Professor What is a competency?

Competencies are used to track information about the knowledge, skills and abilities the people in your organization acquire as they participate in courses or other learning experiences. The Desire2Learn competency model includes a way of assessing learning outcomes to determine whether a person has really acquired the knowledge, skills or abilities a learning experience was supposed to provide. D2Ls competency models are made up of one or more learning objectives, and each of these learning objectives is evaluated by one or more activities. Learners do not complete competencies directly; they complete individual learning objectives by passing all of the activities associated with that learning objective. Learning objectives represent the things a person needs to learn in order to acquire a competency Activities are used to evaluate Learning Objectives and include tests used to measure a learners completion of a learning objective. Activities can be associated with quizzes, surveys and dropbox folders, or they can exist independently without being tied to any other tool in the learning environment. This gives you the opportunity to use existing tools to assess learning objectives as well as the flexibility to draw on other forms of assessment. Most activities are assessed using rubrics, which need to be created separately before creating activities. Rubrics are a descriptive assessment tool that assigns a specific level or category to a learners performance.

To complete an activity, a learners assessment must meet the minimum required level for that activity. When a learner completes all of the activities beneath a learning objective, they attain that learning objective. Once a learner completes all of the learning objectives within a competency, they complete the competency itself. Note: competencies have no grades or levels of achievement associated with themthey are either complete or they are not. Activities are the only elements that are actually graded. A complete competency structure: at least one learning objective and at least one activity. Associate activities with rubrics. Unless quiz activities are used exclusively. Rubrics must be created before creating activities. New activities cannot be saved unless it is associated with a rubric. Once competency is complete, status should be set to Approved.

Accessing Competencies Main competencies has three different views: Student view Standard Administrative View Advanced Administrative View Must be administer to see all competencies Standard View is default for administers. Additional permission needed to switch between Standard and Advanced Views. Permissions vary with org unit; might have permission to administer competencies in one org unit and not in another.

The Competency List page (standard view)

The Competency List page is the central page for managing competencies;

The Advanced View

The Advanced View interface is split into two panes. The left pane shows a tree view of all competency structures available in the current org unit The right pane displays the current page. Advanced View and Standard View are vary in two ways In Advanced View you gain the ability to view orphans (elements not attached to any parent). In Standard View you have access to the Competency Wizard (the Wizard is not available in Advanced View). Orphans: any element not attached to any parent (including competencies). View orphans page allows you to see elements not attached anything. VOP allows you to locate orphan learning objectives and activities. They will not appear in the left panes hierarchy because they are not part of any competency structure. How to create a Competency

A competency elementthe element at the top of any competency structure must be completed by the creation and attachment of learning objectives and activities. Go to Competency List page Click New link on the toolbar at the top of the page Select Competency. On New Competency page, enter a Name for the competency. Enter a Description of the competency. Select the appropriate settings for the remaining properties: Status Determines whether learners are able to see and complete the competency and whether changes can be made to the competencys definition. Make Competency and children visible to learners Ready for Versioning Allow re-evaluation of learners who have completed this Competency Make Competency Available Add Org Units. Save Creating a learning objective From Competency List page Click the New link on the toolbar at the top of the page Select Learning Objective. On the New Learning Objective page, enter a Name for the learning objective. Enter a Description of the learning objective Click the HTML Editor icon to create a formatted description. To restrict the types of activities that can be attached to learning objective, select Yes beside Enforce evaluation method, then select the types of activities you want to allow. Specify whether the learning objective is ready for Evaluation by selecting Yes or No. Save Creating activities (activities include quizzes, surveys, dropbox, manual assessment) Rubric for evaluation of activity and activity must be created first. Over view of creating competencies The wizard takes you through this process in four steps: Step 1: create the competency element Step 2: create one or more learning objectives attached to this competency Step 3: create one or more activities attached to each learning objective Step 4: review the structure