The Learner Portal

The Learner Portal

Veracity Learning LRS is mainly a data store for xAPI statements, but it does have a few basic Learning Management System features. If you need a place for learners to find and open content, then you can use the Learner Portal, which you can open from the left menu…



Notes
The Learner Portal is not available in the downloadable Lite version of Veracity.

Visit the Portal

Click the Visit the Portal option from the left menu, and then click the Visit Portal button.


 
You’ll see what the learners see: a web page with options to open content, “assert experience”, and view their LRS dashboard.



The Content page holds cards for the courses, lessons, and links you’ve added, which learners can launch.

The Self Assertion form lets learners describe an earned experience, including post a certificate.

Finally, the learner can open an LRS Dashboard showing their performance in the activities in the Learner Portal.

Portal Configuration

Although the Learner Portal has only a few features, you can still customize it. From the left menu, select Learner Portal > Portal Configuration.


Changing Settings

Click the Settings button, and you’ll see a form with fields you can enter or change that configure the overall functions of the Learner Portal.


  1. Display Name — The title of the Learner Portal. The default is the name of the LRS instance.
  2. Homepage URL — The address of your organization’s home page. Not the URL of the Learner Portal.
  3. Administrator Email — Your e-mail address, so learners can reach you for help.
  4. Show Activity — Toggles the appearance of the Recent Activity section of the Learner Portal.
  5. Show Self Assert — Toggles the appearance of the Self Assertion section of the Learner Portal.
  6. Show Self Data — Toggles the appearance of the Dashboards section of the Learner Portal.

Editing the Home Page

If you click the Intro Page button, then you’ll see a form that lets you edit the banner across the top of the Learner Portal.


In the upper-left of the Learner Portal, we’ve placed a copy of one of our logos. If you want, you can change it by selecting the Logo option in the Learner Portal Configuration page.



Learners

You can invite people to view the Learner Portal by adding them in one of two ways: one at a time, using a form; or in a batch, in a Comma-Separated Values (CSV) file.


Creating a Single Learner

To add a single learner to the Portal, in the left menu, click Learner Portal > Learners. Then, in the Manage Learners page, click the Create Learner button. You’ll see a form with fields for setting-up the learner’s account in your Portal.



  1. User Name — The unique identifier for this learner’s account in the Learner Portal. The default is the learner’s email address.
  2. First Name, Last Name — The user-friendly name of the learner.
  3. Actor — The unique identifier for this learner; the JSON object to appear in xAPI in the LRS.
  4. Email — The learner’s e-mail address.
  5. Password, Password Again — An authentication you can set or change.
  6. Send Validation Email — Toggles-on a one-time message to verify the learner’s e-mail address and authentication.

Uploading Several Learners

If you want to invite many learners to your Portal, then you can upload their account information using a CSV file.


 
Example
firstName,lastName,actor,email,password,passwordMatch,sendEmail
Rob,Chadwick,,rob@veracity.it,LetMeIn!123,LetMeIn!123,true
Jason,Haag,,jason@veracity.it,LetMeIn!123,LetMeIn!123,true
Jono,Poltrack,,jono@veracity.it,LetMeIn!123,LetMeIn!123,true
Make sure to include the header row. If you leave the “actor” column blank in a record, then the Learner Portal will automatically generate the actor property in any xAPI statements it records when that learner browses content.

Content

An “activity” is content that a learner can experience. You can create a new activity in one of two ways: linking or uploading.


Linking to Content

Content can live on a different server from the LRS, yet the LRS can still display it in a popup window, just like a regular course or lesson. To register an external link as an Activity, from the left menu, select Learner Portal > Content, and then click the large green Add a Link button. This shows a form like this: 




  1. Title — (Required) The name of the content to show in the Learner Portal.
  2. Description — A short explanation of what the learner will see.
  3. Tags — Any ad hoc label, topic name, or category you want to assign.
  4. Public — Do you want to make the content available to anonymous users? 
  5. Launch URL — (Required) This is the web address where the Learner Portal can find the content. Ideally, the content will automatically play.
  6. Player Type — Select which player to use to present this content: either the Web Browser Default, or the Veracity Video Player.
  7. Launch Type — Choose which window to display the content in: Pop-Up (default), Re-Direct, Frame, or Manual. Selecting pop-up helps the system Track xAPI Session, since we can't monitor the learner's browser window when they leave the Learner Portal.
  8. Learning Standard — Select the type of activity package: None/Other, cmi5, xAPI, SCORM 2004, or SCORM 1.2.
  9. ID — (Required) Enter the identifier for this activity to use as the object.id value in xAPI statements. You can re-use the Launch URL. Because we’ll use it in xAPI statements, this must by a fully-formed URI.
  10. Track xAPI Session — (Default: On). If this content doesn’t support xAPI or cmi5, then turn-on this so that the Learner Portal will send xAPI statements when the learner initialized and terminated it. Otherwise, turn-off this to reduce redundant statements.
  11. Sign xAPI Statements — (Default: Off). With this on, the Learner Portal adds a digital signature to xAPI statements sent by this content as an attachment, including a Secure Hash Algorithm 2 (SHA-2) encoded ID.
  12. Rewrite Statements — (Default: On). If the content sends xAPI and you wish to preserve it as originally sent, then turn this off. Otherwise, leave this on to let the Learner Portal manage conformance and to add meta data. This option only works for logged-in users.
When complete, click the Register button at the bottom of the form.

Uploading Content

If you need somewhere to serve files to present to your learners, then you can let Veracity Learning LRS host the content. You can upload a single file or a ZIP archive folder, which we will extract and serve. To upload content, click the Upload Content button from the Manage Content page. This opens the Upload page: 



You can upload up to ten files at once. However, the server your LRS uses may restrict the file upload size.

Notes
Uploaded content counts against the data storage allocation for the LRS.

If the content is a courseware package with a metadata XML file, then the Veracity Learning LRS will read this file, and set-up the content for you. You can view and edit these settings at any time.

If you delete an activity, then the LRS removes the uploaded content files.

Activity Display

Once you link or upload content, it appears as one of a series of cards in the Learner Portal and here in the LRS. The card for each activity shows its title and description. In the Portal, the learners also get a Launch button. In the LRS, you can open an Actions menu of options: 
  1. Edit — Click this menu option to re-open the Register/Edit an Activity form.
  2. Upload Image — This option opens a form for picking and uploading a logo to appear on the card.
  3. Get Anonymous Link — Click this to generate a URL for public users to open the content, anonymously. This option only works if the content is public.
  4. Export Package — For uploaded content, saves the content in a ZIP file to the browser’s downloads folder.
  5. Replace Content — For uploaded content, this option lets you re-upload a replacement file or package but keep all other settings.
  6. Delete — This lets you remove content from the Learner Portal. Be careful! You cannot undo this action.
In the LRS, you can change the layout of the display of the Manage Content page. Click the Card/Table Display button on the right, to toggle the view.


  1. Card Display — Lets you see the thumbnail image or icon you’ve uploaded to the content, to help you find content immediately.
  2. Table Display — Now, you can more easily see the number of files and the amount of data storage used in each content item. 




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