The Accord LMS offers a great deal of flexibility in both configuration and execution.  This allows the system to be readily adapted for a wide-range of operations.  One such example of it’s flexibility is the ease at which Learning Content can be assigned to Learners.  Most users have a preferred way of assigning learning content to Learners but what about efficient methods for un-assigning learning content?

This article reviews four main approaches for dropping learning content from Learners while discussing the merits of each approach.  If after reading this article you still have questions about the best way to drop content from your Learners, please do not hesitate to contact the Accord LMS Support Team for additional information.

It is important to remember that the Accord LMS organizes content by folders and Learning Elements.  Folders are containers whereas Learning Elements are the actual learning content.  As an example, a Course Folder contains content in the form of Learning Elements.  This affects how we retire content.  Expiring an entire folder usually has fewer considerations than removing only some of its learning content.

Learning Role Expiration

The most straightforward way to remove content from Learner access is to simply set the expiration date on the Role.  This is generally the preferred method for removing Role assigned courses from Learners. This method will remove all enrolled folders and learning elements associated with this Learning Role.

How to Expire a Role

If the expiration date is known when the Role is created, this date can be set before the Role is assigned to any Learners.  This makes the expiration process automatic when the date occurs.

Specific Learning Role members can be expired individually from the Learning Role’s Member Management interface.  Admins can filter the list to find the specific Learner and then enter an expiration date directly in the member list grid.

All members within a given Learning Role can be assigned a future expiration date as a group any period of time after enrollment.  First, change the expiration date in the Role Details and the click on the refresh button in the Role Details General tab.

All Learning Role members can be expired immediately by clicking on the expire button in the Role Details General tab.

What happens when a Role is Expired?

After the expiration date all of the learning content enrolled in this Learning Role will no longer display on the Learner’s My Courses page.  If the Learner Module is configured to show expired content, Folders and Learning Elements will continue to display but not launch.

Any attempt records associated with an expired Role may be archived depending on the Role’s After Expiration Date Options.  Archived records can be included on reports by selecting an archived folder status in folder detail reports and choosing Include Archived Attempts from the report’s Advanced Options.

Unpublish a Learning Element

Individual Learning Elements can be unpublished from the Accord LMS Catalog page.  Any unpublished Learning elements essentially behave like courses associated with a Role that has been expired.  Learning content can be unpublished without expiring the Role.  Because Learning Elements contribute to the completion status and score calculation of folders, there are some ramifications when unpublishing a course in any folders where Learners are still enrolled.  It is generally best to avoid unpublishing only some of the learning content within a given folder.

How to Unpublish a Learning Element

Find any instance of the Learning Element in the Accord LMS catalog.  Open the LE Details.  Set the unpublish date in the LE Details Advance Settings.  The unpublish date must fall after the publish date.  Changes made to any specific Learning Element will automatically apply to all instances of this same Learning Element throughout the LMS.

What happens when an LE is Unpublished?

All content enrolled in this Learning Role will by default no longer display on the Learner’s My Courses page.  If the Learner Module is configured to show expired content, Folders and Learning Elements will continue to display but not launch.

Folder status will not be automatically recalculated.  This can cause the folder status to not match the current number of visible Learning Elements.  For example, let’s assume that we have a folder with two equally weighted scorable LEs.  If a Learner scored 100% on one LE and 50% on the other LE, the folder score would be 75%.  If we unpublished the course with the 50% score, the Learner would see a folder score of 75% with one visible course that has a score of 100%.

Attempt records associated with an unpublished LE are treated as archived attempts.  Archived records can be included on reports by selecting an archived folder status in folder detail reports and choosing Include Archived Attempts from the report’s Advanced Options.

Inactivating Learning Elements

This process is nearly identical to the Unpublish option described above.  Unlike the unpublish feature, a Learning Element cannot be inactivated at a future date.  There are several other important differences as outlined below.

How to Inactivate a Learning Element

Find any instance of the Learning Element in the Accord LMS catalog.  Open the LE Details and select the Inactive Status within Advanced Settings.  This setting takes effect immediately.  Any changes made to any Learning Element will automatically apply to all instances of this same Learning Element throughout the LMS.

What happens when an LE is Inactivated?

Learners will no longer see this content.  The Learner Configuration setting to show expired content will not allow inactive content to be presented to the Learner.

The folder will not automatically recalculate.  If the folder is manually recalculated, the unpublished content will not be considered, meaning that any previous completions or scores will not be used to calculate the folder’s completion status or score.

Unenrolling a Learner

There are many ways to unenroll a Learner from any content previously assigned.  Unenrolling a Learner is generally an undesirable manner to remove content because it can lead to future reporting challenges.

How to Unenroll a Learner

A Learner is unenrolled from content under the following conditions;

• The Learner is dropped from a Learning Role which contains the content.
• The content itself is removed from the Learner's assigned Learning Role.
• The Learner's assigned Learning Role is deleted.
• The enrollment is dropped from the Actions page.
• A Learning Element is removed from a Folder.

What happens when a Learner is Unenrolled?

Any associated learning content will not be visible to Learners under any circumstances unless they are re-enrolled.

All attempt records will be dropped from reports unless the report is configured to include Unenrolled with Attempts.

Unenrolling a given Learner will cause the folder status to automatically recalculate based on any content which remains within the folder.  This case will only occur when the Learner remains enrolled in any other content contained within the same folder.

In Summary

There are essentially four approaches to removing content from a Learner.

• Learning Role Expiration
• Unpublish Learning Elements
• Inactivate Learning Elements
• Unenroll Learners.

In most cases Learning Role expiration is the preferred method.  Learning Roles, when properly applied, make a wide range of LMS tasks remarkably easy.  The other mentioned methods are available but it is important to understand the ramifications if you elect not to use the Learning Roles to manage content enrollments.

As always, if you have any questions after reviewing this article, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Accord LMS Support Team.  They’ll be happy to help.