After you build course areas, such as content areas, learning modules, lesson plans, and folders, you create content within them. You edit and manage all of the items and course areas, except content areas, in the same way.
When you access an item's contextual menu, you can change settings, modify availability, create metadata, and turn on options such as review status, adaptive release, and statistics tracking. You can also copy, move, and delete content. You can drag content to new positions in the page and hide content details to save screen space.
The student view of the course area is not affected. Students do not have the ability to collapse descriptions.
Content appears in the order you added it, but you can change the order. Use the drag-and-drop function or the keyboard accessible reordering tool to rearrange content. Be sure Edit Mode is ON.
To move an item using the drag-and-drop function, press the arrows next to the item. The item is highlighted.
Press and drag the item into the new location. The item is surrounded by dashes as you move it.
Release the item to place it in its new location.
Alternatively, you can use an accessible tool to reorder items.
To change the name, description, appearance, options, or availability for a folder, learning module, lesson plan, or content item, you need to edit the item.
You edit content areas with a different method. To learn more, see Managing Course Menu Links.
Alternatively, while viewing a content area, learning module, lesson plan, or folder, access the contextual menu at the top of page next to the course area's title.
You can edit an item’s settings to make it unavailable to students or to apply date and time restrictions to control when it appears. You can also apply adaptive release to an item to control which users can access it and when they can access it.
Availability of items is set on an item-by-item basis. You can also make entire course areas unavailable. For example, if you edit a learning module, lesson plan, or folder and click No for Permit Users to View this Content, the course area is no longer visible to students. This means that all items within the unavailable course area are also unavailable to students, regardless of their individual availability settings. Therefore, the display of an item to students is contingent upon the availability of its parent folder.
Items in an unavailable course area are not visible to students in that location. However, students are able to access those items if additional links to them exist in different course areas. For example, if you have an available URL in course area A that you copied to course area B, the link exists in both locations. If you make course area A unavailable, students can still access the URL in course area B. Links to tools work in the same way. If you link to a discussion forum in course area A and make course area A unavailable, students can still access the discussion forum by going directly to the discussion board by using a link in a different course area or the course menu.
Click Adaptive Release and set criteria that must be met for the item to be released to users. To learn more, see Release Content.
You make content areas unavailable in a different way than other course areas. On the course menu, access the content area's contextual menu and click Hide Link.
You can copy and move course areas such as folders, learning modules, and lesson plans from one area or course to another area or course. If copying or moving between courses, you must be enrolled in both courses.
You use a different method to copy content areas. To learn more, see Copy Courses.
You can copy and move content to organize and rearrange your course material. For example, if your course area contains a large number of items, organize them with folders to help users navigate your content. If you create folders after you create content items, you can move items to the new folders.
See the preceding section to learn about copying and moving content areas, learning modules, lesson plans, and folders.
Some content items have copy and move restrictions. For example, you can only copy and move a course link to another area within the same course. You cannot copy assignments, tests, and surveys, but you can move them within the same course.
For items that you cannot copy, such as a test, survey, or assignment, the copy option does not appear in the item’s contextual menu.
If a course area contains items that you cannot move to another course, such as a test, the option to move it to another course does not appear on the Move page.
You delete folders, learning modules, lesson plans, and content items in the same way. Be aware that sometimes this means the content is permanently removed from the system.
Deleting a course area, such as a content area, learning module, lesson plan, or folder permanently removes that container. For example, deleting a learning module permanently removes the learning module container as well as its table of contents.
Items within the container may not be permanently deleted, depending on the item type:
You can make a course area or item unavailable instead of deleting it. If a course area has items that will be permanently deleted that you want to retain, consider moving them to a different course area that is not available to students before deleting the course area.
Metadata stores information about a content item, including bibliographic, lifecycle, and copyright information. Metadata allows content to be imported from and exported to other applications that use IMS (Instructional Management Systems) standards, creating interoperability for learning content.
You cannot track or report on the information provided in metadata. You can view it on the Content Metadata page and use as reference information for the content item. You can edit metadata for a content item.
Your institution controls whether this tool is available.
You can add four types of metadata to an item:
When you attach items from the Content Collection to your course, you can select associated metadata from the Content Collection to display with the linked item in the course area. You cannot modify the Content Collection metadata.
Item statistics provide detailed usage information about your content, such as how many times users viewed an item and when it was accessed. You can enable statistics tracking at any time, and begin collecting data from that moment on. If users access an item before you enable statistics tracking, their access is not recorded.
If users are unenrolled, their data is deleted from all course statistics. To retain their statistics, change their availability to No rather than unenrolling them.
Statistics tracking is a type of course report for individual content items. To obtain course reports on overall user activity as well as activity in content areas, forums, and groups, go to the Control Panel, expand the Evaluation section, and click Course Reports.
Double-click the video to enlarge the viewing area.
The report displays three sections of data:
The Access by Date section displays information for all enrolled users. Access information for system guests and unenrolled users (previously enrolled users who were deleted from your course) is displayed under the guest user. Observer access to content items is not tracked.
When you enable review status for an item, you can check who has reviewed the item, and you can use review status as adaptive release criteria. Students can use review status to keep track of their progress, especially if students review content in a non-linear fashion.
For students, a Mark Reviewed link appears with the item in the course area. After reviewing the item, students click the link to mark it Reviewed. You can check the item's review status on the User Progress page.
If you or your institution disables the review status tool, the Mark Reviewed links for all affected items are no longer shown. If review status is enabled again, the links reappear and any data associated with review status, such as an individual’s progress, is restored.
Your institution controls whether this tool is available.
Review status settings and information are included during a full course copy with users, and during archive and restore operations. Review status settings and information are not saved during a copy of course materials into a new course or existing course, or for exporting and importing.
You can check whether students can access your content items. If you made a content item unavailable, the User Progress page indicates that the item is not visible to users. The User Progress page also lists adaptive release rules that affect the visibility of an item. If you enable review status for an item, you can check which students have reviewed it and when.
Your institution controls whether the adaptive release and review status tools are available.
An open eye icon in the Visibility column indicates the item is visible to users. An eye with a slash icon indicates the item is not visible to users because of an adaptive release rule or the item’s availability settings.
A check mark in the Reviewed column indicates the item has been reviewed and the student has clicked the item’s Mark Reviewed link. A circle with no check mark indicates the item has not been reviewed.
Review status is also available on the Performance Dashboard. To learn more, see Performance Dashboard.
Turning On Statistics Tracking for an Item (Flash video | 1m 28s)