Once you, as an Admin, have set-up the skills and skill groups within your academy, you can start associating them with specific courses. Or, more precisely, the exam questions of the exams within the courses.
The exam questions must reflect the associated skills, and the score on each question can then point to the jobs in which individuals may excel.
There are two ways to connect your skills with your courses.
Map Skills / Development Workspace
Go to the Development Workspace and select Skills -> Map Skills in the left navigation panel. On the top, select the Connect to Courses tab.
Under Connect to Courses, you can select a course and set up which skills should be assessed through this course. This must be then carried to the actual exam questions of the exams within those courses. The skill should be connected to at least one exam question, otherwise you will end up analyzing false data.
You can find the desired course using the search bar at the top of the page. Click on the arrow next to the course name to check which skills and job are connected to this course.
Please note: If you want to completely disconnect a skill from a course, you can only do this from this page. Just check the box on the right of the skill and click Disconnect.
To connect new skills to courses, select one or multiple courses and click on Connect. This leads you to the next page where you can select which skills, group skills, or job-connected skills to associate with your selected courses.
You can connect the selected course(s) with any skill, group of skills, or job-connected skills. To do so, just select the relevant tab, select the desired skill(s), group(s), and/or job(s), and hit Save.
Note: You can filter the skills by industries, tiers, categories, and types and see the details available for each skill by clicking the arrow next to it.
Important Note:
When connecting skills to a course through the Map Skills page in the Development Workspace, the skill will be connected with all the existing exam questions of the exams within the course. You can then refine the skill-exam questions connections through the Manage Exam page if needed.
Skills / Manage Course Panel
If you wish to connect your skills to a course through the Manage Course page, or if you want to refine the skill-exam question connections, just find the relevant course and head to the Manage Course page.
You then have two options: you can either do this from the Skills page or the Exams tab.
a) Skills
Once you reach the Manage Course page, click on the Skills tab in the Course Panel. On this page, you will be able to connect your skills to the course and check which skills are connected with this course its exams.
To connect a skill to this course just click on Add Skill, select the needed skill from the list, and click Save.
Important Note: When connecting skills to a course through the Skills page, the skill will be connected with all the existing exam questions of the exams within the course. You can then refine the skill-exam questions connections through the Exams page if needed.
b) Manage Exam
Once you reach the Manage Exam page, click on the Edit Questions tab and you will see all the questions that are included in this exam. Find a question you want to connect to a skill and click Edit Question.
From this page, you are able to:
- Connect the Question with a Skill
- Connect the Question with a Skill that is already connected with the associated Course
- Disconnect the Question from a Skill
To Connect the Question with an Academy Skill, click on Add Academy Skill. The list of skills presented includes all the skills that you have added to your Academy. Select the needed skill from the list, click Close, and then click Save Question to save your changes!
Please note that in this case, any Academy Skill that is connected to an Exam Question will automatically be connected to the associated Course as well.
To Connect the Question with a skill is already connected with the associated Course, click on Add from Course Skills. The list of skills presented includes all the skills that you have connected with this course. Select the needed skill from the list, click Close, and then click Save Question to save your changes!
To disconnect the question from a skill you can either click on the bin icon next to the skill or click on the Add from Course Skills, uncheck the skill in question and click Close. Don't forget to click Save Question to save your changes!
View Skills
If you need to review which skills you have connected with which questions, you can easily do from the View Skills page. Just head to the Manage Exam page and select Skills in the Exam Panel. At the top of the page, you will see all the skills that are connected with this Exam, regardless of the question they are connected with
If you need a more in-depth look, just click on Connected Skills under a question and you will see which skills are connected with this specific question.
Filtering Courses based on the Connected Skills
After you connect your Academy's courses with skills, your academy members will be able to filter their course training based on the connected skill a course has.
When the user goes to the Learner Workspace and selects My Training -> Courses in the left navigation bar, the Skills tab will be available for the users on the right side of the Courses page. Here they will be able to select a skill or group of skills and see all the courses connected to it.
Please note that only skills connected to courses that the user has access to will be listed.
Courses Connected with Skills
When a course is connected with Performance Skills, then the connected skills will be displayed on the Course's About page, so that you and your Academy members will be able to locate them easily!
When you create a Learning Path that includes courses that are connected with your academy's Performance Skills, then all skills that the Learning Path courses are associated with will be displayed on the Learning Path Card. This way a user will know what kind of skills/competencies they will receive by completing the Learning Path in question.
Frequently asked questions
Q1: Does the course need an exam to connect skills to it?
A1: No, skills can be connected to a course whether the course has an exam or not. For users to take an online assessment on a skill, an exam is needed – the skill should be connected to at least one exam question and the user needs to complete the course exam..
Q2: What if we only have a SCORM exam in our course?
A2: SCORM exams can give online assessments if their questions are connected to skill(s).
Q3: Will the skills be connected to the SCORM exam?
A3: If you connect the SCORM exam to the questions upon creation of the course, there will be a connection. If you create the SCORM exam (or any exam) and you connect the course to skills later, the skill with be connected to the exam questions. If you connect the course to a skill and add the exam after this, the skill will not be automatically connected to the exam, and you would need to connect this manually.
Q4: What happens if a course is completed by admin?
A4: Nothing. Online assessment will be given only if the trainee is the one to complete the course exam that has connected skill(s).
General info: If a user has completed an exam that has no connected skills and skills are connected to that exam (questions) afterwards, the assessments is not retroactive. User will not get any online assessment in that case because they completed the exam before the skills got connected.
Read also:
Adding Skills to Your Academy
Enabling Performance Metrics in Your Academy