Awards

You can create awards that can be shared with other users in other courses, or restricted to the course and its child org units. If you restrict the award, it can only be added to the course offering in which you create the award, and any child offerings of that course.

1. Within the course, do one of the following:
   • On the navbar, click Awards.
   • Click Course Admin. From the Assessments area, select Awards.
2. Click Add Award to Course.
3. Click Create Award.
4. Enter a name and description for the new award.
5. Select an award type from the drop-down list.
6. Select the appropriate check boxes to indicate if you want the award to be available to other award managers, and where it is available within the org structure.
7. Select the expiry options:
   • If the award will not expire, select Never. Examples of awards that never expire are certificates of merit for passing a course, or badges for perfect attendance.
   • If the award will expire on a specific date, select Fixed date. Examples of awards that will expire on a specific date are certifications for a skill that must be renewed, such as first aid training.
   • If the award will expire on a day relative to the day the award was granted, select Relative Day of the Month. Examples of awards that expire on a relative date are badges for Learner of the Week or for having achieved 100% on a test or assignment.
8. If you want to notify the award recipient before an award expires, select the check box and indicate the number of days of lead time.
9. In the Choose Award Image area, do one of the following:
   • If the image already exists in the image library, click From Existing Library.
   • If you want to add a new icon to the image library, click Upload New Icon.
   • To launch the OpenBadges website, click Create your own award image. OpenBadges is a free website that allows you to create custom icons.
10. If you are creating a new certificate, in the Choose Certificate Template area, do one of the following:
    • If the PDF template already exists in the image library, click From Existing Library.
    • If you want to add a new template to the image library, click Upload New Template.
11. Verify that the Issuer Information is correct.
12. Ensure that the Associate this award to the <current course> on creation check box is correctly set.
13. Click Save.

When you create an award, you can choose to share it with other courses you teach. By default, new awards are available to all your courses, but you can also share with other award creators in your home org unit, or all org units.

1. Click Edit or Create.
2. If you are creating a new award, complete the creation fields.
3. Under Availability, do one of the following:
   • Select Make this award available to all of my courses if you only want to share within your own courses.
   • Select Make this award available to other award creators and their courses if you want to share the award with others. You can further restrict the award to the course in which it is created and its child org units.
4. Save the award.

Note: Awards can also be copied between courses using Import/Export/Copy Components on the Course Admin page. When copying awards using Import/Export/Copy Components, all associated release conditions are also copied.

In some cases, you might want to hide an award from a learner until they have earned it. Hiding awards means that the award does not appear on the Available Awards page. After the learner earns the award, it appears in the Available Awards and My Awards page.

1. Within the course, on the navbar, click Awards.
2. On the award, click Edit Properties.
3. Select the Award hidden until earned check box.

The following video provides step by step instructions for how to add release conditions to an award:

You can add release conditions to an award and release other content or another award to learners when they achieve the award requirement that you define.

1. Within the course, on the navbar, click Awards.
2. On the award, click Edit Properties.
3. Click Create.
4. From the Condition Type drop-down list, select the release condition.
5. Complete the associated Condition Details.
6. Click Create.

Click Save.

To copy awards from another course that include all release conditions originally set to release the award, you must use Import/Export/Copy Components. Sharing awards, or adding existing awards through the Awards tool does not include associated release conditions

1. In the course offering that you want to copy the award to, navigate to the Course Admin page, and click Import/Export/Copy Components.

2. Select Copy Components from another Org Unit.

3. Click Search for offering.

4. Locate and select the course containing the award you want to copy.

5. Click Add Selected > Select Components.

6. Select Awards, then do one of the following:

   • To include all items, select Copy all items, then click Continue.

   • To include only some items, select Select individual items to copy, then click Continue. On the Select Items to Copy page, select the items you want to copy. Click Continue.

7. Click Continue.

8. Click Finish.

You can view the awards that you've granted for all students in the classlist for a course.

1. From within a course, on the navbar, click Awards.
2. Click Classlist Awards.
3. To filter the awards that appear in the list, click All, Badges, or Certificates.
4. Select the sort order.
5. Review the Classlist and associated Course Awards.

The following video provides step by step instructions for how to manually grant an award:

For scenarios such as when a learner is successful at a practical test, you can manually grant awards.

1. From within a course, on the navbar, click Awards.
2. Click Classlist Awards.
3. Select one or more learners in the Classlist.
4. Click Award.
5. From the drop-down list, select an award.
6. In the Award Criteria field, enter a reason for granting the award.
7. Click Award.

The following video provides step by step instructions for how to revoke an award:

In some cases, you may want to revoke a previously granted award. You can use the Search classlist function to search for a specific learner.

1. From within a course, on the navbar, click Awards.
2. Click Classlist Awards.
3. Select one or more learners in the Classlist.
4. Click Revoke.
5. From the drop-down list, select an award.
6. In the Revoke Reason field, enter a reason for revoking the award.
7. Click Revoke.

