Course Widgets - Leadership Academy

This article describes three course widgets on the course home page that can be leveraged when taking or supporting a course, including the course map, discussions, and backpack widgets.

Learn more about the following course widgets:

• Course map widget
• Discussions widget
• Backpack widget

This article describes the course map widget, which offers a hierarchical list view of the course.

• Learn more about course widgets

What is the course map widget?

The course map widget is distinct from the course map. The course map is located in the center of the course page and, for paced courses, shows a calendar view of the course. The course map widget, however, provides a hierarchical list view of the course's modules, lessons, and activities. For learners preferring a list view of course activities, the course map widget offers a simple way to view scheduled course activities.

How to navigate to a course activity using the course widget

1. Navigate to the course you'd like to view the discussions in.
2. On the course header, click on the course map widget, located to the left of the discussions widget and backpack widget.
   
3. Each module in the course will be displayed with an arrow next to it. Click the module name to view the lesson(s) contained in that module. Click a lesson name to view the activity(ies) contained in that lesson.

This article describes the course discussion widget, including how to navigate to the widget and how to view information related to discussions using the widget.

• Learn more about the role of discussions in a course.
• Learn more about course widgets

Note: All of the instructions in this article begin with the following two steps:

1. Navigate to the course you'd like to view the discussions in.
2. On the course header, click on the discussions widget, located to the right of the course map widget and to the left of the backpack widget.

How to navigate to discussions using the course discussion widget

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 at the top of this article
2. Click on a discussion in the list to go to the discussion activity. 

   

How to view new discussion posts

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 at the top of this article
2. Click All Discussions
   
3. On the next page, you will see how many total discussion posts have been made for each course discussion activity. You will also see how many are new, meaning that they have been posted since the last time you went to that discussion activity page. 

How to view a cohort's most popular posts

1. Follow steps 1 and 2 at the top of this article
2. Most popular posts are listed under the heading Most Popular. Click on a discussion post to go to the discussion activity where the post was made.

How to view a cohort's top posters

1. 1. Follow steps 1 and 2 at the top of this article
   2. Top posters are listed under the heading Top Posters. Click on a learner's name to view
   3. their profile.

This article discusses the backpack feature and shows how to use the backpack widget to save notes, discussion posts, reflections, and activities.

• Learn more about course widgets.

What is the backpack?

The backpack is a feature in the platform that captures key pieces of the course experience that a learner may want to revisit at a later time. While a learner’s backpack automatically saves their discussion posts and reflections, learners can optionally save activities they’d like to view again, as well as any notes taken throughout the course. 

The backpack can be found on the course header inside a course, on the top right of any course page. It is located to the right of the discussions widget icon. When clicked, learners can go to their saved notes, reflections, discussion posts, and course activities.

How to save activities to the backpack

In the footer of any course activity there is a Save for Later button that, when clicked, will add the activity to the backpack. 

Note: Saved items in the backpack for a course are located in that course specifically and may also be accessed from the My Courses page. 

How to view and download backpack items via My Courses

For ended or self-paced courses, all content and activities saved in the Backpack may also be found by navigating to ended courses via My Courses. 

1. Navigate to ended courses via My Courses.

2. Under the column Backpack, click View to navigate to your backpack for a specific course. Click Download to download a transportable csv file with notes and reflections from a specific course.

• a)You will not see the View nor Download links in a row if the course is archived or trashed.
• b) The View link will be available for any course that has one or more items in that course backpack and will navigate you to the Notes page of the specific course backpack. If there are no backpack items, the View link will not be present. 
• c) The Download link will be available for any course that has one or more notes or reflections and will download a transportable csv file of any of those items. If there are no notes or reflections for the course, the Download link will not be present. The exported fields include course name, activity name, activity start date, note, and reflection. Note: Activity start date is the due date for the activity for paced courses and the cohort start date for self-paced courses.

3. At the bottom of the table, click Download All to download a transportable csv file containing all notes and reflections from all appropriate courses. Note: The Download All link will not be present if there are no courses with one or more notes or reflections.