Introduction
The Chronus Courses tool is an add-on feature that enables you to create customized training such as mentorship training or specific skill development training aligned to your program objectives. With the Courses tool, you can build course modules that can be taken altogether or dispersed throughout the connection plan. Within the connection plan, your course modules appear as consecutive tasks, interwoven into the mentorship journey to promote discussion on goal setting and action planning. Courses can include lessons, mentorship discussion guides, embedded resources and quizzes.
For pricing on enabling this feature or for any of Chronus' ready-made courses, reach out to your Customer Success or Account Management contact.
Why It's Important: Courses provide structure, accountability and direction to the mentorship journey. Course material can supply the insight needed to optimize the relationship and guide participants in setting and achieving specific development goals, thus increasing the level of success and satisfaction with your program.
Video Demo
How to Manage Courses
Once Chronus Courses is enabled*, you can access it by the following navigation:
Manage > Chronus Courses > Courses
Courses Page
Courses States
There are three different states that a course can exist under: Published, Drafted, and Archived.
Published courses are live and available to program participants on the platform.
Drafted courses are works in progress. If you purchase ready-made Chronus courses, they will be in the drafted section when the tool is first enabled for your program. We highly recommend reviewing the content of a course prior to publishing it.
Archived courses are no longer accessible to your program participants. Archiving a course will retain historical data on its contents and completion rates while in the published state. Archived courses can be duplicated into a drafted state for content edits or to publish once again.
Creating a New Course
Step 1: On the Courses page, click to 'Create a New Course'.
Navigation: Manage > Chronus Institute > Courses > click 'Create a New Course' button
Step 2: Describe Course
Title
Description
Course Image
Select Users: Select from existing User Views or create your own.
Course Categories: These categories will be used for filtering. Select from the existing filters, or add your own filters.
Award Certificate post completion of course: You have the option to include a course certificate. Several templates are provided and you can also upload your own certificate design. See the 'Select Certificate Template' dropdown below. The Course Certificates section provided later in this article provides in-depth instructions.
Course enrollment method:
Make course mandatory
Make course optional for users; be sure to always use this setting for course modules that you intend to have woven into the connection plan.
Click 'Save and proceed to Add Content' to continue.
Adding Content
Begin creating your course content by first defining the framework of the course. There are three core components that make up that framework: Modules, Resources, and Quizzes.
Modules house the content; the informational resources and quizzes aligned to that module.
Resources are the individual components within each module.
Quizzes are questions that admins create within a resource as a means to check for understanding and comprehension as users complete the course content.
Preparation:
Create a high-level outline and draft of your content to organize your thoughts and collaborate with your stakeholders as needed prior to proceeding with these next steps.
Decide what objectives need to be accomplished in each course (Modules), then list your breakdown of topics needed for each module achieve that objective (Resources). Quizzes are best created after you have finalized the content for each resource. For most programs, we recommend using no more than five modules in a single course.
Create Course:
Step 1: Create Module(s)
Step 2: Add or Create Resource
Click the down arrow to the far right of a module's title to open up its contents.
Click 'Add a Help Resource'.
Click either 'Select a Help Resource' or 'Create a new Help Resource', depending on whether or not the help resource you wish to add to the module is already created.
Selecting an Existing Help Resource
Clicking 'Select a Help Resource' opens the screen you see below; select your help resource from the dropdown list, then repeat this and the previous step until all resources you want to add to the module are present. Repeat this process for each module until your course contains all the content you wish to add to it.
Creating a New Help Resource
Clicking 'Create a new Help Resource' will open a new tab in your browser to create a new help resource. If you plan on using the resource in multiple courses for multiple roles, ensure the appropriate roles are selected for 'Accessible to'.
For course resources, we recommend selecting 'None' for the 'Pin this help resource in homepage for' since the course resources are created to be viewed as part of a complete course, or dispersed throughout the connection plan. Course resources are usually dedicated to the two course uses discussed in this article rather being added to the Help Resources area.
Once you have created your help resource, click 'Publish'. You can then return to the previous tab in your browser and click 'Select a Help Resource' to add it to the module.
Adding Quiz Questions
With Courses enabled, the edit page of each help resource will have an 'Add quiz questions' button at the bottom.
