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ELIS Class instances

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Class Instances

Classes are instances of course descriptions. Classes may be stand-alone, face to face classes, Moodle classes, or classes in a different LMSsystem.

Creating Class Instances

Classes can be auto-created from a track or created manually. To create classes go to the Program management block > Program > Manage Class Instances and select the "Add Class Instance" button.

The class start date/time and end date/time can be disabled on the adding class page. Both will be disabled by default. The class start and end day can also be set via the "Default Class Instance Settings", shown at the bottom of this page.

elis addclass page.png

ELIS Classes can be linked to Moodle courses in two ways: Template or Link.

If you select the template option, ELIS will automatically create a new Moodle course and link it to your ELIS Class - the students in the ELIS class will see all the content and activities that were in the Moodle course. When classes are auto-created by a track they automatically create a new Moodle course from the template.

If you link it to the Moodle course instead, then the ELIS Class will be linked to the Moodle course - if one ELIS Class is linked to one Moodle course, then the enrollments from the Moodle course will be synched to the ELIS class. If more than one ELIS Class are linked to the same Moodle course, then enrollments in the ELIS Classes will be kept separate. This model is a good one to reduce the number of Moodle courses on your site - often this is known as "cross listing".

The 'Auto enroll from waitlist' feature enables users from the waitlist to be auto enrolled in the class as seats become available.

Managing Class Instances

The Manage Class Instances page shows a good deal of information about the class - with links to view and edit various parameters.

elis manageclasses page.png

Default Class Instance Settings

Default class settings can be set for each new class created. The settings will be set this way to start each add class screen, the settings can always be adjusted when adding/editing the class. The following image is showing the default class settings. Go to the Program Management block and select Admin > Default Class settings.

Default Class Instance Settings:

elis defaultclasssettings.png

The start time and end time for the class can not be disabled here but the add class screen starts with the time fields disabled. So the times shown here in the default screen will not matter unless they are enabled on the add class screen.

Linking ELIS Classes to Moodle Courses

ELIS Class Instances can be linked to Moodle courses in two ways: Template or Link.

If you select the template option, ELIS will automatically create a new Moodle course and link it to your ELIS Class - the students in the ELIS class will see all the content and activities that were in the Moodle course.

If you link it to the Moodle course instead, then the ELIS Class will be linked to the Moodle course.

Users enrolled in an ELIS class linked to a Moodle course will be automatically enrolled in the Moodle course. The ELIS class instance start date is applied to the Moodle course enrollment in ELIS versions 2.3.3.2+, 2.4.3.2+, and 2.5.1.3+. This results in the user not being able to access the Moodle course until the start date listed for the ELIS class instance.

Enrollment synchronization from the Moodle course to the ELIS class/classes depends on how many classes are linked to the course.

  • If one ELIS Class is linked to one Moodle course, then the enrollments from the Moodle course will be synched to the ELIS class.
  • If multiple ELIS classes are linked to the same Moodle course, then enrollments in the ELIS classes will be kept separate.


Linking multiple ELIS classes to one Moodle course is a good model to reduce the number of Moodle courses on your site - often this is known as "cross listing".

elis linkingclass moodlecourse.png


Class Enrollments Tab

The Enrollments tab for classes has two sections:

  1. Currently Enrolled screen: This screen is where enrolled users are listed and where grades and other completion information can be entered. This screen is shown in the following image.
  2. Enroll Students screen: This screen is where new users can be enrolled in the class.
  3. There is an additional link to the Enroll Student screen on the left hand side of the page.
elis class enrollmentstab.png

Enroll Students Screen

To enroll new users in the class instance select one of the Enroll Students links, shown in the previous image. This will open the Enroll Students screen where users that can be enrolled in the class are listed. Above the list of users are the filters. The filters are configurable, so you can add just the filters you will use.

elis class enrollmentstab enroll.png

For this example I used the City/town filter, and selected Seattle and Portland. These are the users I want to enroll in the class. Users can be enrolled one at a time or in groups by using the Bulk Assignment box. To enroll a single user:

