Note that you must create a course via Manage Courses before you can create a course community (please see here for more information).
From the main menu, click on the Communities tab.
Click 'Create a Community' and then click on 'Courses, etc.' in the Official Communities section.
Fill in the required information, noting the following:
Community Name: Pick a descriptive but concise name. This will display on the list of communities and will be used if a user searches for a community.
Community Keywords: These will not be visible to users but will be applied when someone searches for an existing community.
Community Description: This will be displayed to any user who searches for or tries to access the community.
Community Shortname: This will be part of the community url. It must be lower-case, less than 20 characters, and include only letters, numbers, underscore or period. After this is set there is no user interface to change the url so pick carefully! For the purposes of uniformity you may wish to discuss naming conventions with anyone else who may be creating course websites within your organisation.
Community Type: select ‘Course Website’ from the dropdown menu.
Community Pages: When you select Course Website a list of default pages will appear (see detail regarding each page below) and when the course website is created these pages will be visible to users. (If you'd like to have a course website template that allows admin. users to deselect or later hide templated pages you'll need help from a developer to make a change in the database settings table.)
Community Courses: select the appropriate course to link this community to. You can connect multiple courses to one website and they will share a student-facing web presence. If you do this, some pages will display information from both courses (e.g. Learning Objectives, MCCs) whereas some pages will only show information from one course (e.g. the course description and course director's message populate from the first course).
Course Curriculum Periods: Select the appropriate curriculum period for this course website. If only one curriculum period exists for a course, it will automatically be selected.
Community Permissions: Use these options to control access to the course website.
Click 'Create'.
If you get an error saying you must specify a Community Type but don't have the option to do so on the screen, you are likely working in a second organisation (e.g., you're working in postgraduate medicine and the first organisation in your installation was undergraduate medicine). When a second organisation is created through the user interface, community types are not automatically copied into the new organisation. A developer can copy the community types for you and you'll be able to use communities properly.
Faculty directors, and curriculum and program coordinators listed in the course contacts section of a course will automatically be made administrators of the course website community.
The following pages are included in the default course website community template:
Add any background information as needed. Turn on additional information to populate the page with announcements, upcoming events, and community history (e.g., new members joining). Click Save when done. (Feb. 12, 2018: Note that the display of announcements and events is currently not working and only community history will show up.)
You can add customized text to the top of this page; by default it displays learning events scheduled in the course via Manage Events (change the date range from day, month, week, year etc. to change your view). If you add free text, click 'Save' when done. Note that this is different from the learner's customized calendar accessible from the dashboard. From the course website, you'll see all events scheduled for this course.
Note that users in the community who also have edit abilities in the associated learning events can click on an event, scroll down the page and click Director View/Staff View/Teacher View in the left sidebar and be taken to the event page to edit it if necessary.
You can add customized text to this page. Click 'Save' when done.
You can add customized text to this page. Click 'Save' when done.
You can add customized text to the top of this page; by default it displays the curriculum tag sets assigned to the course through the Curriculum Tags tab under Admin > Manage Courses. If you add text, click 'Save' when done.
Viewing Contextually Linked Tags on A Course Website
If you have assigned curriculum tags to a course and contextually linked them to other curriculum tag sets, users will optionally be able to expand each contextually linked objective to see its connections. (Note, this page does not display linkages made in Admin > Manage Curriculum.)
You can add customized text to the top of this page; by default it displays the Clinical Learning Objectives assigned to the course through the Content tab under Manage Courses. If you add text, click 'Save' when done.
You can add customized text to this page. Click 'Save' when done.
You can add customized text to this page. Click 'Save' when done.
You can add customized text to the top of this page. If you add text, click 'Save' when done.
If you added resources to a course when you created it via Manage Courses, those resources will not automatically populate this page.
You can add customized text to this page. Click 'Save' when done.
You can add customized text to this page. Click 'Save' when done.
This optional page can be used to provide users with a read-only overview of the gradebook assessments for the course. (When gradebook assessments are created administrators can optionally flag them to be displayed on this page.)
The information displayed includes the following:
assessment title and description (optional input),
weight towards the course total,
due date (if provided),
grade release date (e.g. when learners can see grades in My Gradebook) (if provided), and
drop box (this provide learners with a link to go to the dropbox assignment).
