- 20 Sep 2024
- 16 minutes to read
What are certifications?
- Updated on 20 Sep 2024
- 16 minutes to read
Certifications are very similar to programs, as both of these facilitate the creation of a pathway for learning by acting as a container for a set of courses. However, unlike programs, certifications are only valid for a certain amount of time, after which they will prompt the learner to recertify. This is useful for skills that need to be updated, or where you may need to demonstrate compliance with changing policies, practices, or regulations.
How do certifications work?
As mentioned above, certifications work very similarly to programs, however, key differences are:
- There are two paths, the Original certification path and the Recertification path
- You can only add a set of courses
- When first created, you will have the option to use the existing certification content, which will copy everything you enter into the original certification path into the recertification path
If the same courses were used in both the original certification path and the recertification path, then the learner’s grades and completion details are recorded and archived. Activity-level completion criteria will be reset for commonly used activities, such as seminars, forums, quizzes, and SCORMs. The reset process will be slightly different for each activity. For example, a forum requiring three posts to fulfil completion requirements will clear the learner’s completion but will leave the forum posts visible so the learner has to post three more times to fulfil the completion requirements again.
When the learner has completed the coursework required for completion, Totara will immediately check to see if the course completion rules have been met. Course and certification status will be updated in reports including the learner’s Record of Learning and Required learning pages.
Learners are enrolled in courses in the certification when they first access the course(s), not when they are assigned to the certification.
First access to courses is controlled by the Program enrolment plugin. When a learner first goes to their certification and attempts to launch a course, this checks whether the learner is assigned to the certification and whether the course is in a course set they actually have access to, and then enrols them in the course. In certifications, once the learner has been enrolled on the course they remain enrolled.
Users can only enrol into courses that are in the certification path that they are actively participating in. If a user does not enrol in an optional course, they will not be able to enrol in that course at a later point in time if their current certification path does not contain that course, or while they are not required to participate, such as while they are waiting for the recertification window to open.
Certifications may be a replacement for the program's recurring course functionality in some cases. A recurring course creates a new copy of the course each time the learners need to retake the course. Over time this leaves multiple archived copies of the course on the site. Rather than duplicating the course, certifications archive the learner's work and grades in the course and then resets the activities so the learner can complete the same course over again.
A new employee is hired and assigned to a certification based upon their position, organisation, audience membership, or management hierarchy.
They complete the original certification path which is a series of courses including 'Orientation' and 'Health and Safety Training'. After course completion conditions are met, the certification is marked as 'certified' with a certification completion record.
After one year the 'Health and Safety Training' course needs to be repeated. The same course from the original certification path is reused, the learner’s completion data is archived, and their status is reset so they can redo the activities in the course.
As part of the archiving process, each activity included in a course will need to be reset. This will have a different effect on each activity so each will need to be treated separately. The table below outlines the core activities that will be reset and their effect on course completion.
Activity name | Action taken |
---|---|
Assignment | Submitted files and assignments are deleted. The learner can then submit the assignment again. |
Certificates | Copy of previous certificates will be archived. |
Feedback | Previous attempts are archived so that the learner can submit a new response. |
Forum | Previous posts are left in the forum so that the discussion is left intact. The learner has to repost to meet the completion rules. |
LTI | LTI submission records are moved to the submission history table and then submission records are removed. |
Quiz | Previous attempts are deleted to ensure learners have all allowed attempts available each time the course is retaken. |
SCORM | Previous attempts are deleted to ensure learners have to meet completion requirements each time the course is retaken. |
Seminar | Previous attendance data will be archived. Any event sessions that took place before the certification window opens will not count towards course completion. Seminar activities have a setting that allows learners to sign up for multiple sessions within the same activity, so learners can sign up for another session in the certification or recertification period if required. |
Assignment due dates
With a chosen assignment, you can set a due date. There are two options available when setting a due date:
- Complete by: This allows you to choose a specific date.
- Complete within: This allows you to choose a relative date. Relative dates may not be calculable for some users immediately (e.g. 'first login', for users who have never logged in). An actual due date will be given to the users as soon as they meet the criteria.
There are some important things to be aware of in the way assignment due dates work:
- If a user belongs to more than one assignment (e.g. as an individual and as part of an audience), and the assignments have different due dates, then the user's due date will be the more distant of the two.
