A source course is an org unit that functions as a course model to create and maintain a single, perpetual source of content for frequently re-offered courses. Source courses are ideal containers for training, certification and compliance content. Re-offering a source course makes it easy to fulfill yearly employee compliance and to retrain employees in ever-changing industry standards.
A source course is similar to a regular course offering except for the following considerations:
- Users can optionally enroll learner roles based on the configuration variable d2l.System.Enrollment.LearnerRole (OrgUnit) being set. If users are enrolled into a source course with a role that matches the one set in this configuration variable, their enrollments are automatically pushed to the latest re-offered course for that source course. However, D2L recommends enrolling learners directly into the re-offered course instead.
- Source courses do not have active or inactive statuses since they are not course offerings.
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Important: A source course must always have a course template attached to it as a direct parent. If a source course is not a child of a course template, then the Re-offer source course function does not work. |
Once created, you can view details about a source course and its linked course offerings from the Source Courses tab in the Courses tool or the Source Course Information page accessed from the Course Administration page of each source course.
Requirements
Source Courses are one function of the Courses tool. Ensure the Courses tool is enabled in Organization Tools and that user roles have the required Manage Courses permissions to access and manage it.
Configuration Variables
To create and manage source courses and re-offer existing source courses, ensure the following configuration variables and permissions are set for your organization and the appropriate user roles.
d2l.Tools.Courses.DepartmentOptions (OrgUnit)
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Determines the availability of Departments when creating source courses |
d2l.Tools.Courses.SemesterOptions (OrgUnit)
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Determines the availability of Semesters when re-offering source courses |
d2l.Tools.Courses.EnableAutomaticTemplateCreation (OrgUnit)
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Determines automatic Template creation when creating source courses |
Permissions
Although source courses are part of the Courses tool, source course permissions exist under Manage Courses in the Roles and Permissions tool. Source Course appears as an org unit setting when editing permissions for a role.
The following permissions are required for users to access the Source Course Information page:
- Manage Courses > See Course Info
- Manage Files > See the File Listing (set at the Source Course level to be able to change the Source Course Path on the Source Course Information page)
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Important: Source Course permissions are dependent on the Manage Courses > Has Access to the Manage Courses tool permission (set at the Organization level) as well as users' access to the Courses tool in Admin Tools. |
The following permissions are required for users to create and manage source courses in the Courses tool:
- Manage Courses > See Source Courses Tab - Allows users to view the Source Courses tab in the Courses tool, but not edit source courses or re-offer associated course offerings. If the role has the Can Create and Edit Org Units permission for the Org Unit Editor, users can edit a source course’s name and code from the Source Courses tab.
- Manage Courses > Create Source Courses - Allows users to create source courses but not edit or re-offer associated course offerings.
- Manage Courses > Delete Source Courses - Allows users to delete source courses.
- Manage Courses > Re-offer Courses - Allows users to re-offer new associated course offerings.
- Manage Courses > Edit Source Course Information - Allows users to edit the source course information on the Source Course Information page but not create or re-offer associated course offerings. Users also require the Manage Courses > See Source Courses Tab permission and the Manage Courses > See Course Info permission (set this at the Source Course level for the Course Management Console tool to see Course Offering Information).
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Important: Users with the Manage Courses > Edit Source Course Information permission may not be able to edit source courses depending on the overall role structure in the organization. For example, users with a Learner role will not be able to edit source courses if the permission is set at the Organization level. This could occur in cases where a manager is a learner in the organization, but they need administrative permissions when editing a source course that is specific to their team.
As a workaround, users without an organizational role (such as Administrator) require the following to edit source courses:
- The user must be enrolled in the source course being edited with a role such as Administrator that has editing permissions.
- The Manage Courses > Edit Source Course Information permission must be set at the Source Course level for the role they have in the source course being edited.
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