can edit the user information by clicking on the Edit button to the left of the user name. To select a user, put a check mark in the checkbox to the right of each users name. Once one or more users are selected, you can perform these functions: Delete a user by clicking the Delete User button. Register a user by clicking the Register User button. The users state will go from Pending to Registered. A registered user can login with a username and password. An unregistered user has a username and password but cannot login to the LMS. Unregister a user by clicking the UnRegister User button.
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View Reports
The LMS provides reports on courses and learners. To view reports, click on the View Reports button from the Administrative Functions page (see figure 6). This will take you to the View Reports page (see figure 10).
Figure 10 - The View Reports Page The View Reports page provides links to a report on all courses published to the LMS. It also provides links to pages that let you find specific courses and learners.
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Find a Course
When you click on the Find A Course button on the View Reports page (see figure 10), you will go to the Find A Course page (see figure 12). This page lets you search the database for courses. You enter search criteria on this page. For example, find all courses whose name starts with the letter I.
Figure 12 - The Find a Course Page When you click on the Search button, you will go to the Course List page (see figure 13). The Course List page provides the list of courses that match your search criteria. To the right of each course name are links to more detailed reports described in this chapter. The links will show the learners enrolled in the course the average results for all learners who have completed the course.
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Find a Learner
When you click on the Find A Learner button on the View Reports page (see figure 10), you will go to the Find A Learner page (see figure 17). This page lets you search the database for users. You enter search criteria on this page. For example, find all users whose Username starts with the letter L.
Figure 17 - Find a Learner Page When you click on the Search button, you will go to the Learner List page (see figure 18). The Learner List page provides the list of learners that match your search criteria. To the right of each learner name is a link to a detailed report for that learner.
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Manage Groups
Learners can be organized into groups. Each group can have one or more group administrators. A group administrator can manage the learners in the group and view reports for members of the group. The LMS administrator can add, delete and edit groups. To manage groups, click on the Manage Groups button from the Administrative Functions page (see figure 6). This will take you to the Manage Groups page (see figure 23).
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Create a Group
As a LMS administrator, you can create groups. To create a group, click on the Create Groups button from the Manage Groups page (see figure 23). This will take you to the Create Groups page (see figure 24). A group must have a short name and a description. Once a group has been created, the LMS Administrator can add group administrators to the group. The LMS and group administrator can add learners to a group.
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Find Groups
The LMS Administrator can find groups. To find groups, click on the Find Groups button from the Manage Groups page (see figure 23). This will take you to the Find Groups page (see figure 25). This page lets you select all groups, a specific group or the groups that meet your search criteria.
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Change Groups
A user may be the administrator of more than one group. So, the LMS provides a way to see the current group and to change groups. The current group is shown in the upper right hand portion of the screen as shown in figure 26.
The LMS provides buttons to change the current group. These buttons are found in the administrators functions page, manage users page, manage groups page and view reports page.
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Manage Courses
As a LMS administrator, you can publish courses to the LMS. You can also set the courses to active or inactive. To manage courses, click on the Manage Courses button from the Administrative Functions page (see figure 6). This will take you to the Manage Courses page (see figure 27).
Publish a Course
A course is published when all of its files have been moved to the web server and the information about the course has been read into the database. The simplest way to publish a course is to upload a SCORM package. Most SCORM conformant authoring tools create a SCORM package or tell you how to create one. A SCORM LMS Administrators Guide Page 35 of 57
package is a zip file that contains all of the files for the course plus a file called the SCORM manifest which is always named imsmanifest.xml (see figure 28).
Course Files
SCORM Manifest
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documentation to learn more about file locations. In a typical LMS installation you can put your course files in a folder under the c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\LMS\LmsCourses directory. Once you have copied the files to the web server, you are ready to read the SCORM manifest. Click on the Read SCORM Manifest button on the Manage Courses page. After you click on the button you will go to the Read SCORM Manifest page (see figure 31).
Figure 31 - The Load Manifest Page You must enter the relative path to the manifest file. For example, if the LMS is installed in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\LMS and the manifest file for the course is C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\LMS\LmsCourses\course1\imsmanifest.xml then enter the path to the manifest file as LmsCourses\course1. You can make sure you have a valid SCORM manifest by clicking the Validate Only checkbox.
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Figure 32 - The Find Course Page This page lets you search the database for courses. You enter search criteria on this page. For example, find all courses whose name start with the letter I. When you click on the Search button, you will go to the Course List page (see figure 33). The Course List page provides the list of courses that match your search criteria. LMS Administrators Guide Page 40 of 57
Figure 33 - The Course List Page To edit a course, click on the Edit button to the left of the course name. Click the checkbox to the right of the course to make the course active/inactive, to delete it or to assign the course. Delete the course by clicking the Delete Course button. You will want to unassign the course for all users prior to deletion. Activate the course by clicking the Make Active button Make a course Inactivate the course by clicking the Make Inactive button Assign the course by clicking on the Assign Course button Delete previously assigned courses by clicking on the Unassign Course button
You will get the following actions when a course is made inactive: The course is removed from the catalog. The course is removed from the My Courses list for all learners enrolled in the course. The records for the course will be retained. The course files will remain on the web server.
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You will get the following actions when a course is deleted: The course is removed from the catalog. The course is removed from the My Courses list for all learners enrolled in the course. The records for the course will be deleted. The course files will be removed from the web server.
Assign a Course
When you select the Assign Course button, you will see the assign course page (see Figure 34). The assign courses page lets you assign a course in these ways: To all learners that are currently a member of a group To all learners who join a group in the future To specific learners in a group
The assign courses page lets you make two types of assignments: Mandatory the learner is expected to take this course Optional the learner has the option to take this course
A few examples will help to show different ways to use the assign a course. Example 1: You want to assign this course to all learners in all groups. You want all future learners to be assigned this course. You would like to make this a mandatory course. Steps: 1. Make sure you have selected the "Everyone" group 2. Select the checkbox labeled, "This course will be assigned to learners in
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this group after they register" 3. Select the radio button labeled, "All registered learners" 4. Select the radio button labeled, "Mandatory the learner is expected to take the course"
Example 2: You want to assign this course to all current learners in the sales group. You want all future learners in the sales group to be assigned this course. You would like to make this an optional course. Steps: 1. Make sure you have selected the "Sales" group 2. Select the checkbox labeled, "This course will be assigned to learners in this group after they register" 3. Select the radio button labeled, "All registered learners" 4. Select the radio button labeled, "Optional the learner has the option to take the course"
Example 3: You want to assign this course to a specific learner. You would like to make this an optional course. Steps: 1. Select the radio button labeled, "One or more registered learners (selected in the next step)" 2. Select the radio button labeled, "Optional the learner has the option to take the course" 3. Click on the Assign button. You will now have the opportunity to find the specific learner.
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Unassign a Course
When you select the Unassign Course button, you will see the assign course page (see Figure 35). The unassign courses page lets you unassign a course in these ways: To all learners that are currently a member of a group To all learners who join a group in the future To specific learners in a group
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You can also delete pending course assignments (these are courses that will be assigned to learners when they join a group in the future) by selecting Delete Course Assignments from the Manage Courses page (see Figure 36 ).
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Figure 37 - The Edit Catalog Page The catalog is empty when the LMS is initially installed. When the catalog is empty, the words Right click on this heading to edit the catalog appear. This is the anchor point of the catalog. You can add courses or headings to the anchor point. To add courses or headings, put your mouse over the words Right click on this heading to edit the catalog and click the right button. A menu shown in Figure 38 will appear.
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Note: This menu will only appear when you are using Internet Explorer running on Windows.
Figure 38 - The Edit Catalog Menu By using this menu you can add, delete or edit headings and courses. A course can appear under more than one heading. You menu can have: A single course. Multiple courses. A mix of headings, sub-headings and courses (see Figure 39). You will need to publish a course to the LMS before you can put it in the catalog (see the Manage Courses chapter for information on how to publish a course).
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Welcome Message
You can change the welcome message displayed on the welcome page. You can enter text or HTML in this field. LMS Administrators Guide Page 51 of 57
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Appendix A: SCORM
The LMS supports the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) version 2000 and version 1.2. SCORM is an e-Learning standard that describes the way a course works with a LMS. The SCORM standard defines: The way a SCORM course is packaged. The format of the manifest file. The manifest file defines the following: The names of all of the Shareable Content Objects (SCOs) in the course. The manifest file also specifies the way to launch each SCO. The organization of all of the SCOs in the course. The list of all of the files in the course. Metadata for the course such as the name of the course and the description. The way to the LMS should control the sequencing and navigation of the SCOs (this feature is only available in SCORM 2004 courses). The way a SCO communicates with the LMS The SCORM standard is defined by the ADL. ADL is a cooperative effort between government, corporate and educational organizations. The complete SCORM standard is available on the ADL Web Site http://www.adlnet.org. The ADL site includes a free conformance test. This test allows lets you test SCORM packages and manifests to see if they meet the SCORM standard. If you have any problems publishing your SCORM packages or manifests you should test examine them with the SCORM conformance test.
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security permissions of the LmsUploads folder and check the remaining space on the hard drive. The LMS accepts SCORM courses which are packaged as Zip files. The supplied file was not a zip file or the data is corrupt. The manifest does not conform to the SCORM standard. The course cannot be published. Use the ADL Test Suite to identify the source of the error in the manifest. The manifest does not conform to the SCORM standard. The course cannot be published. Use the ADL Test Suite to identify the source of the error in the manifest. No files were extracted from the SCORM package. The SCORM package was empty. The SCORM package was not uploaded. Review the size of the SCORM package. The SCORM package could not be uploaded. Please contact technical support.
(LMS-109) Too many courses with similar The LMS generates a course name directory name by tagging a number to the root of course zip file name. The LMS made the maximum number of attempts to create the file. Please check the LMS Courses folder. Consider renaming the zip file or deleting some courses with the same zip file name. (LMS-110) Unable to delete zip file from The SCORM package cannot be LmsUploads deleted from the LMSUploads folder. Review the LMS Installation manual for the appropriate security settings for the LmsUploads folder. (LMS-111) Unable to delete folder The LMS did not have enough privileges to delete a folder. Review the LMS Installation manual for the LMS Administrators Guide Page 56 of 57
appropriate security settings for the LmsUploads and LmsCourses folders. The LMS did not have enough privileges to create a folder. Review the LMS Installation manual for the appropriate security settings for the LmsUploads and LmsCourses folders. The unzip program reported an error. The files from the SCORM package cannot be extracted. A Course With the same manifest location already exists in the system. You cannot publish two courses to the same location. Select another name and location for the course.
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