- Due dates for assigned users can only be increased. If an earlier assignment due date is applied to a user who already has a due date set, then the earlier date will not be applied to the user. The reasoning for this is to prevent learners from being given a due date, allowing them to allocate time when they plan to complete the learning, then reducing the due date, causing them to have insufficient time to complete it. However, the new due date will apply to learners who become included in the certification in the future due to this assignment (such as if a learner is added to an audience after the due date was reduced).
- Removing the due date from an assignment does not remove the due dates of applicable learners who have already been given one. However, this change will be applicable to users who become included in the certification in the future due to this assignment.
Users' actual due dates may differ from the assignment due date for various reasons, including:
- If another assignment type includes the same user, the other assignment due date may override this one
- If this assignment has a relative due date, which is not yet applicable to the user
- A user may have been granted an extension by a manager
- If an exception occurred and the Set realistic time allowance action was used to resolve it
- This assignment due date may have changed, but the user still has the due date that was originally given to them
- The due date has automatically been set to the expiration date
assignments_deferred_task
scheduled task is run.Sometimes accidents happen and a completion date is set incorrectly, or a user's due date needs changing for whatever reason. If changes are required then they can be done using the certification completion editor.
Reassignments
It is not uncommon that users may be unassigned from a certification, then reassigned. For example, a user could be a member of an audience assigned to a certification, no longer meet the audience membership criteria, and is therefore removed from the audience and unassigned from the certification. The user is then reassigned to the certification via the same (or different) assignment method.
When a user is reassigned to a certification they will be returned to their previous status. This works by the system locating the latest unassigned certification completion history record and restoring the user to their previous state. Any events that need to occur (such as the window opening for recertification) will take place when the relevant cron task runs.
Note about repeating periods
Consider the following scenario. The expiry date or fixed date method is used and the active period is one month. A user has a due date of 31 January. They complete before 31 January. Their next expiry date cannot be calculated as 31 February, because the date does not exist. The actual date calculated will be different and it could be anything from 28 February to March 3, but whichever it ends up being, that's the date that will repeat from that point onward. This same problem can occur with different active periods, such as one year, if you choose February 29.
Managing seminar activities as part of a certification
Where learner attendance is a condition of seminar activity completion, attendance marked outside of the window open period does not contribute to course completion for the current period.
Changing or removing courses in an active certification
If the initial certification path is changed for an active certification, this will not remove the certification completions for users who have already completed it.
Once a user is marked as certified any changes you make to the path will not affect their certification and it will remain as complete. Once the user reaches the re-certification window open point, the completion will be archived and the user will need to complete the re-certification path.
Only newly assigned users or users with a status of in progress will be affected by these changes and these users will need to complete the certification based on the changes to the content.
Certification/recertification scenarios
This table shows some different scenarios and what state users' certifications should be in as a result.
Scenario | Recertification date based on completion date Assignment has no due date | Recertification date based on completion date Assignment has due date | Recertification date based on expiry date Assignment has no due date | Recertification date based on expiry date Assignment has due date | Recertification date based on Fixed date Assignment has no due date | Recertification date based on Fixed date Assignment has due date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
When assigned | Open for primary certification | Open for primary certification | Open for primary certification | Open for primary certification | Open for primary certification | Open for primary certification |
Late for primary certification | Open for primary certification | Open for primary certification Overdue | Open for primary certification | Open for primary certification Overdue | Open for primary certification | Open for primary certification Overdue |
Complete primary certification before due date | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = due date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = due date + active period |
Complete primary certification after due date | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = due date + active period* |
Complete recertification before time expires | Certified New expiry date = recertification date + active period | Certified New expiry date = recertification date + active period | Certified New expiry date = previous expiry date + active period | Certified New expiry date = previous expiry date + active period | Certified New expiry date = previous expiry date + active period | Certified New expiry date = previous expiry date + active period |
Certification expires | Expired / Open for primary certification Overdue (due on the previous expiry date) | Expired / Open for primary certification Overdue (due on the previous expiry date) | Expired / Open for primary certification Overdue (due on the previous expiry date) | Expired / Open for primary certification Overdue (due on the previous expiry date) | Expired / Open for primary certification Overdue (due on the previous expiry date) | Expired / Open for primary certification Overdue (due on the previous expiry date) |
Recomplete primary certification after certification expired | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = certification date + active period | Certified Expiry date = previous expiry date + active period* | Certified Expiry date = previous expiry date + active period* |
* This is assuming that the calculated expiry date is at least the minimum active period into the future. If it is nearer than that, the 'active period' is added repeatedly until the expiry date is sufficiently far in the future. This will occur if a user is extremely overdue (more than active period - minimum active period).
