Welcome to the Kineo LMS Glossary
Cut through the jargon and find all the answers you need with our handy glossary tool.
Simply use our floating menu to navigate each entry and discover why Kineo is a Totara Platinum Partner with a proud history of creating award-winning LMS platform implementations.
A: Assessment - Authentication
360 Assessment
Definition: A process for helping individual understand their performance, skills and competencies through feedback from subordinates, supervisors and peers.
To help individuals improve in the key areas of their job, it’s important to gather feedback from a range of stakeholders to gain a holistic view as to how an individual is performing, and that’s where Totara Learn comes in.In Totara Learn, you can create detailed 360 feedback forms that can easily be structured using a range of question types. 360 feedback forms can be shared both with users in the system and individuals who do not have an account on your system to ensure a rich set of data is gathered about an individual.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a 360° Feedback Form
Accessibility
Definition: The practices employed to make an application as usable by as many people as possible including those with disabilities.
Totara Learning is committed to developing products that meet web accessible guidelines and reporting this compliance openly. We continuously evaluate our product against guidelines and make necessary improvements during the development and design process.
Supporting resources: Totara Resource - Additional Info on Accessibility in Totara
Active Learner
Definition: This is a numerical value many LMS providers to determine the subscription or licensing tier a client pays.
Kineo defines an active users as the number of unique log-ins in a contract year.
Adaptive Learning
Definition: These are learning experiences that leverage technology to modify learning content according to a learner’s needs to create a personalized learning
How Totora Addresses: Courses within Totara Learn can be configured to deliver prescribed and controlled learner access to content, as well as fully adaptive paths –with different activities and resources
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a New Lesson
AICC
Definition: A predecessor to SCORM, AICC was the first official eLearning content standard to define protocols for digital content to send information to an LMS.
Totara is AICC compliant.
API
Definition: API stands for Application Programming Interface are a set of routines, protocols and tools to support the exchange of data between applications.
Totara supports a token-based Web Services API, configurable by site administrators.
Supporting resources: Additional Info in Totara Help on Web Services
Assessment Tools
Definition: These are the tools in an LMS instructional designers use to determine a user’s knowledge, understanding and ability to apply material.
The quiz activity in Totara Learn allows you to design and build quizzes for many types of assessment; from quick knowledge or confidence checks through to rigorous end-of-course assessments. Quizzes help you measure an individual’s ability and understand whether learning has taken place in your course.
Supporting resources: Video - Setting Up a New Quiz
Assignment
Definition: A task or piece of work assigned to someone as part of a job or course of study.
The Assignment Activity is used to support third party assessment or collaboration with work product by having a learner submit a written response, or upload files and having others provide feedback.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating an Assignment Activity
Audience
Definition: A subset of users identified by demographic, course completion, assessment or other system data.
The Audience functionality in Totara Learn allows administrators to create groups of users via individual selection or by dynamic creation and update, based on users matching certain criteria such as profile
Supporting resources: PDF - Audience Management, Video - Audiences in a Nutshell
Authentication
Definition: The processor method by which a user logs in to the LMS.
Totara has several built-in authentication plugins and APIs which can support a range of user types with different login requirements including self-registration, Single Sign On and shared authentication. Totara Learn can also be customized to your specific login and access requirements.
Supporting resources: Additional information.
B: Badge - Blog
Badge
Definition: A digital emblem awarded to signify an achievement.
Within Totara Learn, there are two types of badges:
Site badges: Available to all users within a site and awarded for activities or criteria at the system level -such as completing a program or adding information to a user profile field.
Course badges: Available to users enrolled in a course and awarded for activities, behaviors or actions within course -such as completing an activity or the course.
Supporting resources: Video - Adding a site badge
Blended Learning
Definition: A combination or “blend” of learning experiences used to deliver against different objectives or purpose of a learning solution like skills building, assessment, collaboration, observation, coaching, etc...
Totara is extremely well-suited to support blended learning solutions with
Supporting resources: Video - Adding an activity
Block
Definition: Blocks are a plug-& play approach to allow administrators to easily add content or functionality to a page in an LMS.
Totara uses blocks to add easily add functionality or content like a graphic report to a page. Blocks are also use by third parties tocreate a seamless integration with Totara.
Supporting resources: A list of blocks
Blog
Definition: A regularly updated website or web page, covering the latest findings and thinking around a given topic
There is a built-in blogging function for Totara Learn or you can enable external blogs so that users can connect to existing blogs they might have outside of Totara. Coupled with a discussion, this is a great way to keep content fresh and engaging.
C: CDN - Custom Reports
CDN
Definition: Also known as a Content Delivery Network, a CDN is a global network of proxy servers deployed in multiple data centers to enable the high availability and high performance of learner content.
In online content delivery, user experience is everything. Totara, set up with CDN, lets you reduce load times, save bandwidth, and speed responsiveness.
Certification
Definition: A certification is a credential that you earn to show that you have specific skills or knowledge. They are typically earned by completing specific courses, demonstrating skills or passing a quiz.
Certifications are organized around adaptive learning paths, where completion dependencies can be defined and the order and flow of the courses learners complete can be controlled. Certifications are only valid for a certain period of time, after which the system will prompt the learner to re-certify. A certification includes completion dates and time frames for enrolled learners to complete each stage of the certification.
Supporting resources: Video - Certifications Overview
CEU
Definition: Also known as Continual Education Unit, a CEU is a measure used to capture the completion an accredited program toward requirements to maintain a professional license.
CEU metadata can be added to a course and reported against Integrations with external systems for reporting is also an option.
Coaching
Definition: A development or training technique that involves a professional coach, manager or other experienced individual working with an employee to develop skills by understanding their goals on an individual level and providing feedback and direction.
Kineo’s version of Totara has a coach planner tool to schedule face-to-face coaching with a mentor.
CMi5
Definition: This is a specificationfor optimizingtheuse of xAPI. It’s essentially a set of rules for xAPI which narrows the overly wide specification to increase adoption in the industry.
It is possible to add plugins to Totara so that you can use any xAPI / Tin Can compliant content you have in a course. This content could be available via an URL or as a package in a zip file, it can then be both integrated into the course and have any actions taken in the activity recorded in an external Learning Record Store (LRS).
Supporting resources: xapi.com
Collaboration Tools
Definition: Software tools that allow learners to work together to solve a problem or work on a predefined task. Examples include discussion forums, and wikis.
Totara includes a robust set of tools to support collaboration including: Forums, Chat, Wiki, Assignments, Database and more.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a Forum, Video - Adding a Chat video, Video - Creating a Wiki video, Social and Collaborative Learning overview
Competency
Definition: Knowledge, skills, behaviors or attributes required to perform a job. These are typically grouped together around a job role to create a competency framework.
In Totara Perform, competencies can be created or imported. Achievement paths including learning plans, ratings, and criteria-based bathscan be associated to a competency. Users and Managers can track progress against competencies with the Competency Profile.
Supporting resources: Social and Collaborative Learning overview , Video - Creating competencies, Video - Assigning Competencies, Competency Profile
Completion Criteria
Definition: The conditions that must be met to earn a Complete status for a course.
Completion is set at multiple levels in Totara. First is at the Activity level. Depending on the Activity, completion can be set against a score threshold on a quiz, uploading a document or simply launching the resource. Course completion is then set against completing one or more Activity.
Supporting resources: Video - Completion Overview
Content Library or Marketplace
Definition: A content marketplace is an integration an LMS provides to facilitate access to a range of free and paid-for learning content from trusted partners.
Totara Content Marketplace is a plug-in thatsupports a turnkey integration so SCORM-based content can be quickly imported into your Totara Learn site to extend your existing catalogue, or to supplement your current courses, programs and certification. You can use the GO1 marketplace included in Totara Learn or Kineo can work with other content providers to implement their own content marketplace plugins.
Course Catalog
Definition: A list of courses available for enrollment to a given user on the LMS.
The Totara course catalog is a powerful tool to present learning options to your users. Courses are made available by Audience and laid out in a compelling visual style. Users can easily browse through “Amazon-style” tags & filters. Powerful Search functionality delivers on-point results.
Supporting resources: Video - Course Catalog Overview
Course Page
Definition: An organizing tool to create a path of learning, typically made up of one or learning activities or resources.
A course in Totara is an area where resources and activities are aggregated and organized around a learning outcome. It might be a simple page with downloadable documents, or it might be a complex set of tasks where learning progresses through interaction.
Supporting resources: Video - Course Formats, Video - Adding Activities to a Course
CRM
Definition: CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, software is used to track and store information about the organizations and people with whom a company works. Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics are the most common CRM platforms.
Kineo works with organizations to set up the integrations with these systems to import and export data.
Curated Content
Definition: The process of aggregating and filtering content based on a set of criteria like topic, source and consumption data.
Totara Learn has a plug-in available for Anders Pink a content curation tools for accessing web-based content. New capabilities are comingsoon in Totara Engage.
Supporting resources: Video - How to make a briefing by Anders Pink
Custom Reports
Definition: Most LMS come with a standard set of reports with different levels of flexibility to filter and display the data. A custom report is one that can’t be created with he existing reporting tools and requires a development to create a new report.
Totara Learn includes a Report Builder, allowing permitted users to create reports against a wide range of metrics across the system and greatly reducing the need for customer reports. Reports have configurable content (columns), search and filter options and numerical and date-based reports can be displayed as graphs.Reports can be shared with users with specified access rights and content filtered by management, audience, organizational and positional hierarchies. Reports can also be scheduled to runon a specific schedule and automatically sent to nominated individuals.
Supporting resources: Video - Customizing Embedded Reports, Video - Graphical Reports
D: Dashboard - Discussion
Dashboard
Definition: A page in a website or learning platform to give access to different elements of the site's functionalityto provide a more focused, personalized view of the system.
How Totora Addresses: In Totara, Dashboards allow specific content through blocks to be displayed on selected user's Homepage. Dashboards are able to be assigned to audiences and users can select and customize their assigned dashboards if allowed.
Supporting resources: Video - Setting up Dashboards
Data Source
Definition: A data source is used to describe the repository of data captured, stored and organized by your LMS in a database. One or more data sources are used to create a report.
Totara’s robust 'Report Builder' functionality provides access to many of the data sources within Totara. For additional access to data, Kineo can work with you to provide access to additional data sources or to export a copy of all data to your enterprise data analytics or business intelligence tool.
Data Source
Definition: A data source is used to describe the repository of data captured, stored and organized by your LMS in a database. One or more data sources are used to create a report.
Totara’s robust Report Builder functionality provides access to many of the data sources within Totara. For additional access to data, Kineo can work with you to provide access to additional data sources or to export a copy of all data to your enterprise data analytics or business intelligence tool.
Data Visualization
Definition: The graphic representation of data that uses images to communicate relationships among the represented data to learners.
Totara’s Report Builder includes the ability to graphically display data. A range of graphical display options are available when generating numerical based data such as number of completions, course completions etc. The graphs are displayed above the standard report display but can also be added to the Homepage or a Dashboard within a dedicated block
Supporting resources: Video - Creating Graphs
Diagnostic Assessment
Definition: A test or other evaluation used to quantify knowledge or skills before a course of learning is determined.
Kineo’s version of Totara includes both the standard Quiz activity and a Skills Assessment activity. An adaptive learning path can be configured around the outcome of a quiz.
Supporting resources: Video - Totara & Skills Assessment, Overview PDF - Totara & Skills Assessment, Video - Quiz Activity
Digital Credential
Definition: A digital credential is a visual representation of an achieving something typically by some combination of completing courses, demonstrating skill or knowledge and in-the-field activities.
Digital badges are a standard feature in Totara. These badges can be distributed through external channels like LinkedIn or Twitter through Kineo’s partnership with Credly. Credly is brought to market in the UK exclusively through City & Guilds Kineo under the Digital Me Credly brand.
Supporting resources: Video - Adding a site badge, Video - Introducing Digital Me Credly , Video - What are Digital Credentials?
Discussion Forum
Definition: A web page where learners can post comments or share documents about a topic and knowledge share by replying to postings from others.
Forums can be added to a course or at the site level. There are multiple types to Forums and permissions can be set to manage participation.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a Forum
E: eCommerce - Evidence
eCommerce
Definition: Sales transactions taking place online.
When selling eLearning content, it’s important to have an LMS that provides eCommerce support, such as sales tracking, payment gateways, and an online marketplace to promote products.
Encryption
Definition: The method for protecting a message, file or data by using an algorithm to encrypt itso that it can only be read by other people or systems with the key to unscramble it.
Kineo can set up your Totara site so that data is encrypted both in-transit and at-rest.
Enrollment Method
Definition: The various ways in which learners can be registered for learning. This can include self enrollment, manual enrollment, and guest access among others.
There are a large number of course enrolment methods available with Totara Learn. These include: Manual, Guest Access, Self-Enrollment, Audience Sync, Program, Category Enrollment, External Database, Flat File, IMS Enterprise, LDAP, LTI, Course Meta Link, PayPal, Seminar Direct Enrollment, Learning Plan, eCommerce
Supporting resources: Video - Enrolling Users in a Course
e-Signature
Definition: A digital record that confirms an individual’s intent to agree to or approve the contents of a document or statement.
Totara provides a secure environment and can capture auditable evidence of both user activity and attestations.
Supporting resources: Totara Learn - Electronic signatures and compliance
Event Management
Definition: The activities associated with organizing, enrolling and tracking participation in live events.
Totara’s Seminar activity supports many aspects of event management. In some cases, it may be a better solution to integrate with a dedicated event management platform. Kineo can support that integration.
Evidence
Definition: In the context of learning, evidence refers to capturing on-the-job activities or external education experiences that need to be documented in an LMS as part of a learning path or certification.
Users can add evidence of external learning and development, and optionally link this evidence to the completion to courses or proficiency in competencies within their learning plan.Additionally, the Skills Assessment activity supports the create of workflows or individual to upload evidence of their work or for a manager or trainer to document an observation or evaluation.
Supporting resources: Video - Uploading Evidence
F: Face to Face - Forum
Face-to-Face
Definition: This is one of several terms used to describe functionality in an LMS to support the scheduling, enrollment, management and tracking of live training.
Totara Learn supports a blended learning delivery model and the in-built Seminar activity offers a scheduling, booking, attendance and resource management system for face-to-face and seminar events.The Seminar activity also offers a comprehensive messaging and external calendaring system for learners and managers and is fully integrated with the certificate and badge issuing system.Seminars also supports optional attendance approval workflows, multiple sign-ups, wait-listing, manager reservations, printable sign-in sheets and a range of customisable forms.
Supporting information: Video - Creating a Seminar
Feedback
Definition: This is data collected typically collected at the end of a course to gauge a learner’s satisfaction and criticism of the course.
The Totara Feedback activity provides administrators and course managers with the ability to create custom surveys or evaluations with a range of question types including multi-choice, single choice, short and long answer and conditional questions. Automated reminders can be configured for evaluations following course completion.Feedback forms can be saved as templates and reused across courses and set as anonymous or named.Overview and detailed analysis is available for Feedback activities and can be exported to csv, xls or ods for further analysis.Kineo has developed additional functionality to report Feedback across multiple courses in Report Builder.
Federated Search
Definition: Information retrieval technology that allows the simultaneous search of multiple sources. A user can make a single query that gets distributed to the various search engines, databases or other engines specified.
Kineo has implemented federated search for several clients.
Formative Assessment
Definition: These are assessments used to in the flow of learning to measure comprehension, learning needs and progress. The responses are used to adjust or adapt instruction versus as a formal evaluation.
The Quiz activity is well suited to be used as a formative assessment. Subsequent Activities can then be made available or not based on the grade of the quiz to create a dynamic, needs-based learning path.
Supporting information: Video - Office Hours covering Restrict Access
Forums
Definition: A web page where learners can post comments or share documents about a topic and knowledge share by replying to postings from others.
Forums can be added to a course or at the site level. There are multiple types to Forums and permissions can be set to manage participation.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a forum
G: Gamification
Gamification
Definition: Applying gaming mechanics to learning to make them more engaging and entertaining for the learner.
Totara supports gamification with grading, badges and certificates. This is enhanced on Kineo’s version of Totara with the Level Up plug-in that introduces points and leaderboards.
Supporting resources: Video - Totara & Gamification, Overview PDF - Totara & Gamification
H: H5P - HRIS
H5P
Definition: A free and open-source content tool to create interactive HTML5 content and applications.
Kineo’s Totara Solution includes a plug-in to display H5P objects in Totara Courses, Homepage or Dashboards.
Supporting resources: H5P Examples
Homepage
Definition: Typically the first page or landing page on a website or platform that is intended to capture your attention and provide intuitive navigation to quickly find what you need.
Totara uses a block architecture to empower organizations to create a compelling Homepage to meet the needs of its users. There are over 60 different functional blocks available that can be laid out in the grid structure on the page. Totara also has the option to create Dashboards, to either replace or in addition to the Homepage. Dashboards are configured like a Homepage with the additional benefit of making them visible to specific audiences.
Supporting resources: Video - Getting up Homepage
HRIS
Definition: System that supports human resources and information technology. It stores HR activities, records and processes and can be integrated with your LMS to facilitate user creation, maintenance, and learning record storage.
Totara Learn features a dedicated HR import feature, allowing configuration based integration with most HR systems via a csv based file upload or database export. A range of information can be added, deleted and edited within Totara Learn via HR import including job assignments, organisation and positional hierarchy information, competency frameworks, and user/manager information. This information can be imported into Totara Learn from different sources, updated at different times and have success or failure notifications sent to different email addresses.
I: iCal - Item Analysis
iCal
Definition: A globally adopted format for sharing meeting requests and can integrate with an LMS to send ILT invitations.
When users book on an offline/face-to-face event via the Seminar activity, they can opt to receive an iCal invite -a format compatible with most external email/calendering systems such as Google mail, Outlook etc.The Calendaring system within Totara Learn can also be exported to your preferred calendar which includes site wide, course, group and user events.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a 360° Feedback Form
Instructional Design
Definition: Applying cognitive, psychology and instructional theory to create learning content tailored to specific learning objectives.
Totara empowers instructional designers to create highly effective learning solutions with the features to create blended solutions that include asynchronous learning, social learning, support for on-the-job learning and more.
Supporting resources: Video - Adding an Activity
Instructor Led Training
Definition: This is one of several terms used to describe functionality in an LMS to support the scheduling, enrollment, management and tracking of live training.
Totara Learn supports a blended learning delivery model and the in-built Seminar activity offers a scheduling, booking, attendance and resource management system for face-to-face and seminar events.The Seminar activity also offers a comprehensive messaging and external calendaring system for learners and managers and is fully integrated with the certificate and badge issuing system.Seminars also supports optional attendance approval workflows, multiple sign-ups, wait-listing, manager reservations, printable sign-in sheets and a range of customizable forms.
Item Analysis
Definition:The act of analyzing learner responses to individual exam questions to identify patterns both about learner knowledge and skills and evaluating exam quality.
Totara supports provides access to detailed reporting about how learners interact with a course, including how learners responded to specific questions. .
Supporting resources: Video - Accessing Course and Activity Reports
L: Learning Path - LTI
Learning Path
Definition: Learning Path is one of several terms used to describe the ability to create a structured course of learning that is role or skill-oriented. Learning programs that guide learners through a series of courses.
In Totara, there are several ways to structure learning. This includes: Courses, Learning Plans, Programs and Certifications. Each will give an Admin the ability to organize, schedule and control access to different elements that make up the experience.
Supporting resources: Vimeo - Course Formats, Video - Creating Learning Plans , Video - Programs & Certifications
Learning Plan
Definition: A tool to assist employees in career and personal development. Its primary purpose is to help employees reach short and long-term career goals, as well as improve current job performance.
In Totara Learn not only will users be able to understand exactly what is expected of them by accessing all of their relevant competencies, training and objectives in the same place, but they’ll also be able to take control of their own professional development through personalized learning plans.Learning Plans support the ability to:
- Create and edit a variety of different user-driven learning plans.
- Link courses, competencies, objectives and programs to learning plans.
- Add evidence to a learning plan.
- Allow users to personalize their learning by setting up learner-driven templates.
Totara Perform, which will be available in October 2020, will introduce additional functionality to organize and track learning against competencies.
Learning Record Store (LRS)
Definition: A database and associated reporting and analytics tool that that is designed to work with the xAPI standard to collect, store and retrieve statements that track learning activity. The data collected can be presented in a way that’s accessible and easy to interpret.
Totara is xAPI-ready. Kineo’s solution includes an xAPI plug-in, so that xAPI content will initiate a session with an LRS to allow for data to travel back and forth based xAPI statements.
Logs
Definition: They are records of events that happen in your LMS application, either by a person or by a running process. They help you track what happened and troubleshoot problems.
In Totara, detailed daily and hourly logs are recorded by the system at both the site level and the course level. These logs can be filtered across a variety of variables (course, user type, activities, actions, event type) or exported for further processing.
Supporting resources: Video - Accessing Course and Activity Reports
LTI
Definition: This is a standard created to connect different learning platforms. The result is the ability to launch and track learning on another platform in a turnkey manner. Popular MOOC platforms like EdXadhere to LTI allowing you to easily embed elements of an EdX course in a case in your LMS
M: Metadata - Multi-Tenancy
Metadata
Definition: In an LMS these are the fields used to describe an asset or user in the LMS. These fields or data points are used to create subsets of users and to associated learning with users.
Totara User Profiles and Course Fields allow the creation of as many custom fields as you required. These fields can be used in partnership with other features like Audiences, Course Catalog and Restrict Access to create personalized learning experiences.
Supporting resources: Video- Adding Users, Video - Audiences in a Nutshell, Video- Course Catalog, Video - Office Hours covering Restrict Access.
Micro-Learning
Definition: The method of delivering training content in bite-sized, focused bursts with each learning unit focusing on an individual objective
Programs in Totara can be used to schedule a spaced learning program made up of a series of micro-learning modules with messages to prompt learners to engage.
Mobile Learning
Definition: Learning that’s conducted on a mobile device and sometimes takes advantage of mobile phone features like GPS.
Totara is a fully responsive application meaning the application will render to optimize the user experience based on screen size, platform and orientation. Totara also has a native app. The native Totara Mobile app provides your learners quick and simple access to a personalized learning portal, so they can connect with their learning and development whenever, wherever they like.
MOOC
Definition: MOOC stands for massive online open course. While these courses can follow many formats, they typically weave together asynchronous learning like elearning, videos or reading assignments with social learning experiences like discussion forums, chat, and virtual classroom.
Totara is well-suited as a platform for MOOCs. It supports a wealth of asynchronous and social learning tools to create a well designed social learning experience.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a Forum, Video - Adding a Chat, Video - Creating a Wiki, Social and Collaborative Learning overview
Multi-Language Support
Definition: The ability and availability for a platform to support learning in more than one language.
Totara Learn is currently available in 35 languages, primarily maintained between versions by native speakers from the Partner network. New languages are added periodically as customers launch in new markets. It is also possible for administrators to customize certain words or phrases to align the system with any organization specific terms.
Supporting resources: Video - Installing Language Packs
Multi-Modal Learning
Definition:The effective use of multiple delivery methods in training. Technology enables this through mobileapps, e-learning platforms, job aids, simulations and others. It can help ensure retention and application by reinforcing content over a long time period
The full list of Activities in Totara includes: Assignment, Certificates, Chat, Choice, Database, External Tool, Feedback, Forum, Glossary, Lesson, Quiz, SCORM, Survey, Wiki, Workshop, books, Course Files, Folders, IMS Content Package, Labels, Pages, URL. In addition, Kineo has developed a number of Activities for our Kineo clients only includes Skills Assessment, xAPI Launch and others on our near-term roadmap.
Supporting resources: Video - Adding an Activity
Multi-Tenancy
Definition: Refers to a software architecture to separate functionality in a single instance of the software.
Kineo’s version of Totara offers an optional add-on to give subscribers the ability to create multiple tenants on their Totara LMS. This includes separation of course and user administration, course catalogs, home pages and more.
O: Offline - Organization
Offline Learning
Definition:The ability to participate in learning activities while not connected to the internet then have data about that activity passed to the LMS when a connection is established.
Currently, Kineo offers the Moodle mobile app as an optional add-on to Totara. In Totara v13, scheduled for release in October 2020, a mobile app will be part of the standard application package.
Onboarding
Definition: The process of integrating a new employee, partner, or customer into an organization and familiarizing them with products and services.
Totara is well-suited to support onboarding programs for an organization. Kineo’s version of Totara includes Skills Assessment which support field-based observation and checklists and Coaching Planner, a tool to schedule face-to-face coaching with a mentor or coach.
Supporting resources: Video - Totara & Skills Assessment, Overview PDF - Totara & Skills Assessment
On-the-Job (OTJ)
Definition: Training that takes place in the flow of a job usually with the support of a coach or mentor
Kineo’s version of Totara includes Skills Assessment which support field-based observation and checklists and Coaching Planner, a tool to schedule face-to-face coaching with a mentor or coach.
Supporting resources: Video - Totara & Skills Assessment, Overview PDF - Totara & Skills Assessment
Open Source
Definition: Software where the source code is available,and organizations are able to extend the functionality if needed to meet their requirements.
As an open source solution, Totara gives you the freedom to create the solution that is right for your organization.
Organization Hierarchy
Definition: This describes the data structure of reporting relationships in an organization. It can be helpful in an LMS for reporting and managing other’s learning.
Within Totara Learn you can include data on reporting relationships within a user profile. This data can then be used to give managers visibility and the ability to assign learning for individuals below them in the organization structure, to assign learning, to manage learning visibility and to manage reporting. This data can be imported via Totara’s HR import feature or manually entered.
Supporting resources: Video - Setting Up Hierarchies, One Pager - Hierarchies by Totara
P: Performance - Program
Performance Management
Definition: This is the set of tools for managing employee performance, including creating competency frameworks, establishing and tracking goals, providing reviews and more.
Totara Learn’s Performance Management tools offer custom-built, multi-stage, multi-page Appraisals with a variety of question types and the ability to pull information from a learner’s Goals and Learning Plan to assess development and progress.Permissions, questions and workflows can be created for Users, Managers, Manager's Managers and Appraisers within Appraisals, alongside personalized, customisable and pre-scheduled notifications. Totara v13, scheduled for release in October 2020, will include Totara Perform, a stand-alone module that will extend Totara’s performance management capabilities.
Supporting resources: Video - Introducing Appraisals
Personalisation
Definition: The process of tailoring a learning pathway or plan to accommodate specific individuals or groups of individuals.
Totara Learn enables organizations to create personalized learning experiences with powerful features like Dashboards,Hierarchies and Audiences.
Supporting resources: Feature Sheet, Video - Setting Up Dashboards, Video - Setting Up Hierarchies, One Pager - Hierarchies by Totara, Video - Audiences in a Nutshell
Position Hierarchy
Definition: This describes the data structure of roles in an organization. It can be helpful in an LMS for reporting and managing other’s learning.
Within Totara Learn you can include data on positions as part of a user profile. This data can be used to assign learning, to make learning visible and to manage reporting. This data can be imported via Totara’s HR import feature or manually entered.
Supporting resources: Video - Setting Up Hierarchies, One Pager - Hierarchies by Totara
Q: Question Bank
Question Bank
Definition: Organized into categories. Question banks typically have one of two purposes.
- To reuse questions across multiple quizzes or exams.
- To generate different yet equivalent versions of a quiz or exam by randomly drawing from a question from a category versus including specific questions.
All quiz questions are stored within a Question Bank. Question banks can be created within the course, category or site context, allowing sharing and re-use of questions across courses. Quizzes can be generated from a specific number of randomly selected questions from a Question Bank.
Supporting resources: Video - Question Banks
R: Resources - Responsive Web
Resources
Definition: Reference materials added to courses in an LMS, such as PDFs, PPTs, or Links to support formal learning activities like elearning or instructor-led sessions.
Totara Learn offers drag-and-drop functionality to upload file resources such as documents, slides, images, audio and video directly to a course. The dedicated file management tool can be used to upload, delete and move files within courses and across the site.
Supporting resources: Video - adding files, labels & resources
Rating or Course Rating
Definition: An evaluation or assessment of a learning program by users to share their satisfaction with the course with others.
The Course Rating block allows users to rate the course they have just completed on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). Before the user rates the course the average of all user's ratings is displayed.An optional configuration is available to force users to do this step after completing a course by making it part of the course completion criteria. This add-on also includes a Report Builder source that lets managers and admins view all courses and their average ratings.
Recommended Content
Definition: A stream or list of available content that the system curates based on factors like enrolled courses, completed courses, liked courses and content with which other users with similar profiles have engaged.
Kineo’s edition of Totara includes a Recommended Course Block. This block offers three different recommendation services: popular activities on this course; popular courses on this site; shared bookmarks. Each can be enabled and configured separately.Each service displays the top 3 links in the block and a "more" link to an additional page with further recommendations.
Report Builder
Definition: Report Builder is a report creation tool enabling you to develop simple to complex reports and dashboards based on data from a variety of data sources.
Totara Learn has an integrated report builder. Users with permission can create reports from 75 different report sources. Kineo’s edition of Totara has additional report sources. For clients with advanced reporting needs –e.g. the need to combine report sources or combine Totara data with external date –Kineo offers an optional advanced reporting tools or can set up a data export to your organization’s BI or Analytics tools.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a user-generated report
Responsive Web Pages
Definition: Web pages that adapt across all devices so that page layout changes and images scales optimize the user experience for their device.
Kineo’s edition of Totara uses a fully responsive theme to ensure optimal user experience regardless of device. Kineo also offers an integration with ADAPT Learning, an open source HTLM5 elearning authoring tool to help you create fully responsive content for your Totara site.
S: Sandbox - Survey
Sandbox
Definition: An instance of a application that is made available for users to experiment and explore a system.
A standard part of the Kineo implementation process is to provide a site, separate from the production site, for users to explore and experiment.
Supporting resources: A version of Totara Learn without Kineo’s additional features is available.
SCORM
Definition: Shorthand for Shareable Content Object Reference Model, it defines how online learning content speaks to, and tracks results back to, an LMS.
While there are many options to create diverse and informative training solely using native activities available in Totara Learn, creating materials to ensure you meet learning objectives may involve using authoring tools that are external to the system. SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model and is a collection of specifications that allows e-learning content created by external authoring tools to be packaged in a and portable way that can seamlessly integrate with learning management systems.
Supporting resources: Video - Adding a SCORM Module
Self-Registration
Definition: A function that allows users set up their own accounts.
Totara Learn can be configured to allow self-registration. This is a powerful feature for sites that may be public or customer-facing where you don’t have information about our users. For organizations adding employees to the LMS there are a number of other methods for addition data and integrating with existing infrastructure like SSO.
Session
Definition: A session is scheduled time for delivery of learning.
Totara Learn’s powerful seminar management module gives organizations the ability to manage face-to-face or virtual classroom training. Within a seminar, you can set up multiple events or instances of the same seminar and within each seminar multiple sessions can be created for learning that takes place in more than one sitting.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a Seminar Activity
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Definition: The terms defined in a relationship for site performance and vendor responsiveness for different issues.
Kineo’s edition of Totara Learn includes and SLA of 99.9% up time and has well-defined terms for our response to different levels of performance and service issues to deliver exceptional site performance and customer experience.
Skills Assessment
Definition: Skills assessments are typically observations typically conducted by trainersor managers in the field toevaluate the skills of their employees. This helps companies ensure that their employees have the required skills to perform their jobs successfully.
Kineo’s edition of Totara Learning includes a Skills Assessment activity.The Skills Assessment activity provides a configurable form that can be used as an activity in a course. The activity can also be configured to include a workflow. Some uses of the activity include:
- Manager Assessment of an Associate/Participant’s skill –An organization wants a learner’s manager to critique the learner on a skill, process, or understanding for a topic.
- Associate/Participant Self-Assessment –An organization wants the learner to critique their own skills or understanding in a topic.
- Participant/Manager Decisions –A participant and a manager meet to check in on progress and use it to document the outcomes of the meeting.
- Live Skill Demonstration and Assessment –For example, an organization is onboarding new employees and wants each employee to demonstrate to an evaluator that they are competent on certain skills. The evaluator needs to mark that the employee is competent and has “passed” skills.
Supporting resources: Kineo Webinar - Skills Assessment plugin
Skills Gap
Definition: A deficiency in competence between an individual’s current capability and those required to do a current or aspirational job.
Totara Learn and Kineo’s addition of Totara Learn have tools like Skills Assessment and Quiz to help an organization evaluate an individual current level of knowledge or skill. In Totara Perform, coming in October 2020, individual competency maps will be available.
SOC II
Definition: An auditing procedure that ensures service providers securely manage data to protect the interests of an organization and the privacy of its clients.
How Totara Addresses: Kineo’s hosting infrastructure is SOCII Type 2 audited.
Spaced Learning
Definition: The approach of spacing repetitions of learning points over time. This can include:
- 1.Verbatim repetitions.
- 2.Paraphrased repetitions (changing the wording slightly).
- 3.Stories, examples, demonstrations, illustrations, metaphors,
- 4.and other ways of providing context and example.
- 5.Testing, practice, exercises, simulations, case studies, role plays.
- 6.and other forms of retrieval practice.
- 7.Discussions, debate, argumentation, dialogue, collaboration.
- 8.and other forms of collective learning.
How Totara Addresses: Programs in Totara Learn can be used to organize and execute a spaced learning program.
Supporting resources: Video - Programs & Certifications
Social Learning
Definition: Based on social development theory, this is the idea that collaboration and peer instruction between learners will enhance and improve learning outcomes.
Totara Learn offers a range of social learning activities including forums, chat, messaging, blogs, wikis, peer assessment, collaborative glossaries and databases and group-based learning.
Supporting resources: Video - Creating a Forum, Video - Adding a Chat, Video - Creating a Wiki, Video -Setting up a Workshop, Social and Collaborative overview
SSO (Single Sign On)
Definition: Shorthand for single sign-on, which refers to a single set of credentials that allows users to access multiple applications while only needing to log in once.
Totara has several built-in authentication plugins and APIs which can support a range of user types with different login requirements including self-registration, Single Sign On and shared authentication.Single Sign On can be implemented using a variety of methods, depending on the IdP, connection systems and protocols required and can usually be achieved with a minimum of development.As an Open Source application, Totara Learn can also be customized to your specific login and access requirements.
Survey
Definition: A list of questions aimed at extracting specific data from a particular group of people
Totara Learn has several tools to easily poll learners then analyze the data. The survey activity allows you to present a number of preset learning surveys to the learners on your course.
Supporting resources: Video - Using the Choice activity video, Video - Setting up Feedback activity
T: Talent - Tin Can
Talent Management
Definition: The set of processes involved with the planning of needs, recruitment, development and management of people in an organization.
Taken together, Totara Learn, Totara Engage (October 2020) and Totara Perform (October 2020) will form the core of the technology infrastructure organizations need to support talent management.
Tin Can
Definition: Tin Can was an early working name for what has become xAPIor the experience API. The Experience API (or xAPI) is a specification for learning technology that makes it possible to collect or call data in the context of a learning experience.From a practical point of view, xAPI provides three values:
- The ability to collect data on just about any action in a learning activity (vs SCORM which is very limited).
- The ability to launch learning outside of an LMS and capture data about the user and their experience.
- The ability to send or retrieve data from external systems
Kineo’s edition of Totara Learn includes an xAPI launcher which will initiate a session with an LRS so data can be captured. Kineo also offers an optional LRS-as-a-service to give you the ability to report and analyze xAPI data. You can also export Totara data to the LRS for more comprehensive data analysis.
U: User Generated Content
User Generated Content
Definition: Content (images, videos, text, and audio) posted by users on online platforms. User generated content is ubiquitous with modern platforms like Facebook and Instagramand can drive engagement and activity from users.
Totara Learn provides several tools to encourage user generated content including forums, wikis, databases and assignments.New capabilities are coming soon in Totara Engage.
Supporting Resources: Video - Creating a Forum, Video - Creating a Wiki, Video - Setting up a Workshop, One Pager - Totara Engage
V: Virtual Classroom
Virtual Classroom
Definition: Virtual classroom refers to the both the methodology and tools for delivering synchronous instruction online. Common tools include Zoom, WebEx and GoToMeeting.
Kineos’ edition of Totara Learn supports integrations with Zoom, and WebEx Training Center and Meeting Center.
W: Wiki
Wiki
Definition: A collaborative, online web page that allows users to quickly create, edit, or alter content. Wikis encourage co-creation of content and provide a forum for creating clarity around an idea.
Totara Learn offers a fully featured wiki tool which may be assigned individually, by group or open to all course members. Contributors can add new content, sections or pages to a wiki, with all updates tracked (and reversible).
Supporting Resources: Video - Creating a Wiki
X: xAPI
xAPI
Definition: The Experience API (or xAPI) is a specification for learning technology that makes it possible to collect or calldata in the context of a learning experience.From a practical point of view, xAPI provides three values:
- The ability to collect data on just about any action in a learning activity (vs SCORM which is very limited).
- The ability to launch learning outside of an LMS and capture data about the user and their experience.
- The ability to send or retrieve data from external systems
Kineo’s edition of Totara Learn includes an xAPI launcher which will initiate a session with an LRS so data can be captured. Kineo also offers an optional LRS-as-a-service to give you the ability to report and analyze xAPI data. You can also export Totara data to the LRS for more comprehensive data analysis.
- A: Assessment - Authentication
- B: Badge - Blog
- C: CDN - Custom Reports
- D: Dashboard - Discussion
- E: eCommerce - Evidence
- F: Face to Face - Forum
- G: Gamification
- H: H5P - HRIS
- I: iCal - Item Analysis
- L: Learning Path - LTI
- M: Metadata - Multi-Tenancy
- O: Offline - Organization
- P: Performance - Program
- Q: Question Bank
- R: Resources - Responsive Web
- S: Sandbox - Survey
- T: Talent - Tin Can
- U: User Generated Content
- V: Virtual Classroom
- W: Wiki
- X: xAPI