VISION User Guide

Overview

In addition to "internal"  VISION Courses delivered by VISION Learning Station, VISION is also able to track the completion of "external" courses that are not necessarily built into the VISION Program Hierarchy, or of courses that are in the VISION Program Hierarchy but which learners complete outside of the system or in another system entirely. There are three categories of completions, which we call internal. external, and alternates.

•Internal completions are those VISION courses, built in the program hierarchy which deliver training units in VISION Learning Station, and may be scored in any number of ways. The course is designed in the VISION Developer program hierarchy. It may deliver content or exams based on materials associated with Learning Objectives designed and developed in the VISION Objective Hierarchy. VISION Learning Station delivers the content, assessments, and course evaluations; all the data is stored in the VISION database.

•External courses are those that, while completed by a learner in an external LMS or ILT environment, are nevertheless also built out in the VISION Program Hierarchy. In these situations, it is common for the lesson plan and its materials to be stored in a different system. In order for VISION to record the completions, a user site must have a process in place to both identify what VISION courses are completed externally, and also a means to identify what users should be given credit. This is accomplished by relating the VISION courses to the external courses by means of a shared User Defined ID.

•Alternate courses are those courses that can stand in or grant credit for a course designed in VISION, but are not necessarily the same. For example, a course in Confined Spaces, or a physics fundamentals course, may be met by a predetermined outside course, given by a different entity.

The table below may be used to help visualize the different possible course configurations. Note that there is no scenario in which an external course may be completed internally, with the VISION Learning Station.

 

•The ability to set Course Alternates can be turned on or off by Project in the VDM security module.

•The ability to add or remove alternates is a VDM user permission assignable in the VDM security module.

•A user with the Add/Remove alternates permission will be able to add, edit, or remove alternates independent of the course's status.

•Course Alternates are added and viewable on a tab that appears on Course type organizers when Course Alternates are turned on for the Course's owning Project.

•An alternate may be associated with multiple VISION Courses.

 

How it works

An automatic or manual validation routine must be run periodically to update the VISION system with completion of identified alternates. When a record for an alternate is imported, VISION will grant a completion for the learner on the course, as well courses for which it is an alternate, even if no course or course event has been created for it in the Learning Station.

•An external system must be configured to update a special VISION database table with completion data.

•A datdabase stored procedure runs as a scheduled job that validates data in the ls_external_completion table. If the utility fails for some reason, XFER will be set to 2 and will record a failure message. If successful, XFER will be set to 1, and the FK_Learner will be set to the ID of the learner the record is attached to. Users must set PIN, COURSE_CODE, COMPLETION_DATE, CREDIT,

oPIN can be a number of different values; user_name, EMAIL, USER DEFINED ID 1, 2, OR 3 . Note that you should use UNIQUE values for email, or user defined ID, as the system will pick the first record it returns.

oCOURSE_CODE matches to either a Course's  Cross Reference field (for internal courses delivered externally) or the Alternate entry (for external courses)

oCOMPLETION_DATE is the datetime when the record should display as the date on which the learner completed the course

oCREDIT should be either Y or N, depending on whether the learner should get credit. Generally this will be Y, unless for some reason no credit records will be kept.

othe procedure creates a table, LS_EXTERNAL_VALIDATION_LOG, to log processing data

•ImportJobCourses utility can be found on VLS utilities page (available to Administrator users) and is run manually.  Customers are responsible for populating the table LS_JOB_IMPORT_COURSES with the following fields: JOB_DUTY_TASK, COURSE_CODE, COURSE_INTERVAL, GRACE, REQUAL_MODIFIER

o JOB_DUTY_TASK. Tracks to the Organization node or nodes with a matching User Defined ID

oCOURSE_CODE. Tracks to a VDM program with a matching Course Cross Reference field. If an existing Job-specific VLS course does not already exist, one is created automatically.

oCOURSE_INTERVAL.  May be null. Supplies the the requal period for the course

oGRACE. May be null. Supplies the requalification grace period

oREQUAL_MODIFIER. May be null. Supplies the period modifier.

 

Steps

Condition: The external system in which the externally delivered courses are created, or the system in which those records are kept, must be configured or able to write to the LS_IMPORT_COMPLETIONS table in the VISION database.

1.Using the security module, a VISION Administrator must first enable "Show alternates tab on course workscreen" project option for the required projects

2.Also in the security module, users with write access to the Program Hierarchy of the projects must have the "Can modify course alternates" privilege enabled.

3.One of the privileged users may then open a Course organizer from the Program Work Area within an enabled project, and select the Course Alternates tab.

4.The user then adds (or modifies) an Internal Alternate or External Alternate:

a.Internal alternates refer to programs defined in a VISION program work area. A window will open into which you will then drag the alternate course into, which establishes the alternate link. The title and User-Defined ID are taken directly from the linked alternate.                                                                                                    

b.External alternates are added manually; specify a title, and a User Defined ID.

       

 

5.When the alternates import is run, a VISION completion credit is granted for any courses defined in the that match with either Course ID or User Defined ID.

 

Course Alternates in VISION Learning Station

While it is not necessary to actually create the course in VlSION Learning Station, a course and events may also be created, enabling trainees to run through an internal training or gain credit for the external, alternate coursework.  When the VLS-configured routine runs, it updates the VISION database with the alternate completions, and so fulfills any  requirements to which alternates are attached.