This optional page will provide course contacts like course directors (who are faculty:director users), curriculum coordinators (who are staff:admin users) and program coordinators (who are staff:pcoordinator users) an easy way to send notices to the course audience directly from the course website.
When adding notices from a course website, the audience filter will be preset to the course.
Notices created will still display to learners in the Elentra ME Message Centre on their dashboard. (They will not display to learners on the course website.)
More information coming soon. You will need developer help to add this page to your course website template.
Pulls in any curriculum tags assigned to the course and that belong to a tag set named "EPAs".
More information coming soon. You will need developer help to add this page to your course website template.
Pulls in all sites assigned to the course and used in either the course logbook or a rotation schedule.
When reviewing a course website, an administrator may notice that some pre-populated information is incorrect. Pre-populated information (e.g., curriculum tags, director's message, etc.) is coming from the course setup information accessed via Admin > Manage Courses.
To quickly access the Admin Courses menu from a course website, look in the left sidebar and click the "Edit Course" link in the "This Community" box.
Once a course community or website is created, users who are designated as Community Administrators can manage the pages just like any other community. When viewing a course website, switch to Administrator view if necessary, and then look for the Admin Center box on the sidebar. Click Manage Pages to adjust content, reorder pages, or add a new page. For quick editing access, click the Edit Page button from any community page at any point.
When you build a course website and associate it with a course, some individuals listed on the course contacts page (e.g., course director, curriculum coordinator) will automatically be made administrators of the course website. As admins. they will be able to edit page content, add additional pages, etc.
There is a database setting to control whether you'd like to grant course website administrator access to Associated Faculty (listed on the Course Setup tab) (setting = course_website_associated_faculty_admins). Remember that those with Administrator permissions on a community, regardless of their group:role permissions in an organization, can edit pages in the community and control community settings and permissions.
The audience of a course (set from the Course Enrolment section on a Course Setup page) can automatically be made members of the affiliated course website. Course audience members will display under a separate tab when viewing community members so you can easily distinguish who has joined a course website another way. Even if you have auto-enrolment enabled, remember to make sure that the community permissions you configure for course websites will allow learners to join (i.e., use group registration and set the groups to faculty, staff, and the appropriate cohort of learners). Although learners are listed under the Course Audience tab, they usually still have to 'click to join' a course website and view all content.
There is a database setting to control whether you'd like a course enrolment to automatically be made members of the course website/community (setting = course_website_autoenroll_audience)
Additionally, you can turn this feature on or off on a per course basis through the database. Speak to a developer if this is something you require.
Managing additional members as well as permission settings, statistics and details is like other communities so please see the Communities help section for more detail.
By default learners have the ability to leave a course website community they have been added to or have joined. If you'd like to prevent learners from leaving course website communities, there is a database setting option you can use (community_allow_leave_community). If you switch this setting the 'leave community' link will be hidden from course websites so members cannot leave.
Community Reports is a tool that allows you to review which community members have viewed pages, taken specific actions, etc.
From the Admin Centre, click 'Community Reports'.
Click on 'Select Filter' and select the appropriate filter (member, module type, page, action).
Click the checkbox beside the appropriate member/module/page/action and click 'Apply'. You can select filters from different filter types to further refine your results.
To delete a filter, click the small x beside it.
You can create multiple course websites for a single course in order to provide appropriate content to different cohorts of learners (e.g. Class of 2022, Class of 2023).
After a course website has been built for a course and you want to create a new version of the course website you can simply roll forward the existing website and make it available to the enrolled audience in a new curriculum period. Please note that different pages types will copy forward differently. For default page types, content will copy (for both the templated pages and additional pages added). For most other page types, the page titles will copy (e.g., Class Discussion Board), however the structure within each page will not be copied forward (e.g., Forums, Threads, Folders, etc.). This is expected behaviour as we anticipate that audiences based on new curriculum periods will have new announcements, discussion boards, etc.
If you do want to have the structure and content of other page types copy forward you can speak to a developer who can make database changes to support this (note, this is not a setting option, rather developers will need to change column values in several tables). Note that if you opt for copying page structure and content it is currently an all or nothing option. You can't copy just Discussion page forums and not the actual posts. Similarly you can't copy Shared Document page folder structure, but not the files.
To minimize the risk of error in copying a course website, this tool is only available via Admin > Manage Communities (i.e. a user can't copy forward a course website from the community's management interface). As such, this feature is available to staff:admin users.
Navigate to Admin > Manage Communities. (Available to admin users only.)
From the cog icon beside the community you wish to roll forward, select 'Rollover versions.'
Alternatively, you can navigate to the community you wish to roll forward and click Manage Community, then Details, then Rollover versions. (Option for faculty users who are administrators of a course website community.)
You will arrive at a Rollover screen.
The course website version you are rolling over will display under 'From Curriculum Period.'
If you check "Do not rollover from curriculum period above" you will simply create a versioned course website using the original community template used for the course.
Edit the name for the community as desired (e.g. MEDS 100 for Class of 2023). This will display to users. Including a cohort in the name is optional and may not be necessary for your users. Learners will automatically see the course website for the curriculum period they are enrolled in and not the websites for other curriculum periods. Faculty or staff who have access to multiple course website versions will have a curriculum period switcher in their sidebar.
Select the new Curriculum Period for which you want to create a course website. (Note, you must have the curriculum period you want to use assigned to a course enrolment to access it to roll forward to.)
Click Rollover.
You will see a green success message and be directed to the newly created course website. You should see the appropriate pages--either those from the original template or those from the course website you selected to roll forward.
Note that course website community members and administrators will be copied when you rollover a course website. However, the Course Audience will be dictated by course enrolment. Also, once you have multiple course websites, you must manage membership for each website individually (i.e., if you have websites A and A1 and add someone as a community administrator to website A, they won't automatically inherit community administrator rights to website A1).
Not every page in a course website template currently supports curriculum period versioning. If you use the Course Description and Director's Message on a course Content tab, that information is not currently tied to a specific curriculum period and whatever is supplied via Manage Courses will display for all users in all versions of the course website. To provide custom text for different cohorts on the templated "Background" page, edit the text through the Manage Pages tool in the course website.
Please note that while the user interface has been added for this feature, as of ME 1.17 it is not currently active.
If you wish to prevent further changes to a course website community, you can optionally lock the community from Admin > Manage Communities.
This tool is only available from Admin > Manage Communities, not from the Manage Community sidebar. As such, only users with administrative access can lock a community. This prevents users who are administrators of a community (like faculty), but NOT administrative staff, from locking/unlocking course websites.
Navigate to Admin > Manage Communities.
Search for the course website you want to lock.
From the menu cog on the right hand side, click Lock.
After a course website is locked it will display with a lock beside the title.
You can unlock a course website at any time by following the same steps as above, but clicking unlock.
New in ME 1.20!
You can now link a discussion forum from a course website with a gradebook assessment for ease of grading. See more detail in the gradebook section.
If you don't want learners to have the option to leave a course website you can enable a database setting that prevents them from doing so.
Improvement so that user with event edit permissions for a course can get a link to edit events from the course calendar page.
Improvement so that a user with access to Admin > Manage Courses can get a link directly to edit the course setup page from a course website.
Whenever you add a course to Elentra, you add basic course information to the database and users will be able to see a simple course page for each course. You can optionally create a more robust online course community for learners and faculty by creating a course website using Elentra's Communities Module. The course website will replace the basic course page accessed from the Courses tab and functions like an online syllabus.
Here is how a course without a website will appear to users:
Here is how a course with a website will appear to users:
Note that the course website relies on a templated set of pages (e.g., background, calendar, prerequisites, etc.). The template shown and described below comes with stock Elentra but if your organization requires a different template, or you want different templates for different courses (e.g., clinical and nonclinical), that is customization work that can be done.
There is a database setting to control whether or not you display users added as program coordinators on course pages (setting = community_course_outline_hide_pcoordinators). To change this setting please speak to a developer.
Database Setting
Use
community_course_outline_hide_pcoordinators
Use this option to hide program coordinators from the course website.
community_share_show_file_versions
Use this option to control whether or not users viewing files on a Documents page can see previous file versions.
course_website_autoenroll_audience
Control whether or not learners enrolled in a course will automatically be added to a course website.
community_display_guest_enrollment
Use this option to disable the ability of non-medtech users to invite guests to a community.
course_website_associated_faculty_admins
Use this option to automatically provision all faculty associated with a course as administrators of the corresponding course website.
