Enrollment Features in the EthosCE LMS

Enrollment is an important feature for learning management systems (LMS), especially those designed for continuing education (CE) training. In CE, users often enroll themselves into courses. Although this is an easy way to allow users to manage their own enrollments, without other methods allowing and blocking enrollments, the system is handicapped.

Self-enrollment

Self-enrollment is the primary enrollment technique most EthosCE customers use to enroll learners.

For example, a learner searches the catalog and finds a course that she or he is interested in, then clicks enroll or purchase, and voila! The learner is enrolled.

EthosCE allows for far more than just self-enrollments. The following techniques allow administrators greater control over enrollments.

Search and enroll

A course administrator in EthosCE can search for users using user profile fields specific to a learner, such as name, email or address. The search returns a list of learners who can then be selected and enrolled.

More powerful is searching by fields shared among all users. A course administrator can search by job title, store number, area of practice, region or zip code. Again, all the results can then be selected and enrolled by the admin.

Cascading enrollments

Linking together courses into sets of courses such as a curriculum, a subscription or a hybrid activity allows you to let the user enroll into one course, and be auto-enroll them into all the related courses.

But suppose the learner isn’t supposed to enroll in all the related courses. What then? The course administrator can let the user choose the related courses later, after the initial enrollment or user other blocking techniques.

The course administrator can prevent the learner from enrolling in more than the allowed number of related courses. Enrollment limits would allow a course administrator to structure a course in such a way that the user must complete “3 of 5” courses. Or “You can only select 2 of the 3 course options.

Subscriptions

Some EthosCE customers sell or give away subscriptions that allow a user to enroll in a subset of courses defined by the administrator. For example, “Buy a subscription and get free access for a year.” Subscriptions then expire at a specified date.

Subscriptions based on user profile fields

EthosCE can allow you to give a learner a subscription based on a field the learner selects when registering in the system. Or via an import or single-sign-on (SSO) based process. Are the learners from a particular role, job title or area of practice? If so, when that field is selected, the user can gain enrollment, free or reduced-price-based access to the courses the site administrator specifies.

Bulk enrollment

Bulk enrollment is handled by importing a CSV file into the system. The next time the learner logs in, he or she is enrolled in the specified courses and will receive a confirmation message with instructions on how to proceed.

Enrollment groups

Enrollment groups allow non-administrators to enroll or purchase enrollments for users in courses and manage their users’ enrollments.

For example, a manager or office administrator can purchase or enroll a group of learners into courses without being a course administrator. An enrollment group manager is much like an instructor. The enrollment group manager can edit enrollments and completions, including recording attendance and setting a pass/fail status.

Enrollment blockers: A powerful technique to limit access

Date-based enrollment blockers

Date-based enrollment blockers prevent a learner from accessing a course before or after a specified date. For example, the learner should not be able to enroll if the activity hasn’t opened for enrollment yet, or the associated event has already passed.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites prevent a learner from enrolling in a course until one or more other courses have been been satisfactorily completed.

Role-based enrollment blockers

Role-based enrollment blockers prevent a learner from enrolling unless they have a matching allowed role. Roles can be assigned by the site administrator, from a linked user profile field, from an single-sign-on system (SSO), or a user import. Roles can also be purchased by the learners if allowed.

Related-course blockers

Users can be prevented from enrolling in a course unless they are also enrolled in a related course.

Access code blockers

An access code or password can be assigned to a course. If the learner does not have the correct access code, enrollment is blocked. Access codes can be assigned to an enrollment group or to an individual course.