Overview of forever access
Once a learner has finished a course, they can continue accessing the course in their Past Courses tab (unless removed from the class activation).
The best part of all this is that learners revisit the course material, their social contributions, responses to tasks, and feedback from facilitators as often as they like. In perpetuity.
Free and forever access for past courses
We only charge for active learners in active classes. That means, if it’s a past course. It’s free! Learners can access a past course as much as they want. Partners won’t be charged for it.
Note: For this to work, learners still need to be able to access iQualify from an authentication perspective. This might mean you need to keep your single sign on organisational accounts active for a period of time, or opt to create local login accounts.
Making the most of forever access
"We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience."
- John Dewey
With this quote in mind, let’s take a look at how we might have more to reflect on.
Learning or achievement portfolio
Because learners have access to their version of the course in perpetuity, we often encourage our partners to think about how (or if) they’d like to use the online course as a sort of workbook or portfolio. For instance, including tasks which support learners to gather evidence of their learning or skills.
We have two portfolio-type templates:
Portfolio/learning journal template which helps learners to record evidence and generate artefacts to put into a My portfolio section of a course. Great if you want learners to have a little more say in what counts as evidence of outcomes, but you don't want them to spend most of that time learning a new bit of software, or making an easy-on-the-eye blog or website.
Vocational portfolio template which is aimed at gathering evidence of skills and includes tasks to support learners to think about what different things might "count" as evidence and tasks to record conversations with mentors.
If a portfolio is a bit “too much” for your context, you might try simply incorporating opportunities for reflection with reflective tasks.
Study notes
Even if it’s not built into the course design, learners can still leverage the study notes feature in their course to annotate the course, making a version that’s entirely their own. And perhaps, acts as an easy way to highlight the most salient ideas or parts of the course for revision or reflection.
Contributions are key
If learners don’t complete many of the tasks, don’t add to the talk channels or discussions, and don’t add notes… They’ve got less to look back on. Less of their footprint. And less of what might make the course relevant and personal to them. We encourage contributions of all kinds.