By now, we all know that these are unusual times.  We're facing challenges which were unimaginable to most of us just a few weeks ago.  Accord is eager to assist our clients as they proactively tackle the immediate training requirements precipitated by the appearance of COVID-19 on the world stage.  

OpenSesame, Accord LMS's content partner since 2015, has curated a list of free courses covering Coronavirus preparedness, Infection control and illness prevention, Ergonomics, Working remotely, managing remote teams, and anxiety & mental health during this challenging time. Accord and OpenSesame are offering these free courses to our customers as a public service for a limited time. This article demonstrates how you can access this important resource.

 

Offer Details

• Total Number of Courses: 27
• Total Available Training Time: 6 hrs 27 min.
• Number of Licenses:  Claim as many licenses as you need
• Length of Licenses:These courses will be available through May 15th, 2020

**Extended through June 15th**

 

Three Ways to Access Courses

Accord LMS Clients

Current Accord Clients can follow the directions below to directly import the free courses through their OpenSesame Marketplace.

 

Potential Clients with an Evaluation Portal

Please contact your sales team for assistance.  They will increase your user count to include all learners and assist you with the setup and configuration. Essentially, we're going to open up your evaluation site as if you were an existing paid client through May 15th.  Your Solutions Engineer will help you import your user list and assign this content.

 

Friends, Family, and Colleagues

We want our friends, family, and colleagues who do not have access to the Accord LMS to have access to these free courses.  To facilitate this, we have added the courses to our public demonstration LMS.  If you know anyone who could benefit from these courses, please ask them to register at https://public.accordlms.com.  Learners on our public site will automatically be assigned the courses and can review them until May 15th.

 

Instructions for Accord LMS Clients

If you have previously registered for these free courses and would like to add additional courses to your LMS, skip to the next section of instructions - If You Have Already Registered For Free Courses (since March 2020)

 

Before You Start

Before attempting to add these free courses to your Catalog, you must have the OpenSesame integration installed and be logged in as the LMS user specified as the OpenSesame Account in the integration.  If you are properly logged in, you'll see the OpenSesame marketplace at the bottom of your Admin Course Catalog. (figure 1)

Figure 1 - OpenSesame Marketplace appears at the bottom of the LMS Catalog

 

If your LMS portal does not have the OpenSesame Marketplace enabled, please send an email to support@accordlms.com requesting configuration.  You must include a valid email address that will be used to create your free OpenSesame account.  Our team will enable the integration and send you a confirmation email when complete.

 

Sign Up For the Courses

A few moments after you have loaded the OpenSesame marketplace you will notice a turquois Banner.  (Figure 2) Click the Sign Up Now button.  If this banner does not appear after a few seconds, check your browser for and ad blocking extensions.  You'll need to temporarily disable ad blockers while you complete this process.

Figure 2 - Sign up banner

 

Enter Your User Count

Clicking the Sign Up Now button will Present a Dialog box asking how many learners you have.  (Figure 3)  Enter the total number of learners that you will need.  It is recommended that this number equal your LMS Active Learner licenses.  This number cannot be increased later.

Note: if the offer registration box asks you which offer you’re interested in, it doesn’t matter which you select - you will have access to all offers. 

 

Figure 3 - Enter your Learner count

 

Access the Course Lists

After registering, you will be returned to the Marketplace home page where you started.  

From here, follow the instructions from the next section forward.

 

If You've Already Registered For Free Courses (since March 2020)

Select From Your List of Choice

From the Home Page, click on any of the turquoise list tiles to access the list of courses.

Figure 4 - Selecting a Course List

 

Prepare Courses for your LMS

This short video demonstrates the remaining steps.

After entering your user count, you will be presented with the course list (figure 4).  Select the top checkbox to choose all courses in the list.  Once you have selected your courses, the Manage pull down will appear directly above the course list.  Choose Send to LMS.    You will see a progress screen for a few seconds followed by a green bar directing you to your dashboard (figure 5)

Figure 5 - Prepare Courses to be sent to the LMS.     Figure 6 - Click on Dashboard

 

Send to LMS

From your Courses Dashboard click on the large orange Send to LMS button.  This will launch another progress screen followed by instructions to Reload Accord Catalog.  At that point, click on the Reload Accord Catalog button to refresh your catalog and see your new courses.

Figure 7 - Send to LMS

Go Back For More Lists

If you want to get courses from any of the other lists, go back to the ‘Home’ page by clicking the link in upper left below the sign up banner.  From home, repeat steps above from Select Your List of Choice, and forward.

 

Using You new Courses

The free courses will be created in an OpenSesame folder structure which you will find at the bottom of our course catalog.  These "courses" are actually SCORM Learning Elements in the Accord LMS.  You can create your own course folder and copy one or more of the OpenSesame Learning Elements into your own courses.  Once you've created course folders, you can enroll those folders into appropriate Learning Roles.  It is suggested that you set these Roles to expire on May 15th.

 

>>Troubleshooting<<

OpenSesame has done yeoman's work to pull this free course offering together in record time.  As of this writing, there are still a couple glitches that haven't yet been worked out.

1. Earlier versions of Microsoft Edge will prevent the user count from being successfully entered.  If you are using the Microsoft Edge browser and cannot get past the user count screen, please use a different browser for this process.  Your learners can still use their browser of choice to access the courses.

2. Occasionally Admins will get a large red error message when sending the courses to the dashboard.  The message reads, in part, "Unable to send the following courses to your LMS because you do not have an active license".  This appears to be caused by a delay in the OpenSesame server processing the license request.  The following steps should resolve this issue:

• Log out of the LMS
• Log back in with the same admin account
• Select Catalog from the LMS Admin menu
• Load the OpenSesame Marketplace at the bottom of the catalog
• Hover over your username in the upper right corner of the marketplace
• Select My Lists
• Select the List titled "Coronavirus: Maintaining a Safe & Productive Workplace"
• Use the checkbox to select the courses you want
• Click the Send To LMS button
• Continue to My Courses (Dashboard) and click the large Send to LMS button

If you have any other issues, please submit a support ticket and we'll work with our friends at OpenSesame to resolve any issues.

 

In conclusion

On behalf of the entire Accord LMS and OpenSesame teams, we wish you good health and continued success over the coming weeks and months.

If we can be of any additional assistance with your learning management or distance learning initiatives, please contact the Accord LMS Sales Team.