  1. Select the green Enroll icon on the right hand side of the user row.
  2. A confirmation message will appear. Select the green Check icon to confirm the enrollment in the class.
  3. The user's enrollment date, status, grade, credits, and locking can be edited when you confirm the enrollment.
elis class enrollmentstab enroll2.png

To enroll the rest of the users from the filtered list I will use the Bulk Assignment box. All the users from the list can be added at once by selecting the (1) Add All Search Results button. Individual users or groups of users can (2) dragged and dropped into the Bulk Assignment box as well.

elis class enrollmentstab enroll3.png

Once the users have been added to the Bulk Assignment box you can:

  1. Select the Enroll icon to open the enrollment confirmation message.
  2. Select the green Check icon to confirm the enrollment in the class.
  3. The users enrollment date, status, grade, credits, and locking can be edited before confirming the enrollment.
  4. Clear all the users from the Bulk Assignment list by selecting the Clear button.
  5. Delete individual users from the Bulk Assignment list by hovering over the user row then selecting the red X icon.
elis class enrollmentstab enroll4.png

Currently Enrolled Screen

The Currently Enrolled screen displays users enrolled in the class. The filter options are the same on the Currently Enrolled screen as the Enroll Students screen, except you will be filtering users already enrolled in the class here. User's grades and completion information can be edited from this screen. Users can also be unenrolled from the class on this screen.

elis class enrollmentstab enrolled.png

To edit the grades or completion information for an individual user select the edit icon to open the UI for editing grading information:

  1. Select the yellow Pencil icon on the right hand side of the user row. This will open a window with completion information and grades.
  2. The first section list class information that can be edited.
  3. Learning Objective grading information is listed below the class section.
  4. Select the green Check icon to complete the editing. This will open a confirmation screen where the green Check icon must be selected again to continue.
elis class enrollmentstab enrolled2.png

Another way to edit grades is to use the Bulk Edits box. Multiple users can be edited at once this way. Users can be dragged and dropped into the Bulk Edits box, multiple users can be selected for drag and drop by using Control + Select or Shift + Select. All the users currently listed can be added to the Bulk Edits box by selecting the Add All Search Results button, located inside the Bulk Edits box.

elis class enrollmentstab enrolled3.png

Once users are in the Bulk Edits box select the (1) Edit icon. This opens the (2) UI for editing completion information for the users in the Bulk Edits box. All the users will be assigned the same completion information. Edit the completion information then select the (3) green Check icon. This opens a confirmation message, select the green Check icon again to continue. To remove a user from the list, hover over their name and select the (4) red X icon, or use the (5) Clear button in the top right side of the box to remove all the users from the Bulk Edits box.

elis class enrollmentstab enrolled4.png


Grading Learning Objectives in ELIS and Moodle

Grading Learning Objectives in ELIS

To record grades in ELIS for learning objectives, go to the ELIS class enrollment screen and select the user's edit icon. A window opens where learning objectives and enrollment data can be edited for that user.

elis class enrollmentstab grading.png

The next image is showing the user's edit window. Enter user data for the learning objectives and enrollment data for the class. Select the green check icon located to the right side of the user row when editing is completed.

All data entry on this screen has to be manually entered, except for the dates. For example, entering passing grades for the learning objectives will not give the user "passed" status in the class or calculate a class grade. When entering learning objective grades manually in ELIS, the class grade needs to be manually edited. This is because ELIS does not calculate a class grade from the learning objectives. To automatically calculate ELIS class grades, the Moodle course gradebook can be used.

elis class enrollmentstab gradingui.png

ELIS class completion dates will continue to update until records are locked. If an ELIS class record isn't locked, the user's completion date will change each day to the current day when the cron runs. Because of this the user's ELIS class record should be locked when they have completed the class.

