Oracle Learning Management (OLM) is designed to support all education models by providing a single unified learning delivery system to the extended enterprise of employees, customers, and partners.
Tightly integrated with the talent and performance management functions within the Human Resources application, OLM is also integrated with Oracle Financials and Order Management applications to administer the financial and commercial aspects of your learning business. The application records worker competencies, making them available for career planning as well as candidate placements, performance appraisals, and other activities.
Note: The Appraisals and Questionnaire Administration functions are part of Oracle Performance Management. The purchase of a Self-Service HR license on or after June 18th, 2007 does not permit the use of Performance Management. You must purchase a separate Performance Management license in addition to Self-Service HR license to use the Appraisals, Questionnaire Administration, and Objectives Management self-service functions.
OLM offers a wide range of functions, from catalog and online class management to learner enrollments and learning paths, enabling you to:
The catalog provides an interface for administrators to manage the setup and delivery of learning. The catalog model relies on five catalog objects:
Categories organize the catalog so that learners and administrators can find what they're looking for. A category can hold courses, learning paths, or other categories.
Courses define subject matter and instructional objectives.
Offerings define the delivery mode and language of a course. An offering might be an online course given in French, or an instructor-led course taught in Danish.
Classes are enrollable instances of offerings. For example, an instructor-led offering might need delivery online, or in several different places at different times. A learner would enroll in a class held at a specific time and place. You can also hold live online classes using OLM's integration with Oracle Web Conferencing.
Sessions are subdivisions of classes. To help you create a detailed agenda for a class, you can break it down into shorter sessions, specifying the location and schedule of each session.
From the catalog, you can also create and maintain other objects that are not a part of the nested hierarchy such as forums, chats, web conferences, learning paths, and learning certifications. Administrators use the catalog to grant learners access, book resources, and assign competencies to learning. Learners and managers can also view a version of the catalog to enroll in learning.
Learning paths help to monitor performance and develop the careers of your workforce. Learning paths group courses into meaningful sequences, and can include completion targets to indicate to subscribers the dates by which they should complete the learning path.
Learning path types come from three sources:
Catalog learning paths, created by a learning administrator, appear in the learner catalog and enable multiple learners to follow a path.
Manager learning paths enable managers to specify courses of study for their employees, either directly or as a result of another Human Resources activity such as a performance appraisal.
Learner learning paths, created by learners to set their own goals, define a plan to achieve them, and measure their progress along the way.
Learning Certifications offer learners the opportunity to subscribe to and complete one-time and renewable certifications, including regulatory certifications such as compliance training and professional development certifications such as Oracle DBA. Unlike learning paths, certifications can include renewals and enforced due dates. Administrators can choose from a wide variety of options to designate how long a certification lasts, whether and when a learner can renew, and when the application sends notifications.
Administrators can enroll and subscribe one or multiple learners in classes, learning paths, and learning certifications. They control enrollment through a combination of learner access, self-enrollment permission, and approval options. You can also track successful attendance, maintain learning histories, and set up automatic updates to a learner's competency profile. Search capabilities enable you to place the right learners into the right classes.
Using class and enrollment statuses, you can control enrollments in a class throughout its life cycle. For example, you can create a Planned class to monitor learner interest and investigate resource availability. You might then enter enrollments with the status Requested as learners express an interest in the class and you can update their status to Waitlisted when the learners confirm their interest. You can update the class status to Normal when you have sufficient Waitlisted enrollments to meet the minimum numbers required to run the class, automatically taking Placed enrollments from the waiting list.
Learner access enables administrators to define which learners have access to which learning. Administrators can specify this access on any catalog object. All catalog objects contained under this catalog object inherit this access. For example, granting learners access to a category grants them access to all the courses in that category. Learners cannot view or enroll in learning to which they lack access.
The content interface enables you to organize and prepare content to be delivered as online self-paced courses. You assemble online content within the interface, or import existing content, such as third-party courseware.
To deliver the online content to learners, you can create a catalog offering, in which learners enroll and which they access through the online player. Web conferences facilitate delivery of online synchronous classes. Instructors can host a live web conference and deliver the class to learners over the web.
The player supports any type of Web-playable content--such as video, HTML, and Flash--that resides on a web server.
The application tracks learner progress through an online course. By default, the application retains performance details at the learning object level, including time spent, completion status and test scores. Further, the application supports content that contains recognized e-learning industry specification function calls, such as SCORM CMI or AICC HACP, to enable finer-grained tracking within the content when required.
The test builder enables you to create tests, to measure a learner's performance, knowledge, and skills. You can also create and maintain question banks, which help to organize and reuse questions across multiple tests.
You deliver a test to a learner either as a topic within a course, or as an offering in its own right. The application scores a test, and a learner passes or fails based on the results.
The application displays performance statistics, enabling you to analyze learners' performance for a given test or question.
For online offerings, you can define one learning object, including a test, to be a prerequisite for another learning object within the same course, or in a different course. When a learner attempts to play a piece of content (learning object), the online player prevents access unless the learner has successfully completed the identified prerequisite (mandatory) content.
You can import and export existing content--both the metadata and, optionally, the content files themselves--that conforms to recognized content specifications, such as SCORM and IMS QTI. This may be content created in-house, but external to the application, or content purchased from third-party vendors, either off-the-shelf or custom-built.
The learner interface makes it easy for learners to find, enroll, view, and play their learning.
Note: The following content is applicable to My Learning interface, which is displayed by default.
The My Learning page offers flexibility to learners to view either their current enrollments or their learning history on the same page. This page provides two buttons: Current and History. Depending on what the learners want to view the following sections are available:
Course Catalog
Announcements
Forums and Chats
Create a new learning path
Manage my external classes
Current sections
My Current Enrollments
My Current Learning Paths
My Current Certifications
My Current External Learning
History sections
My Enrollment History
My Learning Path History
My Certification History
My External Learning History
Using the My Learning page, learners can:
Browse categories or search for learning by drilling down through categories to find the desired courses and learning paths.
View the classes that they are waitlisted, pending approval, or enrolled.
View the detailed course and class descriptions as well as enrollment information
View online and offline classes, where learners can obtain their class progress, view their class enrollment status, and take online classes
View and access catalog forums and chats that they have subscribed to.
Keep track of all learning activities that a learner has attended, passed, failed, completed, cancelled, or expired.
Create and manage learning paths.
Manage external learning.
The Category page helps learners to view catalog information and to find desired learning. This page displays all catalog objects such as courses, certifications, learning paths, forums and chats present under this category, to which learner has access. Learner can enroll or subscribe into respective catalog objects from this page.
The Course Details page displays course details and classes available in the course. Using this page, learners can view online and offline classes and enroll in classes. If there are any ratings or reviews for a class, then learners can view the reviews and ratings.
The Class Details page helps learners to view class enrollment status and take online classes. If there are any ratings or reviews for a class, then learners can review and rate the class. Depending on the enrollment status of the learner, actions to perform for a class are available.
The Learning Path Details page displays sections depending on the learner's subscription to the learning path. Learners can view information such as the number of courses, learning path section, and whether a few courses in the learning path are mandatory. Learners can subscribe to the learning path from this page.
The Certification Details page helps learners to view information about certification courses and renew the subscription or unsubscribe.
Note: The following content is applicable to Learner Home (old) interface. This menu is hidden by default.
The Learner Home page, which provides a snapshot view of learning paths and courses in which a learner is currently enrolled. Learners can:
View the detailed course, offering, and class descriptions as well as enrollment information
Manage their learning paths
View online and offline classes, where learners can obtain their class progress, view their class enrollment status, and take online classes
View and access catalog forums and chats that they have subscribed to
The Catalog and Search pages, which present an online catalog of available learning. When navigating through the catalog, learners can find and enroll only in learning to which they have access. Learners can also:
Search for learning paths, learning certifications, category forums and chats, and learning related to a subject matter; learners can search by course name, description, location, competencies, and training dates
Browse for learning by drilling down through categories to find the desired courses and learning paths
View catalog information such as course objectives and descriptions, to help them find the desired learning
Enroll directly in the learning they find
The Requested Learning page, which displays the classes for which the learner has requested enrollment, but cannot enroll because of pending approval or a full class. The learner can also view classes in which they are waitlisted and courses that are pending approval.
View Complete Learning History
The learning history functionality enables you to keep track of all learning activities that a learner has attended, passed, failed, completed, cancelled, or expired. Learners can move courses, learning paths and learning certifications to the Learning History page. This information appears in several sections:
Individual Enrollments presents detailed information for courses (not attached to their learning paths or certifications) such as status, score, and time taken.
Learning Paths lists the expired learning paths and those that the learner has subscribed to and completed, unsubscribed from, or moved to Learning History.
Learning Certifications displays information on expired certifications and certifications that the learner has completed, unsubscribed from, or moved to the Learning History page
External Learning shows learning taken externally, such as from an outside vendor, and entered manually.
All learners, including those in the extended enterprise of customers and partners, can use the Learner pages, making classes available to virtually anyone you wish to train.
Like learning paths, competencies help to monitor performance and develop the careers of your workforce. This release extends to learning paths the existing ability to link HR competencies to courses. Administrators can configure the application to update, automatically or with approval, learners' personal competency profiles after they have completed classes successfully. For each course they can also set competency prerequisites, courses a learner should or must complete before they can enroll in a given class.
Managers access a page from which they can view learning-related information about their employees. After choosing an employee to view, managers use the learner interface to enroll that employee in a course, or to view employee performance and progress.
Using the instructor interface, instructors can manage their classes and bookings, communicate with learners online, and carry out their administrative tasks. The instructor pages include:
The Home page, which lists the classes that you are scheduled to teach
The Class Details page, which provides detailed class information on resources, enrollments, sessions, course prerequisites, and class forums and chats.
The Forums and Chats page, which displays your class forums and chats and the forums and chats that you need to moderate.
The Supplemental Bookings page, which displays your bookings for non-catalog activities such as vacation or preparation time. You can view your past bookings on the Booking History page.
The application delivers over 25 workflow notifications that inform learners and managers of classes such as enrollments that require approval, and enrollments and cancellations made by managers or others. Implementers can use Oracle Workflow and Oracle Approval Manager to configure these notifications and their behavior.
You can assign budgets both for the development of new courses and for the running costs of all classes scheduled for a course. You can assign instructors and other resources for course development.
You can restrict administrator access to a subset of the application (such as the catalog or resources) and people (such as members of other business groups) through OLM's implementation of Role-Based Access Control and HR Security Groups. Using Role Based Access Control you can control which functions an administrator can use on the catalog and content data.
Using the Administrator Access Control feature, enterprises can determine who can view and work with a specific category and content. You can control administrators' access to OLM data. You can define administrator control at the catalog category level or content folder level. Administrators belonging to a specific administrator group can access the catalog objects belonging to that category or the content objects belonging to that content folder.
: If access to a category is restricted using an administrator group, then this restriction can be removed by the learning administrator by selecting the Remove Administrator Group check box in the Update Category page. If the learning administrator selects the Remove Administrator Group check box and clicks Apply, a concurrent program runs in the background that removes the association between category and administrator group. The category and the content within the category then become accessible to all administrators.
You can create a waiting list for a class, either because the class is full or because you want to prioritize enrollments before allocating places. When a place becomes available (a learner may cancel their enrollment or you increase the available places), or you are ready to allocate places, you can view the waiting list and select from it.
Alternatively, you can enroll waitlisted learners automatically, based on waitlist priority or enrollment date. Automatic enrollment for waitlisted learners occurs when a learner has cancelled an enrollment, or after the maximum number of attendees for a class has increased. OLM automatically moves the first eligible waitlisted person into the class.
When a class has taken place, you can record the results of each attendance, including the failure reason, where appropriate.
If you are holding competency information in Oracle Human Resources, you can update learner records to show the new qualifications, knowledge, or experience they have gained from the class.
You can transfer the cost of class fees or resources between organizations, departments, or cost centers within your enterprise.
You can designate, at finance header level, a receiving cost center and a paying cost center, and summarize finance details for charges (or credits) for each combination of approved finance headers and lines. You can also create output to be included in the open interface for the Oracle General Ledger system (or another general ledger or accounts receivable application).
Oracle E-Records is a configurable framework for secure capture, storage, inquiry, and printing of electronic records and electronic signatures (ERES) in compliance with government regulations.
OLM uses the electronic records and electronic signatures (ERES) functionality of Oracle E-Records to enable organizations meet legislative compliance, such as the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 21 Part 11, otherwise known as 21 CFR Part 11.
Using the electronic records and electronic signatures functionality, you can obtain electronic signatures for the following business transactions:
Administrator updates course name, course code, or course description
Administrator or instructor changes the enrollment status of a learner.
Learner completes a course.
You can use the Oracle E-Records Evidence Store to query electronic records and esignatures.
See: Electronic Records and Electronic Signatures (ERES) in OLM