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Using Course Tools

A number of tools are available in the "Administration" area of your course. On this page you will get an overview of the menus of courses and learning resources of the "Administration".

Course adminisatration

You can organize course participants and course-related groups, as well as their rights, in the members management. The course structure and the course tools are set up in the course editor. Furthermore, you have access to the storage folder of a course.

During the course itself the assessment tool is relevant. Course-related reminders and lectures can also be organized. The Assessment mode is suitable for online exams. Certain statistical data can also be retrieved and data archived. And of course courses and learning resources can be copied, exported or deleted.

Info

The administration menus of the different learning resources differ in detail. Also, the same submenus are not available for each learning resource.

The administration menus

Assessment tool

In the menu "Assessment tool", not to be confused with the course element "Assessment", the entire assessment of a course is carried out. Here you have access to all course elements that can be assessed and you can make assessments with points awarded, passed/failed and give individual feedback.

Assessment tool overview

The menu Assessment Tool is therefore relevant during the course or at the end.

All owners of courses have access to the assessment tool as well as members of a corresponding group and, last but not least, all coaches. Owners may assess all course participants, tutors only those they have been assigned to.

Hint

Subscribe to the notification service, either for newly received test results and/or newly created certificates.

Further information about the assessment tool you can found here.

Documents coach

This menu gives coaches the possibility to store files. All coaches and course owners can access this area.

As a storage location, either an already existing folder of the storage folder of the course can be selected in the "Settings" in the tab "Options" or a new folder can be generated especially for the coaches in the storage folder.

If the "Automatically generated folder" option is selected, unlike course owners, coaches will not have access to other files or folders located in the course's storage folder. On the other hand, course owners or persons with access to the course editor have full access to the storage folder and also see the files of the coaches in the automatically generated folder "coachdocuments". This means course owners always have access to the files of the coach folder and can also use them for linking to specific course elements, e.g. a single page. Conversely, even with this coach folder, coaches do not get the opportunity to integrate files into the course structure.

Hint

The menu "Documents coach" appears only if in the settings of the course in the tab "Options" the corresponding function has been activated by the course owner.

Learning area

With the help of a learning area several groups of a course can be bundled. This is especially useful when there are many groups within a course.

Use the "Create learning area" button to assign a new learning area to the course. Then assign the desired groups existing in the course to this learning area.

Learning areas can be selected e.g. in the course editor at the course element "Enrolment". Thus, all groups in a learning area are offered for enrolment. Furthermore, learning areas in conventional courses are available for selection in the tabs "Visibility" or "Access" respectively, if the option "group-dependent" is activated.

The advantage over explicitly listing all relevant groups in the access and visibility restrictions is the greater flexibility and easier handling in the course editor. If new group rules are defined in the course, it must be republished. If a learning area rule is defined instead, the participation of a group can be defined in the learning area administration. The course does not need to be republished for this purpose.

Hint

Learning areas can be used, for example, if you want to make the same course element available to several groups within a course, or if there are many groups to choose from for an enrolment element, or if you want to bundle several groups for one coach. With a learning area you save the repetitive selection of each group.

Course DB

Here you can create a new course-specific database that can store certain course-specific information.

Course Statistics

This course function provides you with statistics regarding access to your OpenOlat course. All course owners have access to those statistics. You will receive data in the form of tables as well as in the form of charts. Table data can be downloaded as Excel files (e.g. for further processing) to your computer.

Relevant for your total of course accesses are user clicks on a single course element; however, clicks on this element's content will not be counted. If a user selects the Wiki from course navigation and clicks it three times, three clicks will be counted; no click will be counted though when clicking on a link within that Wiki.

Statistics can be created per hour, per day, per weekday or per week. Furthermore you can choose a certain period of time per day and per week during which any course access should be displayed in your statistics. When selecting a course element in your table its corresponding chart will be displayed. If you select the number of clicks in the row "Total" your chart will show all accesses sorted by course element.

