The end of the academic year, or just before the start of one, is a good opportunity to review various items in relation to itslearning settings, usage, and support processes.
In this article we present the key things to consider, including information related to security and data privacy when preparing for a new year. Please read carefully.
Update Support Contacts
As the system administrator of itslearning you know who can contact itslearning support and how. If you don't know this, or there are, for example, any new itslearning support contacts in your organisation, before the summer vacation is a good time to reach out to itslearning to discuss how to best prepare for the school start after the summer. Please contact your Account Manager with any questions about this.
Further, are all students, teachers, and parents aware of the designated contact person for itslearning queries? If not, consider how to inform them about the key contact during the Summer break.
If you are you unsure on who to contact or how to access support, please visit the support portal for more information.
Need training or other consultancy?
You can find an overview of our services in our service catalogue. Reach out to your itslearning account manager for more information and prices.
Health Check
One of the services we offer is to work with you to ‘check’ your system and help you recalibrate it.
Let us help you with best practice use - to review and advance itslearning usage within your organisation. Our comprehensive offering includes a thorough analysis of your current usage patterns, followed by a collaborative workshop to identify opportunities for improvement. The deliverables comprise a detailed set of recommendations and an actionable plan for optimising your itslearning experience moving forward. Recommendations could be changes in the setup or trainings booked to help your users become more engaged with the platform.
Integration changes
Is your organisation changing the administrative system used for integrations? Do reach out so we can plan the work ahead of time. We can also do minor customisation in the integration with most source systems. Examples of such customisations include changing the way hierarchies or courses are named, utilising templates in automated course creation, adding class names to student profile information, creating automated sandbox courses to all staff, and more.
itslearning functionality
Recently updated itslearning functionality
In the past year, we have made many improvements and updates across our platform. Some of these updates will not be available to all customers until the start of the new school year. Additionally, we have made 'under-the-hood' updates in terms of being more accessible to all users:
- New Planner
- New Test Tool
- New Survey Tool (AI in new survey tool - available this summer)
- New message system (Available June 2024)
- New App (Available for BTS August 2024)
- New Menu (Available for BTS 2024)
- Search (Available for BTS 2024)
- Accessibility
Please follow our What’s New page to stay updated on our continuous development and improvements.
Additional functionality that can be activated on demand
There are itslearning features and functionality available but not activated by default. Please reach out to your itslearning account manager in case you think any of these would benefit your organisation.
- Individual learning plans with midterm reviews (ILP)
- New Attendance tool designed for Higher Education
- Parent users and parental portal
Licenced itslearning functionality
We also offer certain features and functionality that require an additional license, some of which involve third party products. Please reach to your itslearning account manager if you are interested in any of these areas:
- LTI connected tools such as: H5P, Padlet and others
- Plagiarism detection
- Advanced reports
- Cloud services such as Microsoft 365 Outlook and Teams
- Data Warehouse
Available itslearning global settings
You can manage a great deal of the itslearning experience through global settings available to a system administrator. Examples include:
- Using Learning Objectives
- Accessibility Checker
- Enable discussion in assignment
- Anonymous activities
- Enable resource booking
- Enable homework
- Users can delete and edit own messages (teachers can also delete messages in course conversations)
- 360° reports
See here for an overview of the global settings: Global Settings
Information displayed to your users
Settings for the itslearning login page
The itslearning login page is shown to most users prior to login. We recommend checking the information posted there in case it should be updated or changed. A system administrator can access this information in global settings > Login page settings > Information.
Custom links
In global settings > layout, you are also able to for example, add links in the top menu, e.g. to the itslearning support portal or other useful resources. Making sure these links are up to date is important.
Other preparations for the new school year
Other possible preparations may include the following:
- Training your new Teachers: reach out to your itslearning account manager to arrange for training for new teachers/staff.
- Template courses: if you use template courses, are they updated or are there any improvement needs? If you use Terms through them, remember to update them as well. The itslearning support portal contains many articles about how to use template courses.
- Large courses for information purposes: if you use courses to share information with e.g. all staff or the entire school enrolled, do review the course and decide whether you should make a fresh copy for the new year. A new copy may be a good idea e.g. if messages and bulletins are used.
- Individual Learning Plans: if you use them, you may want to consider creating new templates for the new year.
- Terms: if you use them, remember to create new ones as needed.
Security
Ensuring that your data and integrations are accurate and up to date does not only ensure a smoother start to the new school year, but also safeguards your school against potential risks.
Integrations
For a itslearning site with integrations from a school administrative system, there are many things worth reviewing and being aware of in advance of the new academic year.
Please see here for more information: Automated integration with a Student Information System
If you don't have any integrations yet, do reach out to your itslearning account manager for more information and prices.
Data deletion
Do you have an annual routine for deleting old courses and users in the trash can?
Archiving & Copying Old Courses
Do you have an annual routine for your teachers to copy old courses and archive the old courses to be set up for the next semester?
Links
Please browse this support portal or see below for more information: