Presenting Learning Sequences on Dashboard

1 Initial Problem

With ILIAS 6 we have substituted the concept of the Personal Desktop by the 'Dashboard' concept and spreaded up the content of 'Selected Items' into differenct views like 'Favourites' (all the stuff selected by myself and needed for quick navigation), 'Courses and Groups' and 'Recommended Content' (FKA 'Selected Items' assigned to role members). During the implementation of 'Recommended Content', Alexander noticed that also Learning Sequences started by a user have been added to the list of 'Selected Items' and need a new place on the Dashboard of ILIAS 6.

As possible places to present learning sequences on the Dashboard we identified the following panels:

• Recommended Content
• Courses and Groups (extended to "My Memberships")
• Tasks

But all three options are not satisfying:

• Recommended Content: this panel should only lists objects that have been suggested by someone else. But a learning sequence appeared in 'Selected Items' because a user started it by himself. Adding such learning sequences contradicts the concept of 'Recommende Content'.
• Courses and Groups: assigning learning sequences to this panel only because the LSO uses the membership service is a weak argument. On the contrary, as this list of objects is already quite long for most users, LSO would get lost in this list. And courses and groups are also "social" objects where users interact or are addressed by tutors/admins. This is not the case for LSO which is mainly an object type to organise learning activities and cluster objects for this.
• Tasks: Completing a learning sequence one has started looks like a reasonable task. But it is also a very fuzzy one. Completing the survey within the learning sequence or finishing the test in it are more concrete tasks. And if LSO only appear in the task panel, the main reason for having presented them in the 'Selected Items' would get lost – the function to organise one's learning activities (For example, KOSMIC project at Uni Freiburg uses no courses but only LSO for organising the learning activities, which is part of the component's concept).

2 Conceptual Summary

1. Learning Sequences that have already been started but not yet finished are presented in a new panel "Learning Sequences"
2. Similar to 'Recommended Content'
   1. … this panel has only Actions for the list items but not for the panel itself (therefore no option to change sorting or presentation).
   2. … this panel does not support tile view presentation [1].
3. Position of this panel is straight above "Courses and Groups" (which we assume will be the longest list and should therefore be the last one).
4. If user has no Learning Sequence running (started but not finished), the panel is not presented.
5. No additional setting necessary in Administration » Dashboard  (block cannot be deactivated).

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Dashboard

3.2 User Interface Details

List of user's learning sequences is presented in a panel in the main area of the Dashboard. Titel of the panel is "Learning Sequences". Position of the panel is above 'Courses and Groups'. The items in the Panel are ordered alphabetically.

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

none

4 Technical Information

The feature depends on both, the dashboard and the learning sequence. It requires no modification of libraries or other services, all necessary functionality already exists.

5 Privacy Information

No additional personal data will be stored. The information, which user is member of which learning sequence is already implemented in the learning sequence and is required to give user access to contents of the learning sequence. Also, the learning sequence already tracks information about the progress of users at the learning sequence via the learning progress service. This is done to give users and or teachers insights into the progress of users while learning the content of the learning sequence to e.g. provide additional help. Thus, data that is already collected will merely be presented in a new way. Furthermore, this data is only visible to the users it belongs to. This feature thus can also be understood as an improvement of insight for users into their own personal data in the installation.

6 Contact

• Author of the Request: Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]
• Maintainer: Klees, Richard [rklees], Killing, Alexander [alex]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: Haagen, Nils [nlz], via PR to Killing, Alexander [alex]

7 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• CaT Concepts and Training GmbH

8 Discussion

Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila] 2019-11-18:
The selected items contained objects which I put on personal desktop myself or which were put on personal desktop by third parties.
The objects that were placed on the personal desktop by third parties are included in the Recommended Content.
All objects placed on personal desktop myself are placed in the favorites - this should also apply to the learning sequences.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 18 NOV 2019 : We had a longer discussion about pros and cons of the suggested solution. We accept the following suggestion and add a new panel for Learning Sequences. We pick up the discussion again with ILIAS 7 and try to find a solution for courses and groups, too. Dashboard administration should support the activation of this panel (like existing for 'Courses and Groups' and some other panels).

9 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.