About Adobe Connect courses and curriculum for training

The Adobe Connect Training application consists of content, courses, curriculums, and virtual classrooms.

Content is files stored in the Adobe Connect Content library. Content can be any of the following file types: PPT, PPTX, FLV, SWF, PDF, GIF, JPG, PNG, MP3, HTML, MP4, F4V, or ZIP. In addition, HTML5 content created using Adobe Captivate 9 or Adobe Presenter 11 can also be shared and consumed using the Adobe Connect application for desktop.

With content, no individual user information is stored. Reports are created for content, but they are aggregate, content-specific reports, and are based on access. If content is created with Adobe Presenter and the presentation contains quizzes, you cannot set the number of attempts users have to pass the quizzes. (In contrast, you can set number of attempts with courses.)

Also, content contains no resume functionality so, for example, if a user quits half way through a content item, the next time they launch the item they are taken back to the beginning of the content.

You can publish Adobe Presenter, Adobe Captivate, PDF, and third-party SCORM content to the Content library. For Adobe Presenter and Adobe Captivate, the user continues to be able to Publish to Adobe Connect directly from the application. For PDF and third-party content, the user is able to upload the file or a ZIP package to the Content library.

A course contains any item from the Content library. A course is associated with a given set of enrolled learners and contains content-level tracking. The course can be delivered and administered independently or as part of a curriculum or virtual classroom. When you use courses, scores can be captured for AICC-compliant objects and you can enforce the number of attempts users have to complete the course. Courses also contain resume functionality so that users can view half a course, close the course, and then open it again later at the spot where they left off.

A virtual classroom can be used to conduct training sessions. Virtual classrooms are added to a curriculum, just like a course. There are three access levels for virtual classrooms: enrolled students only, enrolled students and accepted guests, and anyone who has the URL for the virtual classroom. When you select the option Anyone who has the URL, your VC and the uploaded contents are publicly available for anyone to access the contents.

A curriculum is a group of courses, meetings, and virtual classrooms that moves students along a particular learning path. A curriculum consists primarily of courses, but can include other items such as live training sessions. With curriculums, you can assign prerequisites, test-outs, and completion requirements to enforce a specific learning path. As is the case with courses, you can generate reports to track the progress of the enrollee as they move through the curriculum to ensure that they meet the learning objectives.

Training courses and curriculums have three attendance permissions: Enrolled, Denied, and Pending Approval. Enrolled indicates a learner whom a training manager placed in a course or curriculum; Denied indicates a user who is denied access to that course or curriculum. Usually a training manager uses the Denied permission to exclude a user from a group course (for example, if that user already took the course). Pending Approval indicates a user waiting for approval from the training manager.

Accessing the Training library

All Adobe Connect Training courses, curriculums, and virtual classrooms are contained and organized in a directory of folders called the Training library. You access the Training library by clicking the Training tab at the top of the Adobe Connect Central window. As you navigate the library, the names of the folders appear as a navigation trail at the top of the browser window.

A Training Manager can create courses and curriculums. A Virtual Classroom Manager has all the permissions that a Training Manager has and can create courses and curriculums. To manage a Training library folder, you do not need to be a training manager, but you must have Manage permissions for this folder in the Training library. You can create a course object using existing content types (including Adobe Presenter, Adobe Captivate, PDF, and many others). You can also create course objects using third-party SCORM content. Course meta data (Edit Information, Enrollment, Communications, and so on, all Course Object tabs) can be defined on these objects in Training. Any of the Course objects defined in Training can be added to Curriculums.

About Training library permissions

Consider the following aspects of permissions when you work with the Training library:

define the access that learners have for a given course or curriculum. The three enrollee permissions are: Enrolled, Denied, and Pending Approval. Individuals with an Enrolled permission can view a course or curriculum; individuals with a Denied permission cannot access the course or curriculum. Individuals with a Pending Approval permission need approval from the training manager.

Enrollee permissions are assigned when a course or curriculum is created. Permissions can also be changed after the course or curriculum is created. To change permissions, the training manager must open the course or curriculum and edit the participant list to add or remove enrollee. The training manager must also have Manage permissions for the folder where this course or curriculum is located.

define who can perform the different tasks associated with the Training library files and folders, such as adding and deleting files, and searching the library archives. The ability to create, delete, and edit courses and curriculums in various folders in the Training library is determined by the groups that a user belongs to and the individual permissions that are assigned to a user for specific files and folders. The Training library has only two permissions: Manage and Denied.

Members of the Administrator group can manage all files and folders in the Training library. By default, training managers have Manage permissions only for their individual folder in the User Training folder. This means that training managers can add, delete, change, or assign permissions only for their own folders. All other Manage permissions are assigned on an individual or group basis by the administrator.

Adobe Connect recognizes six default permission groups called Built‑in groups. You cannot change the permissions for these groups, but you can extend them by assigning individuals or groups to more than one Built‑in group.

The Training module applies to the Training Managers group. This group is associated with the Training library. Each training manager has an individual folder in the User Training folder within the Training library, in which they can create and administer their courses and curriculums. Each training manager also has a content folder. Your Adobe Connect administrator can also assign Manage permissions for specific Training library folders to users who are not training managers. However, only training managers can create courses or curriculums.

