Manage course users

Add staff members to your course

In Ans, you can add staff members to your course to reduce your administrative workload and increase collaboration. It is also possible to add students and assign them a staff role. This is mainly used for students or teaching assistants. In these cases, students will be granted staff authorisation for your course only. 

You can add staff members to a course by following the steps below. 

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click Add staff and choose the role you want to assign to the user.
4. If you want to add a student to your course with a staff role, click on the second drop down menu Employee and select Student.
5. Select the user(s) you want to add and click Add. 

The user will receive an invite via email.

Remove staff from your course

If needed, you have the option to remove staff from a course. If this is done by accident, the action can be reverted easily by adding them again. This may require the help of your administrator.

You can remove staff members from a course by following the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click Staff in the tab at the top.
4. Check the box next to the staff member(s) you want to remove.
5. Click on the dropdown menu More and click Remove from course.
6. Click Confirm.

The first option is to manage learners on an individual basis.

Add learners to your course

You can add learners to a course by following the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click Learners in the tab at the top left.
4. Select Add learner.
5. Select the learners(s) you want to add and click Add. 

The user will receive an invite via email.

Remove learners from your course

If needed, you have the option to remove learners from a course. If this is done by accident, the action can be reverted easily by adding learners to your course again. This may require the help of your administrator.

You can remove learners from a course by following the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click Learners in the tab at the top left.
4. Check the box next to the learner(s) you want to remove.
5. Click Remove from course.
6. Click Confirm.

Adding learners to your course by hand can be a time-consuming task. Therefore, it is possible to import learners by uploading a .CSV, .XLS or .XLSX file. The file should consist of a maximum of 5 columns containing:

• Student number (mandatory)
• E-mail address
• Last name
• Middle name
• First name

The order of the columns is not important. It should at least contain the student number. A template file is available in the import dialog in Ans.

error_outline Please note that importing information may overwrite the email and student number of existing learners if not used precisely. More information about this can be found below.

Ans will check the import file per row. If either the email or student number is found, the other attribute will always be overwritten from the import file. This is elaborated with two examples:

1. If the import file finds a student number which is also present in Ans, the import feature tries to find an email address. If the email address exists but is connected to another user in Ans, both accounts are merged.
2. If the import file cannot find the student number, but can find the email address in Ans, the student number of the existing account in Ans will be overwritten.

Both actions above are done regardless of the status of the checkbox 'Overwrite information from existing learners'. This checkbox is only meant to overwrite the name of learners.

You can import learners to a course by following the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click Learners in the tab at the top left.
4. Click Import and click Download template or create your own .CSV, .XLS, or .XLSX file. 
5. Click Browse for a file and select the file, or drag and drop the file into the pop-up.
   • Check the checkbox 'Overwrite information from existing learners' if you want to overwrite the name of the learners. Please note, the email and student number will always be overwritten if the information provided does not match the information in Ans.
   • Check the checkbox 'Send invitations' to ` invitations to new learners. This option is not possible if your school enforces Single Sign-On (SSO).

A class is defined on school level and consists of staff and learners. Using classes allows you to:

• Plan assignments for a class.
• Filter the results for a specific class.
• Filter the insights for a specific class.

You can add a class to a course and Ans will automatically synchronise the students in that class with the course. When a student is added to a class, the student will be added to all the courses that are linked to that class.

Only administrators and department administrators are able to edit and view all classes. Instructors are only able to view and edit the classes which they are part of.

You can add classes to your course, by following the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click Learners in the tab at the top left.
4. Click Manage classes and click Add class.
5. Select the class you want to add.

Groups can be created for the following reasons:

• To separate students for different timeslots, for example to distinguish students that have right to extra time.
• To distribute different groups to reviewers in order to divide up the grading/reviewing
• To create different groups for group assignments

Within Ans, you can use groups with different purposes, depending on your assignment type. Below you can find the different ways groups can be used for different assignment types. 

• Digital test (individual)
  Groups can be used to allocate different time slots for the taking session of a digital test. For example, students with time extensions can be added to a group and that group can be allocated additional time.
  
  
• Digital test for groups
  The assignment type works in the same way as the standard digital test, the difference being that the test is taken in groups. All members of the group can individually and simultaneously take the digital test. When one group member saves answers, the other members of the group will see the saved answers when they are in the test. All members of the group can alter the answers up until the timeslot ends. When the deadline of the timeslot passes, the most updated answers are the definitive answers that will be submitted.
  