Note: Learning objective grades entered in ELIS do not transfer to the linked activities, grade items, or grade categories in the Moodle course, but grades entered in the Moodle course will transfer to linked learning objectives in ELIS.

Grading Learning Objectives in Moodle

The Moodle course gradebook can be used to calculate the ELIS class grade if the learning objectives are linked to activities, grade items, or grade categories in the Moodle gradebook and the grade is entered in the Moodle course. Grades entered in Moodle will be transferred to linked learning objectives in ELIS when the cron runs.

Once the activity has been completed by the user or a grade is entered in the gradebook by the teacher/admin, the learning objective it is linked to will become locked if the user's grade is greater than or equal to the completion grade for the learning objective. The learning objective grade can not be changed when it is locked. To edit a locked grade or allow a locked grade to be updated, unlock the learning objective.


To complete an activity the user must receive at least the completion grade. If the learning objective the activity is linked to has a completion grade of 0, then the user's first score will be recorded and the learning objective grade will become locked. If the activity grade is changed in Moodle at this point, it will not change the grade in ELIS. The learning objective will need to be unlocked in ELIS before the user grade is updated. The middle of the next image has an example of the Locked checkbox for a learning objective.


The class instance and learning objectives in the following image have completion grades of 70, so the class status is still not complete and the record isn't locked for the class and one of the learning objectives.

elis class enrollmentstab gradingui2.png

In the updated user edit screen below, a new grade has been entered in the Moodle course for the LQ learning objective. The user received a 70 on the second attempt of the LQ learning objective, so the user passed the learning objective and the record was locked. The completion grade for the course is 70, so when the user's grade updated to 70 for the learning objective and the class, they completed the class and the class record was locked.

elis class enrollmentstab gradingui3.png

In the previous image, the quiz linked to the learning objective is set for 2 attempts. If the quiz is set for 1 attempt only, then the learning objective grade will not update. Just the grade for the course will update in this scenario, the quiz attempts would need to be increased for the learning objective grade to update also.

Reports

If a learning objective is linked to a Moodle activity, then the grade entered for the activity will be automatically entered for the learning objective. If the learning objective grade is edited in ELIS, the Moodle activity grade will still over ride the learning objective grade in reports.

We recommend that users not use learning objectives that are linked to Moodle activities if they plan to grade the learning objectives in ELIS. If learning objectives are linked to Moodle activities, the grade should be entered in the Moodle course.

Learning Objectives and Course Grades In practice:

In the screens above you can see an important point about ELIS - the user has a learning objective grade of 50 and a final course grade of 70. Why is the course grade different from the learning objective grade? If you had a second completion element grade of 25 points, how would that affect the final course grade?

This is a trick question, the answer is 'there is no way to know without knowing how the course grade is being calculated in the Moodle gradebook'. This is because ELIS is a reporting system, not a grading system. There is no relationship in ELIS between the sum or average of the learning objectives and the final course grade. The calculations for the final course grade are all made by the Moodle gradebook, and reported to ELIS. ELIS stores these reports, and indeed locks these reports, for archiving and reporting purposes.

FAQ for Learning Objectives:


I updated a user's grade on a learning objective, why do they still show the same grade in ELIS?


The completion grade for an item is the grade a user received when she/he met the completion requirement in ELIS for that item. Thus if the minimum completion requirement for a Moodle quiz is 50 points, and Sally gets 55 points, that becomes her completion grade in ELIS, and the grade is locked. If she later retakes the quiz and gets a 75, the ELIS record is still locked at 55. If you want the updated score to show on her transcript, you would need to unlock her score in ELIS for the Learning Objective linked to that quiz, and then wait for the reporting system to update (which occurs every 5 minutes in ELIS 1.8).

For this reason, it is best to link learning objectives to summative assessments - ones that students/learners complete to show the sum of the knowledge they have gained in a topic.

Using Completion Grades in ELIS and Moodle

ELIS classes can also use the Moodle course gradebook to calculate grades and class completion without using learning objectives. For this to work the grades need to be entered in the Moodle course/gradebook and the ELIS class must be linked to the Moodle course.

