Process: How to Set up Optional Learning

  What is Optional Learning?

Optional learning is a feature that allows administrators to distinguish between mandatory and elective courses, giving learners the flexibility to explore beyond essential training. This allows organisations to empower their learners by fostering a culture of continuous learning, enabling them to tailor their professional development to their individual needs and interests. Learnt makes this an easy process, with our course permission rules, administrators can enable learners to express their interest in optional courses. In this guide, we simplify the process of setting up optional learning, providing straightforward steps for administrators to seamlessly integrate this feature.

Step 1: Edit Course Settings

The first step in setting up Optional Learning is ensuring you have enabled the settings at a course level. In the course settings, there is an option to enable the course as optional. This setting will need to be enabled to change the course from Mandatory to Optional.

To enable optional Learning at a course level, first navigate to Admin Settings > Admin Courses. 

Choose the specific course that you wish to designate from the list of available courses as an optional learning course. If the course has not yet been created, we recommend reviewing our help guide, 'How to Create a Course,' before proceeding with the setup.

In the course settings, make sure to check the 'Is Optional' checkbox. This step finalises the configuration and designates the course as an optional learning opportunity. Once selected, this will bring up additional visibility settings.

Visibility Settings:

1. Visibility to Learners: You will need to decide whether the course will be available for all learners to register into.
   • If you select 'Yes', the learner will need to register via the optional learning page in the platform.
   • If you select 'No' to visibility to all learners, you will need to define who has access via the option permissions tab in the course page (see step 2).
2. Approval Required: If 'Yes' is selected above, you will need to decide whether administrators should approve the registrations or if the learner can automatically be approved after registration.

After updating the visibility settings, you can either save and publish the course or continue with the settings if it's a new course. If your course is not visible to all learners, you'll need to define the optional permissions as outlined in step 2. On the other hand, if your course is visible to all learners, and you require approval from administrators, then please refer to step 3 for further guidance.

Step 2: Optional Course Permissions

If you selected No, to make the course visible to all learners, you must set up the optional course permissions to determine which learners can access the course. You can find the Optional Permissions tab in the top menu bar of the course settings. Similar to course permissions, click on the + icon and then add the permission details below. Remembering, these permission details mirror the settings in learner profiles.



Once applied, Save and Publish the course. 

 

Step 3: Approving Optional Learning Registrations

If you chose 'Yes' for both making the course visible to all learners and requiring administrator approval, you will need to approve all registrations for optional learning. To approve these registrations, navigate to Admin Courses, then click on the Optional Learning Registrations tab to view all course registrations made by learners.


Select the checkbox next to the desired registration(s), then click the ellipsis icon to approve the registrations.