The Certificate (of Knowledge) is a learning activity that allows you to combine an Exam (Graded Assessment) with a Certification. It is an exam that, if passed, leads to the award of a certificate.
The users can claim the Certificate of Knowledge, but first, they must achieve a passing grade on a final assessment specifically created for this purpose, as evidence that a certain level of knowledge has been acquired to later "unlock" the certificate.
Create a Certificate of Knowledge
If you wish to create a Certificate of Knowledge:
1. Create your course and the Course Sections.
2. Go to Courses → Course manager, find your course & then go to its Course outline tab.
3. Click on Add an Activity.
4. Under the Certificates category, choose the Certificate type of learning activity.
5. Click on Save or Save & Edit if you wish to start editing right away.
Set up the Certificate of Knowledge
After you create the Certificate (of Knowledge) learning activity, hover over and click on Settings (if you have clicked on Save and Edit in the activity creation process, skip this step). On the side form that appears, you can set up the Certificate activity's details.
You can choose the Title, Description, specify what the requirements are for awarding this certificate of completion, add a unit background image or extra material as a digital download, and choose if this activity should be password protected.
Edit & Customize the Certificate of Knowledge
After you create the Certificate (of Knowledge) hover over and click on Edit Questions.
Click on the Certificate candidate details where you can:
- Preview the Certificate.
- Use the Default Certificate template.
- Enable the Custom Certificate template & Upload your custom certificate template (available in the Pro Trainer plan or higher). You can check how to create a PDF certificate in this article.
- See the available PDF keys.
Note: If you have selected a custom PDF template but haven't uploaded one, the default certificate template will be used.
You can further customize the Certificate screen by adding the available certificate fields. These are the custom fields you can include and populate some on the certificate by using the certificate PDF keys:
- First & Last Name: We recommend keeping these fields required so the Certificate will be personalized and register the user's personal details (name & last name).
- Short Text: You can ask a question so the users can place a short answer before claiming the certificate. You can choose the maximum and minimum characters of the answer.
- Dropdown: You can add a question with dropdown choices.
- Date: You can include a date-related question and let your users choose a date from the calendar.
- Consent: You can add a consent question and make the acceptance of all Consent options mandatory or Add tags to users who give particular responses.
- Content block.
You can add as many custom certificate fields as you want, and populate them on an external PDF fillable Editor by using Certificate PDF keys while creating your custom Certificate template.
You can check how to create a custom PDF certificate via external fillable PDF editors in this article (available in the Pro Trainer plan or higher).When you add a certificate PDF key (if available for a specific certificate field), e.g. cert_dropdown, cert_input, etc, you need to use the same PDF key in the PDF Editor when you create a custom PDF certificate. The key e.g cert_dropdown can be used on the certificate template and populate the information/answer the user will submit on this specific certificate field in your LearnWorlds school.
Add (Assessment) Questions
After you create the Certificate (of Knowledge) hover over it and click on Edit Certificate. On the next screen, you can add the questions of the Assessment (Exam).
If you click on Add Question you can add different types of questions:
- Multiple Choice
- Multiple Answers
- Match and Ordering
- Short Text
- Fill in the blanks
- Text Assignment
- File Assignment (available in the Pro Trainer plan or higher)
- Record Video (available in the Pro Trainer plan or higher)
- Content Blocks
You can edit further and set up each question type. Find more about how to structure your assessment questions in this article and how to configure the assessment settings here.
You can also import questions from the Question Bank, from another assessment, or from an XLS file.
For Text Assignment and File assignment types of questions, grading will be required for the Certification to be awarded. Answers will be shown and available for grading in the Reports Center and specifically via the Review Center.
How to Configure (Assessment) Settings
You can configure the settings of the Certificate's assessment as described in this article: How to Configure the Assessment Settings.
You can also allow Users to Share their Certificates on Social Media.
How to Add a Widget
Hover over the added questions and click on the +icon to add widgets to your questions (text, buttons, images, embed code, etc).
Starting & Ending Screen
You can also add and customize the Starting & Ending Screen to enrich your users' experiences before and after they submit their answers and claim their certificates.
The Starting screen is the first page that your users will see when they start the assessment. If you wish, you can remove or/and re-add it. You can modify the screen’s template by clicking on the Starting screen option. When the editing mode of the screen's template opens, you can add widgets, change the text, add questions, etc.
The Ending Screen appears once a user submits their assessment. The widget of the ending screen has three statuses: Pass, Fail, and Pending (awaiting grading). You can choose each of those three statuses and modify the respective interface. All options on the widget are configurable; you can also enable or disable them, depending on your needs.
Note: Modifications apply to all screens, the states are for preview purposes.
Manage Certificates
After a Certificate has been issued, all the details of the user and the respective course that the certificate is affiliated with appear on Courses → Certificates, where you can see and download the users' earned certificates.
You can find out more on how to manage your issued Certificates, in our respective article.
Notes:
- Since admin Certificate submissions are stateless, the Certificates generated are dummy certificates to allow admins to perform multiple submissions.
- Each user can download the earned Certificate unlimited times with their submitted personal details on it (Name, Surname, Date of completion, Score, etc) either from the course player or their profile page.
- You can also choose whether or not users will be able to share their certificates on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.