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Table of Contents

WHAT IS .LRN?

GETTING STARTED. 2

INTRODUCTION. 2

TERMINOLOGY

HOW TO CREATE A NEW WORKSHOP IN THE COMPASS

. 3

OVERVIEW. 3

COPY A WORKSHOP 4

THE COPY THIS GROUP FORM

. 4

 USING COMPLEX SURVEY REPORTS

ASSOCIATING REPORTS TO A SURVEY. 5

HOW TO SETUP RECOMMENDED REFERENCES REPORT

OVERVIEW

. 6

EXISTING SURVEY REPORT

EDITING THE QUESTIONS

EDITING REPORTS

LIBRARY SEARCHES

Overview

Creating Searches

EDIT THE REPORT

HOW TO CREATE MEASUREMENT SECTION

WHAT IS A MEASUREMENT SECTION?

STEP 1:  ADD THE FIRST QUESTION

MAKE THE SECTION A MEASUREMENT SECTION

ADD ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

ADD THE VARIABLE NAME

What is .LRN?

.LRN is an open source software platform for supporting learning and research communities. SloanSpace has been in use at MIT Sloan since the Fall of 2000. Originally developed at MIT as part of the Intellectual Commons, .LRN is now backed by a world-wide consortium of educational institutions, non-profit organizations, industry partners, and open source developers. .LRN is user-driven and its internationalization efforts have resulted in an entirely open source (and free) product that can be implemented in the native language of many developing nations. The community that has developed around .LRN is a cooperative mixture of developers, users, educators, and others committed to supporting and expanding a product that enables under-resourced organizations and individuals to utilize an enterprise-level eLearning platform.

Getting Started

Introduction

This document describes how to create and modify specific Compass Diagnostics as well as giving general information on how to use survey with reports on .LRN.

Compass Diagnostic specific reports that will be covered include:

• Planner - Recommended References
• Planner - Single Question comparisons
• Prioritize Table (Value, Importance, Conflict, Confusion)

This document assumes that you have used the "group copy" option to set up a new workshop based on an existing workshop. Please refer to the section on How To Set Up a New Workshop for instructions.

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Terminology

Compass	The implementation of .LRN for the Kennedy School of Government
Workshop	An executive education event involving a specific group of people
Survey	A collection of admin definable questions. The base “survey” package is used in a number of places to create questions and manage data
Compass Diagnostic	A set of surveys used inside a workshop to gather information and return reports
Reports	A page displayed to the user that is customized by his answers to survey questions.
Library	An area of the Compass website where file storage and categories are used to create a searchable collection of references. The references are typically documents (PDF, Word) or links to outside resources (URLs).

Overview

A separate “group” is set up for each workshop.  This provides a place for the workshop participants to use a customized compass and other dotLRN tools.

Copy a Workshop

It is very important that you copy a newer group rather than an older group. We are setting up 3. Project Design and Implementation (June 2005) to be copied. Any workshop after November 2005 can also be copied. Choose the workshop that has the closest Compass to the one you want to run.

1. Go to the workshop you want to copy and click Group Admin at the bottom of the page.
   
   
   
2. Click Copy this Group
   
   
   
   

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The Copy a Group Form

1. This site does not include Term. You may disregard this field.
2. Specify the name of the new workshop.
3. Your inputs to the Description will go to the "Class Info" portlet or the new workshop and can be changed anytime.
4. After copying the workshop you can customize your new workshop.
   
   
   

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Using Complex Survey Reports

Associating Reports to a Survey

1. When a report is associated with a survey, a link appears. Click View Report once the survey has been completed.
   

   

   
   
2. To associate a report, change which report is associated, or have no reports associated, you must go to the Admin page for the survey.
   
   
   
   
3. From the Admin page choose Associate a report with this survey.
   
   
   This page lists available reports. The one currently in use has the Don't Use option. To use a different report, click Use. If you do not wish to use any report, click Don't Use. Note that you can only associate one report per survey.

4. Note the status. To work for users your survey must be “published”.
   
   
   

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How to Set Up Recommended References Reports

Overview

The Compass is a tool for asking users questions and then presenting them with customized reports based on their answers.  One type of report integrates with the Compass Library to provide a customized list of readings. 

Existing Survey and Report

This document assumes you have an existing survey and an existing report copied from a previous workshop. The survey is typically called the Planner that includes a “Learn More” Question.

 

These are used to create reports that display a list of references from the library.

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Creating and Customizing Reference Reports ­ ­

This document assumes you have copied an previous class and you are customizing an existing report.

Editing the Questions

1. From the user’s view of the compass, find the old questions.  Then, click Survey Admin.
   
   
   
   
2. On the Survey Admin page find the question you want to change and click Edit Question.
   
   
   
   
3. Edit the text of the question and the multiple choice values as needed. Be careful about line breaks. Some answers maybe long and wrap automatically, that is fine. However, every time you have a line break it assumes it’s a new choice.

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Editing Reports

1. Find the Edit view of the report you want to edit. It maybe the currently associated report. Otherwise, you may need to click Manage Reports to find the correct report.
   
   
   
   
2. Note the overall format of the Recommended Reference Reports.
   
   
   
   After the IF there is usually an introductory sentence, typically repeating the answer, then an “Include” that determines what references are shown. The next section discusses how to set up the includes.

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Library Searches

­Overview

Step 1:  Go to the library and create the search you want to display.
Step 2:  Copy the search into your clipboard.
Step 3:  Paste the search into the report.

Create Searches

Note that usually the searches in the reference reports use “Learn More” as one of the categories. This is an optional convention. In the past, the library has used the “Learn More” category specifically to tag resources that were good for "learn more" reference reports.

After you have selected search criteria, click the Search button. Copy the include onto your PC’s clipboard (e.g. Control-C)

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Edit the Report

Paste the new include into the appropriate place in the report.  The “Editing Reports” section of this document discusses how the logical “IF” command works.

 

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Planner Report – One Qu­estion Comparison

User Question View

Here is a sample question:

 

User Report View

 

Admin Question View

Admin Report View

The entire table is generated by an “include”. To use the "include", copy a similar include and change the section_id and the question name to  match the question you want to generate the table.  This will work for check box or radio button questions.

 

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Prioritizer Report – Involvement, Value, Confusion, Conflict

Overview

Below is an example of the prioritizer table.

 

Each row of this report is actually created by a series of  4 questions grouped together in a “measurement section”.

 

Admin view:

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How To Create Measurement Sections­

What is a Measurement Section?

It is a set of questions that all have the same multiple choice answers. The questions are all formatted together with the answers all lined up.

Step 1: Add the first question

In this example we will be taking Section  5. PREPARATION FOR SPEED and making it a measurement section, like the sections above and below it.

 

• You must choose a multiple choice question type.
• Enter the choices that you want displayed at the top of the section
  
  
  

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Make the Section a Measurement Section

1. Edit the Section
   
   
   
   
2. Scroll down to find the Measurement Section and select Yes.
   
   

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Add Additional Questions

 

Note that you are no longer asked what question type you want or what answers. All questions in that section are the same type and have the same answer choices.

 

Add the Variable Name

You will need to add the variable name by editing the question.

 

 

 

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