Grades entered in the Moodle gradebook will transfer to the the linked ELIS class when the cron runs. If the ELIS course/class has no completion grade the user also completes the class, the completion date is set, and the record is locked. If the ELIS course/class has a completion grade, the user must have at least the completion grade in the Moodle course to complete the linked ELIS class and lock the record.

Locking the record stops the synchronization between the Moodle course and the ELIS class. Once the ELIS class record is locked it will no longer be updated by the Moodle course. To allow the Moodle course to update a locked record, unlock the record and it will update when the cron runs.

ELIS class completion dates will continue to update until records are locked. If an ELIS class record isn't locked, the user's completion date will change each day to the current day when the cron runs. Because of this the user's ELIS class record should be locked when they have completed the class.

Moodle Course Gradebook Settings

It is important to check the gradebook settings of the template course when using a completion grade without learning objectives - make sure that the aggregation settings are correct. Moodle's default setting: "Aggregate only non-empty grades" causes the issue in the image below.

The course can be completed by finishing the first activity in the course. Once the course is completed, the ELIS class linked to it will be completed when the cron runs. If there is only one activity being used to determine the class grade and class completion then this is not an issue.

elis moodle graderreport.png

The next two images show a simple way to fix this issue by turning off "Aggregate only non-empty grades". To do this go to Administration block > Course administration > Grades and then go to the 'Categories and items' section and edit the "Aggregate only non-empty grades" setting. You can also go to the Administration block > Course administration > Grades and then select the edit icon for course grades as shown in the next image (the name of the course in the image is 3 Activities). Editing for the page must be turned on.

elis moodle graderreport2.png

Go to the grade category section shown in the following image, if you don't see this section you may need to select the "Show more" link. Make sure "Aggregate only non-empty grades" is deselected.

elis moodle gradecategory settings.png

This will result in the course total being correctly divided by the number of activities.

elis moodle graderreport3.png

One still has to be careful with course totals and for more complex courses gradebook calculations or hiding the the course total until after the completion date should be used to avoid early course completion.

The ELIS course completion grade can also be used to avoid early course completion. In the example above, if the linked ELIS course has a completion grade of 70 there is no way for the user to complete the ELIS class before they finish all 3 activities in the Moodle course. The maximum grade a user could have after finishing two activities is 67.

Class Waitlist

ELIS enables you to set enrollment limits for classes - by setting the Max # of students.

elis2.6 class waitlistsettings.png

Waitlist for ELIS Administrators

From an administrator's point of view, ELIS will warn you if you are trying to manually enroll users in a full class. You are then able to place the users on the wait list or over-enroll them into the class.

When you try to enroll students in a full class, you are presented with a screen with some options:

  1. Over Enroll - Enrolls the user is the class, overriding the max students setting.
  2. Add To Waitlist - Adds the user to the wait list
  3. Skip Enrollment - User isn't enrolled or added to the waitlist
elis2.6 class addtowaitlist.png

After choosing one of the three options select the Submit Query button to finish, in this instance the user is being added to the waitlist. Later, you can view the waitlist, and see where students are.

elis2.6 classwaitlist.png

If currently enrolled users are removed from the full class, then the users on the wait list are added automatically.

If an administrator increases the maximum number of students, in a course, then students on the wait list are automatically enrolled.

If a user set of users is added to a track and auto-enrolled in classes with less seats available then users in the user set, then students will be place on the wait list. When more than one user is added to the waitlist at a time, they are added in alphabetical order.

If you want to auto-enroll users in the class from the waitlist as enrolled users complete the class, select the 'Auto-enroll users from waitlist' checkbox. The checkbox is located on the bottom of the creating/editing class screens.

Waitlists for Students

The following images will demonstrate how students add themselves to the waitlist. To start I've logged in as a student and selected the Program Overview link as shown in the next image.

elis2.6 learnerprogramoverview.png

When the student selects Choose class from the image above, he/she will select from a list of available classes.

There is only one class in this instance.

elis2.6 learnerchoosingaclass.png

The student can see how many users are on the waitlist, and choose to put themselves on the waitlist by selecting the Enroll button.

elis2.6 learner addtowaitlist.png

The students can see the courses they are on the waitlist of by checking the ELIS Administration block > Learning Plan > Waitlist link. They can see which number on the waitlist they are, and remove themselves from the waitlist.

elis2.6 learnerwaitlistscreen.png

When a spot in a class opens up, the first student on the waitlist is enrolled - and sent an email letting them know they now have a seat in the class.

User's updated Program Overview screen:

elis2.6 learner programoverview2.png

Limitations of Waitlisting:

As noted above, Wait listing is a function of ELIS Classes - for use when ELIS is used as the enrollment system. When enrollment is managed via ELIS, ELIS can set seat limits in ELIS classes and thus the associated Moodle courses with these limitations:

  1. If multiple ELIS classes are linked to the same Moodle course, then the Moodle course with have enrollments from both ELIS Classes, and will not be limited by one ELIS class's seat limit.
  2. If students are enrolled via Moodle's internal enrollment methods, then ELIS can't limit the number of users in the Moodle class - ELIS can only manage seat limits in Moodle classes when ELIS is used as the enrollment system for the Moodle class.


Class Instructors

The Instructors tab of an ELIS class enables the assignment of instructors to the ELIS class. The instructor of the ELIS class may be synchronized to a Moodle course the class is linked to if these conditions apply:

  1. The ELIS Class is linked to only one Moodle course.
  2. A role is assigned as the Default Instructor Role in the ELIS Program Management block Configuration screen.

If these conditions are met, then users assigned as instructors of the ELIS class on the Instructors tab are assigned to the selected Default Instructor role in the linked Moodle course. For example, set the Default Instructor role to Teacher, then the instructor of the ELIS class will be assigned the teacher role in the linked Moodle course.

Instructor Synchronization Use Case

The first step is to make sure the Default Instructors Role is setup correctly. Go to the Program Management block > Admin > Configuration link.

elis admin configurationlink.png

Then scroll down the page to the User Settings section > Default Instructor Role. Select the menu of choices to display a list of available roles to assign. For this example I'm selecting the Teacher role then selecting the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen. The default instructor role setting must be set before the user is added to the Instructor tab for this to work.

elis config defaultinstructorrole.png

The next step is to assign a user on the Instructor tab of the class. The class must be linked to the Moodle course, and only one class can be linked to the Moodle course.

Go to the Instructors tab of the class and select the Available To Assign link.

elis class instructorstab.png

Instructors can be assigned to the class on the Available To Assign screen. A screen opens with a list of users that can be assigned as an instructor on the Instructor tab of the class. To assign instructors:

  1. Use the filters above the user list to find users. Select the Add box to add new filters. For this example I will use the name filter, as I start typing the name the list is filtered.
  2. Select the green assign icon on the right side of the user row to open an assignment window.
  3. Set the assignment dates then select the green check icon to complete the assignment.
  4. If you are assigning multiple instructors the Bulk Assignment box can be used. Drag and drop users in the box or select the Add All Search Results button to add users to the Bulk Assignment box. Once users are added there is a green assign icon that opens the same assignment window as viewed by (2) in the image.
elis class instructorstab assign.png

When viewing the Moodle course's Assign roles screen, as shown in the following image, the user has been automatically added to the teacher role in the Moodle course.