Note: Awards must first be enabled in the course. 
To enable awards in the course:

1. On the navbar, click Course Admin. 
2. Scroll down and under Administration, click on Tools. 
3. Find and enable the Awards feature by toggling the button to the right to a blue checkmark. The Awards feature can now be accessed under the Assessments dropdown on the navbar. 
    

The following video provides step by step instructions for how to create a badge:

The following video provides step by step instructions for how to create a certificate:

If the default templates provided with Awards do not meet your needs, you can create your own certificate templates from which administrators or instructors can create certificates for their courses.

Note: To prevent plagiarism and protect an organization's intellectual and branding copyrights, all earned certificates downloaded from the Awards tool are password-protected from editing. Each certificate is generated with a random password that is not displayed to users, preventing anyone from editing the certificate in Adobe® Acrobat® or Adobe Reader®. This makes it unnecessary to manually add password-protection to uploaded certificates.

1. Using an application, such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Adobe Acrobat Professional, create a form.
2. Add images, branding, and static text to complete your default design.
3. Save the form as a PDF document.
4. Open the PDF file (in Adobe Acrobat for example) and create a new PDF form based on the PDF you opened.
5. Add text boxes to the PDF to include the content that you want on your completed Certificate.
6. Map the text boxes and their corresponding tooltip boxes to the txtBox Name using supported text strings. Text strings are automatically replaced with user, course, and award values when you generate the certificate. Supported text strings include:

• {CourseStartDate}
• {CourseEndDate}
• {CourseName}
• {UserFirstName}
• {UserLastName}
• {UserEmail}
• {UserName}
• {FullName}
• {OrgDefinedID}
• {OrgUnitCode}
• {AwardDate}
• {AwardExpiryDate}
• {AwardName}
• {AwardDescription}
• {AwardEvidence}
• {IssuerName}
• {IssuerContact}
• {AwardCreditValue}
   

7. Ensure that each text box is large enough for any replacement text (such as the hyphenated last name of a learner, or a multi-sentence description of an award).
8. Enable Word Wrap so that the text is not cut off, and the text that you want for each text box appears as expected.
9. In onQ, access the course, in which you want to create certificate templates.
10. Navigate to the Awards tool and click Certificate Templates.
11. Click Upload New Template.
12. Browse to the location of the PDF form that you created.
13. Create a certificate and then associate the new template you created with the certificate.
14. Publish a few test certificates to confirm that the layout appears as expected.

1. To create a certificate with editable form fields which include replace strings, you will require PDF editing software such as Adobe Pro
2. The Certificate can begin as a word document or PowerPoint which you save as a PDF
   • If you need to add blank spaces prepared as a field for a name or date to appear then proceed to step 3
   • If your certificate has blank spaces prepared as a field for a name or date to appear then proceed to step 4
   • Open your document in Adobe Pro and select the "Add a Text field" icon in the editing ribbon, and move the text field where you would like it to be positioned on the certificate. 

1. In Adobe Pro, open your certificate template  (if you have not already done so) that you started in word or Power Point and saved as  PD.

Select “Tools"

1. Under the heading "Forms and Signature" select “Prepare Forms.”  Your Form Field(s) will be highlighted on the page. 

1. Right click on the field and select "Properties"

1. Enter the replace string you’d like to use to the “Name” and “Tooltip” field. You can only use one replace string per form field. You can also edit the appearance of the text by clicking on the “Appearance” tab. When you create the text of your certificate you’ll want to make sure that any text that is not a replace string is created outside of the form field. For example, if you want your certificate to say Congratulations Jillian Student, “Congratulations” will be entered as text outside of the form field, and {FullName} will appear in the form field.

* Please note: a full list of replace strings that can be used with the Awards Tool appears follows these instructions in this article.
 

1.  If you’re creating a form field that could be filled by a long value, for example full name- make sure the field will be large enough to contain all of the text. There are two options to do this:

a) Recommended for Certificates that will only be viewed online

Select the options tab and click “Multi-Line.” This option will allow for scrolling to see more information inside of a form field. Note: This option does not print as well as option b


7 b) Recommended for Certificates that are intended to be printed.

Select the Appearance Tab. In the Text section, choose the Font Size drop down menu and select "Auto." This automatically resizes the font to ensure it fits inside of the form field you've created. 



8) Save your file, again as PDF.

11)  Go to your course and select > Course Awards > Add Award to Course

Select the Create button

and select Certificate as the Award Type   

12) Fill in the required forms and upload your PDF Certificate by selecting “Upload New Template”

13) To test out your certificate and see how it appears for a student, consider creating a test student in your course and logging in as that student. Complete the required release condition as that student. A certificate can be saved or printed by navigating to the certificate under "Awards" on the navigation bar. Select the link name of the certificate that you would like to access, and then select the "Generate Certificate" link. 

Awards Tool Replace Strings

{CourseStartDate}
{CourseEndDate}
{CourseName}
{UserFirstName}
{UserLastName}
{UserEmail}
{UserName}
{OrgDefinedID}
{OrgUnitCode}
{AwardDate}
{AwardExpiryDate}
{AwardName}
{AwardDescription}
{AwardEvidence}
{IssuerName}
{IssuerContact}
{AwardCreditValue}
{FullName}