Exceptions
If the users' assignments have unresolved exceptions (i.e. issues with the assignment requirements) they will be unable to access the certification or gain access to any courses they have not already accessed through the certification. Likewise, their completion state in the certification will not be reviewed and recalculated while there are exceptions.
Once the exceptions have been resolved the user will regain access and completion will be calculated for the user.
Certification course statuses
When a user is working through an assigned certification the certification will only show the status of courses on the path the user is currently working through. If the window has not opened yet, the status of courses on the path the learner just completed will be shown. Course statuses for other paths will not be shown as these are not relevant to the user.
For example, if the user is working through courses in the recertification path they will only need to know the status of the courses on that path. If a user had recently recertified, they would only see statuses for the path they completed, and not for the original path.
Certification use cases
Here we'll cover three example use cases and how you could configure a certification to address each case's requirements.
Corporate annual compliance
Most organisations have industry-specific compliance requirements, and need to ensure that their employees have the skills and knowledge to meet these legal and ethical standards. For example, businesses need to meet GDPR requirements when handling personal data, and employees will need to complete regular training and assessment to ensure that they understand the most recent legislation, best practice, and how it affects their roles.
Consider an example company called Company X. Company X has several GDPR-related courses, which are updated once per year to reflect any changes to laws, regulations, practices, and company policies. Users need to complete these courses each year, and the HR and L&D teams need to verify that all employees are up to date with the training. Company X has set up a dynamic audience including all employees in the company, and new starters are automatically added to the audience.
Company X could address this need by creating a certification in Totara:
- Create a certification and configure the certification details:
- Set the Visibility to All users.
- Set the Available from and Available until fields to the required dates.
- Configure the other settings as required.
- Add the certification content:
- Add one course set containing all of the mandatory courses that must be completed.
- Add a second course set containing any optional courses for users who want to learn more about specific topics, but are not essential for compliance purposes.
- Configure the recertification settings.
- For the recertification date, use the Use certification completion date option.
- Set the certification to be active for one year.
- For the recertification window, set the window to open one month before expiration.
- For the recertification path, tick the Use existing certification content checkbox. This means employees will be required to complete the same set of courses as when they initially completed the certification. Completions will be reset when it's time for learners to recertify.
- Assign users to the program using the company-wide dynamic audience.
Adaptive compliance with refresher content
Another organisation, Company Y, sells a range of products via a large team of sales staff. Any new starters need to complete their product training as part of their induction, However, Company Y wants to ensure that sales employees are still knowledgeable about their range of products.
However, for experienced employees who know the products really well, recompleting this training might not be the best use of their time. One way to address this is to set up a certification, then have a recertification path which is tied to their performance on an assessment, which is delivered one year after the initial certification completion. If users score less than a specific score (e.g. 95%), they will be required to complete the recertification path to improve their product knowledge.
Company Y could set up a certification as follows:
- Create a certification and configure the certification details:
- Set the Visibility to All users.
- Set the Available from and Available until fields to the required dates.
- Configure the other settings as required.
- Add a course set containing all of the required training to the certification path.
- Configure the recertification path:
- Create one course set containing one single-activity course, which contains a quiz activity. Set the minimum score field to 95, meaning users will need to achieve a score of 95 or higher in the quiz to complete this course set. Users should only be able to attempt the quiz once, preventing them from attempting it multiple times in order to memorise the answers.
- Create a second course set containing all of the courses from the original certification path.
- Set the conditional value between the two course sets to OR. This means users can complete the certification either by achieving a high score in the assessment, or by completing the courses in the second course set.
Resetting competency proficiency
In some cases, you may want users' competencies to expire, so that they can be reassessed after a specific amount of time. If you want to reset users' proficiency in certain competencies, you can do this using a certification with a course in the recertification path. The course completion is then used as part of the criteria for achieving proficiency in the competency. When the certification expires, the certification resets the course progress, which subsequently resets the competency rating.
You can therefore set up a certification with a single course in the recertification path, containing an activity (e.g. a quiz or assignment) that will be used to assess the user against the competency. Once they complete the course, the user will be marked as proficient for that competency again.
The Totara Academy has a whole course dedicated to using Programs and certifications in Totara Learn. Here you can learn more on how to use programs and certifications, see best practice, and give it a go yourself.
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