If the Default Instructor role was set to the Administrator role, then this user would have been added to the Administrator role for the linked Moodle course instead of the teacher role.

elis moodlecourse otheruserspage.png

Instructor's View of Learning Plan

Users assigned as instructors in an ELIS classes will have the classes listed in their:

  1. Learning Plan > Current Classes view
  2. Instructed Classes section - Where they can link to the associated Moodle course they are instructing.
elis currentclassespage instructor.png


ELIS Role Assignment and Enrollment Synchronization

Instructors and students can be enrolled in ELIS Class Instances by syncing roles to the student/instructor enrollments. There is an admin setting that must be enabled for this synchronization to work. To edit the setting go to the Program Management block > Admin > Configuration > Enrollment role sync settings. The default setting is N/A.

elis class rolesyncsettings.png
  1. Student role - For this example the Student role has been selected from the drop down menu. So if a user is assigned the student role for a class they will be automatically enrolled as a student in the class. If "Guest" were selected from the drop down menu then any user assigned the guest role for a class would be enrolled as a student. The users enrolled as students will be shown on the Enrollments tab of the class.
  2. Instructor role - The same applies to the instructor role. This is set to the Teacher role now. Any user assigned the teacher role in this class will be enrolled as an instructor. They will be shown on the Instructor tab.

Example:

elis classenrollmentstab.png

In this example 2 students were added to the class via the standard 'Enroll Students' screen while the 3rd was added to the ELIS Roles tab for this class, and synchronized to the class enrollment list.

elis elis class rolestab.png

If we navigate to the Roles tab and select the Student role, we can see the user who is enrolled here on the Assigned screen and synchronized to the ELIS (and Moodle) class list.

elis class assignrolesscreen.png

Next on the Unassigned screen, we add the student David to the student role on the Roles tab and click Assign roles.

elis class enrollmentstab2.png

Due to the Enrollment role synchronization setting above, David is added to the class list, and enrolled in the Moodle class.

Real world use case:

In the real world, this feature could be used when a user needed to have a special permissions over the ELIS Class Instance as well as be enrolled in the CI itself. For example, a moderator or tutor student might need to be able to change settings or view completion information in the ELIS class context, while also needing to be able to participate in forums, etc. in the Moodle class.


Without synchronization, uses used to have to assign the roles twice, once in the enrollments screen, and again in the roles tab.

Constraints

Note that users are currently NOT synchronized from the Enrollments tab back to the ELIS Roles tab, so the students above that were added to the class enrollments screen via "Enroll Student" (Alice and Robert) are not added to the ELIS roles tab for the class.

Class Reports

There are two reports available from the Reports tab of a class:

  1. The Class Instance Roster Report and
  2. The Class Instance Completion Report.

Select the Reports tab to open the screen with the report links. Select a report link to generate that report for the class.

elis classreportstab.png

The Class Roster Report is shown in the next image. This report includes:

  1. The course name
  2. The class name
  3. A list of students enrolled in the class
  4. Icons which allow configuring, downloading, or scheduling the report. More information about the icons is at the bottom of this page.
elis classrosterreport.png

Select the Configure parameters icon located in the upper left corner of the report to open up a report filter that has a 'Show more' link for adding additional fields to the report.

elis classrosterreport filter.png

Select the Show Advanced button and the following screen opens. Select the checkboxes next to the fields you want added to the report.

elis classrosterreport filter2.png

The Class Instance Completion Report is shown in the next image. This report includes:

  1. The class name
  2. Class completion totals in print format and gas gauge format
  3. A list of users with user data for class status, amount of learning objectives completed, and class score.
elis classreporttab completionreport.png

To change report options, click on the "Configure Parameters" icon located in the upper left corner of the report. This will link to the filter for Class Instance Completion Report, where this class will be preselected but a report for any class could be generated.

To schedule the report to run at specific time(s) in the future, select the "Schedule Reports" icon in the upper right corner of the report. For details on setting report parameters when scheduling reports, select the following link ELIS Report scheduling.
The report can be exported in PDF or CSV format. To export the report, select either the "Download PDF" or "Download CSV" icons located in the upper left corner of the report. The report will download locally to your computer.

Report data can be updated automatically, without needing to go back to the report parameters, by clicking the "Refresh" button located at the bottom center of the report page.