Test statistics

The test statistics allow you to perform general course-related, anonymous statistical evaluations of your tests. All tests included in the course are displayed. The key figures for a test as well as further analyses of the time taken to complete a test, average points per question and the percentage of correct answers per question are displayed.

In addition, key figures such as the number of participants who completed the question, average score, time taken to complete the question, etc. are displayed and visualized for each question. You can evaluate a test with regard to e.g. difficulty and suitability by means of characteristic values for test evaluation and item analysis.

Access to the test statistics is not only available to the course owners but also to all coaches of the course.

Survey statistics

The survey statistics allow you to make a general course-related, anonymous statistical evaluation of your questionnaires/surveys. For each survey there is an overview, tables, diagrams and access to the individual questionnaires (form).

The overview includes key figures such as the number of completed questionnaires, submission period and processing time. The tab "Tables" contains evaluations for individual questions. In the tab "Diagrams" the results are visualised in the form of bar charts and the corresponding statistical data such as median, variance and standard deviation are displayed. In the tab "Individual forms" you have access to each individual questionnaire. All accesses are anonymous.

Besides course owners all coaches have access to survey statistics.

Data Archiving tool

The archive tool can be used to store the results of various course elements of a course. In particular, saving the results of surveys, tests, self-tests, tasks, group tasks and course results are important elements that you should save at the end of the course.

Booking methods

Here you will find an overview of all the people who have booked your course.

This menu appears only if a booking method has been selected in the "Settings" of the administration in the tab "Release".

Copy

Learning resources are copied in order to be able to reuse an old course structure for a new semester, for example. When copying a course, the structure, folder contents, HTML pages and group names (without group members) are copied. User data such as forum entries, group members, etc. are not copied. However, user data such as forum posts, group members, etc. will not be copied. This way you get a completely reset course without user-specific data remains.

Hint

It is best to create a course copy if you want to run a course repeatedly instead of just removing the people from the member list. This way, all entries in the assessment tool are also omitted and you get a completely cleaned course.

Hint

A course copy can also usefully be created as a backup after the course has been completed and before the course begins.

Copy with wizard

With the help of the wizard, the elements of a course to be copied can be selected and thus a transfer for a new course run can be made even more effectively. The copy can be automatic or user-defined. In the case of the user-defined copy, the course objects to be copied can be selected and further settings can be made, e.g. with regard to member administration, certain course elements and other options.

This function is only available for learning path course.

Convert to learning path course

Traditional courses and courses created before OpenOlat version 15 can be converted into a learning path course via this link.

This function is only available for traditional courses.

Export content

Export your learning resources as a ZIP file to keep a backup copy or to import the learning resource into another OpenOlat instance e.g. another educational institution for further use. Allowing a course copy for other authors is useful for course templates, for example.

As the owner of a learning resource, you can also determine in the administration menu under "Settings" → "Shared to other authors" whether your learning resource may be exported, copied or referenced by all other OpenOlat authors in the system. You can find further information here.

Delete (learning resource)

When a course or learning resource is deleted, all user data is removed and the course can now neither be accessed nor viewed by former participants or coaches. Course owners will subsequently find the deleted learning resource in the authoring area in the "Deleted" tab. Only the course owner has access and finds the course in the authoring area under the tab "Deleted". Here the learning resource appears with the status "Trash". There is still access to the administration menu items. The "Trash" status cannot be changed. However, it is possible to restore the learning resource using the link in the 3-dot menu.

Final deletion

The final deletion of a course is only possible by the administrator.

Archiving

When you delete a course, user data (e.g. test results) is first archived as an Excel file in your personal folder and then deleted.

It is possible to inform other course owners via e-mail about the completion or deletion of a course. This can either be optionally selected in the Finish/Delete dialog or set in the administration.

A course can also be closed or deleted automatically. The administrator makes the appropriate settings.

Further administration menu and details

Other menus are presented more concretely on separate manual pages: