So you're a first time user ... welcome! If you're like most people, you want to quickly get up and running without having to spend a whole lot of time fussing with a learning curve. Me too! Which is why I'm putting this Quick Tip together.  So here's your first tip: 

If you haven't taken the LearnCentrix Student Orientation course - you need to!  This will give you an overview of the system and then you will be set to develop your own courses.  You are automatically enrolled in this course when you get your User Name and Password so there is nothing stopping you.  Unless, you're like me, in which case just proceed with course development and go back later to the Student Orientation course!

Here's your second tip:

Open LearnCentrix in another Internet Explorer browser window and then place this text on one side of your desktop while working in LearnCentrix on the other side.

Adding a Course

• Log into LearnCentrix and click on the TOOLS menu button. From the drop down menu choose Course Administration and click on the Add a New Course link.
• On the Add Course page, the only data fields that you are required to fill out are Course Code and Course Name. So give your course a code (e.g. Course 101) and a name (e.g. My First Course). Since we're going to create a test in your course, let's also set the test parameters for your soon to be added students. If you want your students to be able to pass your course with an 80% or higher score, then key in 80 in the Course Score % field. Tip: If you want your students to pass with a lower or higher course score, then adjust your Course Score percentage accordingly.
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the New Offering table. Give your new offering a name (e.g. My Offering). Tip: A course in LearnCentrix may have many offerings. Each offering may have different students enrolled, different instructors and have different start and end dates. This way, your course may be used multiple times by different groups!
• Click on the ADD button.
• Congratulations, you just added your first course!
  

Add Yourself as a Course Developer ... and more!

• You've created your course, now you need to assign yourself as a Developer in your course. This way you can add topics and that test we prepared for above.
• Once again, click on the TOOLS menu button and choose User Administration from the drop down menu. This brings you to the User Administration page.
• From the User List table, click on the checkbox next to your name.
• From the Manage table, change new user to user roles and click on the ADD button.
• Now you will see the Course/Offering Selection page. This page will show you all of the courses that have been developed and you will be able to select the course to place yourself in as a Developer. Since you are just beginning, the only course you will see will be the course name that you entered above.
• Click on the 'expand view' button (plus sign) next to your course name. Now you can see all of the offerings that you created with your course (e.g. My Offering). While you're here, let's also add you as a Student and Instructor to your course. To do this, click on the checkboxes for Student, Instructor and don't forget Developer. Tip: Can you see that this is also how you will add your students to your offering(s)? In LearnCentrix we call this assigning 'user roles'.
• Click on the ADD button in the User List table.
• Congratulations, you are now a Developer, Student and Instructor in your course!

Entering Your Course as a Developer

• Now it's time to add content to your empty course. To do this, you must first enter your course. Click on the MY LEARNING menu button and choose My Courses from the drop down menu.
• The My Courses page will be displayed and you will see the courses you have been added to. In this case, you will just see one course and then three different links for your different roles in the course: DEVELOP, TEACH, LEARN
• Click on the DEVELOP link and you will be taken to your course as a Developer.

Adding Topics

• Your course is empty ... but not for long! Click on the ADD TOPIC button.
• In the Topic Number field key in 1.
• In the Topic Name field key in Welcome!
• Leave the Topic Type as Web Page Content and click on the ADD button.
• The Topic Details page will be displayed and you can simply key your text in the Web Page Editor, or you may upload html (and all accompanying files) when you click on the Upload files from my machine button. For now, just enter some text in the Web Page Editor. Tip: You can make your text more interesting for your future students by adding colored text, colored background and images (click on the Image link in the editor).
• When you have entered all of the information that you want, click on the SAVE button at the bottom of the page.
• Congratulations, you have just created your first topic! Now you can add as many as you would like! Tip: There are many other topic types in LearnCentrix. For instance, you might want to upload a Word or PowerPoint file for your students. Just click on the LearnCentrix HELP button (top of LearnCentrix page) to learn more about each topic type that you can upload.

Adding an Assessment (test)

• To add an Assessment to your course, click on the ADD TOPIC button.
• Add a Topic Number and Topic Name for this topic.
• Choose Assessment from the Topic Type drop down list. Tip: To learn more about the assessment topic type and the differenct between an assessment and a quiz, click on the LearnCentrix HELP button.
• Click on the ADD button.
• Now you will see the Topic Details page for the Assessment topic type. Click on the Include in Gradebook checkbox, so that this assessment will be displayed for Instructors to see in the Gradebook.
• Scroll down and click on the Add a New Question link.
• There are eight different question types available for your assessment - true/false and multiple choice to name just two. Click on the Question Type drop down pick list and choose (as an example) true/false. The page will automatically reformat itself so that you can enter your question in a true/false format.
• Click on the SAVE button when you have entered your question text and whether the statement is true or false.  You may also click on SAVE and ADD ANOTHER button if you would like to add other questions.
• If you would like to see how the student will see this question, click on the Student View link at the top of the page.
• Build as many questions as you would like!

Good job! You have created your first course, added yourself as a Developer, added content, added an assessment ... now you just need students to take your course. You'll have to add them to LearnCentrix first, and then add them to an offering in your course. Here's how:

Adding Users

• Click on the TOOLS menu button and from the drop down menu, choose User Administration.
• The User Administration page will be displayed. Click on the ADD (new user) button in the Manage table.
• The Add User page will be displayed for your data entry pleasure! There are only four required fields for this page: Email (which will be the user's User Name for logging into LearnCentrix), Employee Number, Password (the user's Password for logging into LearnCentrix) and First Name. I would also include the user's Last Name (even though it's not required) as many of the reports you might like to create (see the Report Wizard feature) will better serve you if the last name is also present.
• Click on the ADD button to add your new user.
• Now that your users have been added to the system, you can add them to as many courses as you have!

Adding Users as Students to your Course Offering

• Once again, click on the TOOLS menu button and from the drop down menu, choose User Administration.
• The User Administration page will be displayed. From here, click on the checkboxes next to the users you want to add to your offering in the User List. If you want to select ALL users in the list, click on the checkbox at the top of the table and all users will be checked.
• With your users selected, from the Manage table drop down list, choose user roles.
• Click on the ADD button.
• The Course/Offering Selection page will be displayed. Find the course (or courses) that you would like to add your users to. For our purposes, click on the course 'expand view' (plus sign) button so that you can see all of the offerings for your course.
• Click on the Student checkbox to select that role and course for your users.
• Click on the ADD button. Now all of your users have been added as Students to your selected offering!

There you have it! Your course has been created with content and an assessment, and you have students added to learn all about your topic. I hope that this little walk through the process has been valuable to you. If you have any further suggestions or comments, please feel free to comment in the LearnCentrix community. Remember, that if you go to the LearnCentrix.com home page, and click on the LIVE DEMO button, we would be happy to demonstrate other features of our system and answer any questions that you might have.

Now, just one thing left to do.  You need to go back and take that pesky Student Orientation course ... really!  It will help increase your knowledge of the system and what you can do with it ...

Good luck!

Your LearnCentrix Customer Care Team