Step 1: Click the 'Add New Question' button to create a new quiz question associated with that resource.
Step 2: Add your question and multiple choice answers. The correct answer to any quiz questions should always be explicit and easily identified within the resource itself. Only one response can be considered valid for a quiz question; you cannot have multiple correct answers for quiz questions.
Step 3: Click the circle to the left of the correct answer to designate it as the correct response, then click the 'Add' button to add the question to the resource. Repeat this as process for each question of your quiz.
Quiz questions will only appear to your participants in a course and will not be visible should they access the resource outside of the Course.
User Experience
Accessing a course from the main menu
Step 1: Users will be able to access courses that are available to them by clicking the Courses option in the left navigation menu. If you have renamed this term, that is the label your users will see here, e.g., Skills, Lessons, etc.
From this page, users can browse and search for courses.
Step 2: In most cases, users will be taken to an interactive course experience that’s powered by a format called SCORM. All course content is accessed within the embedded window. This includes a navigation and progress widget (highlighted in the second image below).
The exception to this is for any course content that was developed with the Chronus course creator and is not in SCORM format.
Course Reporting
You can create your own course completion report using the User Reports functionality as Chronus does not currently have an out-of-the box course completion report.
Creating a Course Report
To create your course report, follow this navigation flow: Reports > User Reports > click to 'Create New View'. For more information on all the criteria filters available toe you when you are creating your user view, see: User Views: Managing Users & Custom Reports
For the Course Completion Report view I created, I chose several basic filters and left the rest blank: Mentees and Mentor roles that were active in the program.
Scrolling down to the 'Course' section allows you to select your course and % completion. For my report I selected the condition of having completed > 99% of the Inclusive Mentoring course:
Viewing Your Course Report
Once you have completed your new User View, click on 'Create View' on the bottom right of the page. This will provide your report - your list of users that meet your criteria.
You can view updated data as needed by coming back to your user view: Reports > User Reports > Scroll to find and click on the name of your report/user view.
Editing Your Course Report
Now that your report has been created, you can add additional columns of user data to your report by clicking to 'Update View' and scrolling to the bottom to add your columns:
Course Certificates
If you selected the option to award a certificate upon course completion in your course settings (see the Creating a New Course section), the certificate will automatically sent to your users by the platform.
Selecting and Editing Default Templates
Chronus offers three editable certificate templates to choose from as shown below. In addition, you can click to 'Create Template' button to upload your own design.
Each certificate template shown above provides buttons to view, edit, clone or delete. Upon selecting one of the default certificate templates, you'll be able to edit the following elements if desired:
Background: Change background color or upload a background image
Text: Select from several font and formatting options; create/edit text
Image: Choose from one of three award images or upload your own
Tags: Choose from several personalization tags to autofill the certificated based on who the certificated is awarded to upon completion such as program name, user name, completion date as shown below.
When done, click to 'Save Template'.
Uploading Your Own Certificate Design
When you select to 'Create a new template', you will be prompted to name your certificate and provide a description.
Upon doing so, one of the default templates will open and you can fully customize it, e.g.,
Delete all type on the template and start from scratch.
Select from one of five background images
Drag and drop your own image into the space provided, and click 'Upload image'. The size and file type of an image that can be uploaded is provided.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How can I enable Chronus Courses for my program?
Chronus Courses is a paid feature. Reach out to your Account Executive for more information.
What happens if I edit a resource that is part of a Course after the Course has been published?
The Course's content will be updated for anyone that takes the course going forward.
If a user is in two programs that both require the same course, does the user have to take the course twice?
Yes. If a user has already taken a course in one program and it mandatory in another program, it would need to be taken again in order for the system to register that the user has taken the course and can move forward in that program.
Is LinkedIn certificate sharing available to all customers?
It is available to all, except for those hosted on GovCloud servers and who have private labeling enabled. For private labeled organizations, we can turn the sharing on when requested by the customer.
Can users or admins print out certificates?
A user can download their own certificate as a .jpeg file and print it, however, the .jpeg file is not designed for print resolution quality. Currently, the functionality does not exist for admins to print certificates for all users.