Course and curriculum registration

Depending on the type and purpose of a given course or curriculum, the training manager might want to have the guests register. If so, the manager must have the Event Management tab as part of the Adobe Connect Central application, since registration for any training can only be done through the Event Management tab. A training manager who has this tab must first use the Course or Curriculum wizard to create the course or curriculum from the Training tab, but skip the select participant and send invitations steps. Next, the training manager creates an event by opening the Event Wizard, selecting the Present A Adobe Connect Training Course Or Curriculum option, and selecting the course or curriculum to be used as an event.

The Event wizard lets the training manager select and invite enrollee, select and customize registration questions, and send invitations, even to large email lists.

If the training is presented as an event, all enrollee, regardless of whether they have an Adobe Connect account or whether the URL is public, must provide registration information before the training. In this case, the training manager can review the registration applications before the training and approve or deny admittance to each registrant.

AICC content for courses

When you use Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) content in courses, Adobe Connect applies some specific rules. For more information, see Upload content.

Viewing data about training

The Training Dashboard contains two-bar graphs, one for courses and one for curriculums:

Shows the courses over the last 30 days with the greatest number of enrollee who have passed; click any bar to see more detail.

Shows the curriculums over the last 30 days with the greatest number of enrollee who have completed the curriculum; click any bar to see more detail.

The bar graphs appear within Adobe Connect Central. However, you can also export the Dashboard to a browser window that you can print. To export the Dashboard, click Printable Version on the left, above the display.

Create and manage training groups

From the Training tab in Adobe Connect Central, Training managers, Administrators, and Limited Administrators can create, change, and remove sets of learners called training groups. Training managers can modify any training groups, including those created by other Training managers.

Create a training group

Training groups cannot be given the same name as system groups or administration groups.

Add learners to an existing training group

Remove learners from a training group

Using CSV files to add learners

If you have a comma-separated values (CSV) file, you can use the file to add learners. Three different kinds of imports can be done.

Before you can perform any of these imports, create a UTF-8 encoded CSV file. You can also use or modify an existing CSV file. The CSV file you create must include the correct information.

To add training groups, use a CSV file with each row containing name and description like the following:

To add users to a selected group, use a CSV file with each row containing a login like the following:

To add learners to a training group, use a CSV file with each row containing a login and name like the following:

Notice that in the third example above, you can add the same user to multiple groups in the same CSV file; user cbond4@mycompany.com has been added to group 1 and group 2 using two separate entries.

Here are some additional tips for using CSV files:

• Because of browser limitations, Adobe recommends that if you have many users to add, that you create several smaller CSV files instead of one large CSV file.

• Use quotes around names containing comma. For example, the name John Doe, Jr., must appear in the CSV file as “John Doe, Jr.” for the file to import correctly.

Add learners using a CSV file

When finished uploading, a confirmation message appears stating if the import process was successful. Information about users and groups imported is also provided. An error report is generated for entries that fail the import process.

Tips for creating training courses and curriculums

Following are some tips for creating training courses and curriculums in Adobe Connect Training:

• Use Adobe Presenter and Adobe Captivate to create content for courses. Presenter is suitable for the creation of rapid e-learning content using Microsoft PowerPoint. Adobe Captivate can be used for creating training materials that must contain complex branching and simulations.

• HTML5 content created using Adobe Captivate 9 or Adobe Presenter 11 is supported in VCs and its recordings. To consume such content, all attendees must install Adobe Connect application for desktop. The Adobe Connect application is available on the Downloads and Updates page. VC attendees who cannot see the shared HTML5 content are highlighted with a marker in the Attendee Pod.

  When proprietary HTML5 content is shared in a VC and opened in an Adobe Connect application by attendees, it may take some time to load owing to auto-download of some required components besides the Adobe Connect Meeting application. Some delay is normal.

• At the course level, set client-side maximum retries to one and server-side maximum retries to any number. (Set server-side maximum retries to unlimited if you want learners to have as many attempts as required to pass.)

• Add curriculum items directly into curriculums, not into folders.

• When adding content from the Content library directly into a curriculum, the content is automatically converted to a course and tracking is enabled. For example, when you add a PDF file to a curriculum, that file becomes a course and tracking can be done down to the page level (you can see if learners looked at seven out of ten pages or all ten pages of the file). In addition, a curriculum resource folder is automatically created and any curriculum-specific courses (that is, content automatically converted to a course for this curriculum) are placed in the folder.

• Communicate with your learners about how to take courses and curriculums, especially any specific settings you have used. For example, tell them how many times they can attempt to pass a quiz. Also, if you change a curriculum after making the curriculum available, such as adding or removing items, inform your learners.

• Ask learners to open an item or course in only one browser window and to close that browser window when they are done.

• When planning to make a large curriculum available, do a test first. For example, ensure that your Adobe Connect system (network, servers, database) is set up properly and has sufficient resources to manage the volume of learners scheduled to enroll in the curriculum.

• Minimize changes to your courses and curriculums after you have made them available to learners.