  
• Hand-in assignment for groups
  Every member of a group can hand in work for the whole group. When a file is uploaded, but not yet submitted, other group members can view, edit, delete or download the uploaded files. If the file(s) are not yet submitted, all members of the group can upload additional files until the timeslot has ended. If one of the members of the group has submitted the uploaded file(s), other group members are no longer able to edit, delete or add additional files.

Other than classes, the management of groups is done via the course. You can either choose to create a group manually and add learners manually or you can import the group with the learners.

Create a group and add learners manually

To create a group from the member overview, follow the steps below. 

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top and click Groups in the tab in the top left.
3. Click New group and fill in a group name. 
4. Click Save.
   
5. After creating a group in your course, you can add learners to the group.

After creating a group, you can start adding learners. There is a limit of 2500 learners that can be added to a group. If you want to add more learners to a group, you need to distribute the learners over multiple groups.

To add learners to a group, follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top and click Groups in the tab in the top left.
3. Click on the group that you want to add students to. 
4. Click Add learners.
5. Select the learner(s) and click Add. 

Import a group

If you want to create multiple groups, it is possible to import groups with a .csv or .xlsx file. You can use one file to import one or more groups at the same time. Only pre-existing students can be added to the course. If a student account does not yet exist, Ans will not import them. Ans will check the import file per row. For the group import, the email address is an optional field. 

To import a group, follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top and click Groups in the tab in the top left.
3. Click Import and click Download template or create a .csv, .xls, or .xlsx file that consists of at least two columns: group name and student number. Optionally you can add a third column with an email. The order of the columns is not important.
4. Click Browse for a file and select the file, or drag and drop the file into the dialog.   

Group settings

Click on the group you want to adjust the settings of and then click Settings to visit the settings page. On this page you can change the name of the group. You will also see two other options:

• Learners can leave a group
  If this option is enabled, learners can leave the group by themselves.
  
  
• This group can start or hand in a group assignment
  If this option is enabled, students can participate with the group in group assignments. A student can only be in one group with this option enabled.

Delete a group

error_outline Please be aware that deleting your group is irreversible.

If you no longer need a specific group within a course, you have the option to delete the group.  It is only possible to delete a group if they have not yet started an assignment. 

You can delete a group by following the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top and click Groups in the tab in the top left.
3. Select the group you want to delete and click on Delete.
4. You can also click on the Group and select Settings in the tab at the top.
5. Click Delete in the Danger zone section. 
6. Click Confirm.

Move a student to a different group

You can move a student to a different group by following the steps below.

1. Navigate to the Group that the student is in.
2. Check the check box next to the students name.
3. Click the dropdown menu Actions.
4. Click Move. 
5. Select the group you want to move the student to.
6. Click Save.

If you would like your learners to sign in using an email and password, you can send them an invitation. Invitations will only be sent to learners that haven't yet signed in. You can only send one invitation per learner per day.

 To send invitations to learners, follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click on group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click Learners in the tab at the top left.
4. Click Send invites.

All eligible learners will receive an email with an invitation to start using Ans. If the Send invites button is disabled, there are no learners to invite.

If required, a learner can be given the right to extra time for all assignments within a course. When a learner is given this right, they are automatically added to the group 'All learners with the right to extra time'.

When setting up the timeslot for an assignment, the extra time for the 'All learners with the right to extra time' can be allocated in the same timeslot as the regular time limit. In the box 'Extra time', you can fill in the additional time that these learners will receive. The correct duration will be automatically applied to the respective regular- and extra time learners assigned to the timeslot.

If you use groups within your course, Ans will create a group of learners with right to extra time for each of the groups.

To allow learners the right to extra time for all assignments within your course, follow the steps below.

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click Learners in the tab on the top left.
4. Check the box next to the learner you want to give the right to extra time to.
5. Click the dropdown menu More and select Give the right to extra time.
6. The more_time -icon will indicate that the learner now has the right to extra time for all assignments within your course. 
7. If an administrator has already given students extra time for all assignments in your school, the more_time-icon will already be shown in the learners overview.
8. When a timeslot is created, you will need to fill in the additional time that these learners will receive in the the 'Extra time' box.

In the settings of a question, you have the option to set the question to 'skippable'. During the taking session, students will see the content_cut icon next to the question to indicate that it is skippable for them. Although they can still see the question, they are not able to answer it. The number of points for this question will not be counted in their results. It is not possible to change this setting after the test has been taken. 'Set skip exercises' can be enabled at the member's overview on course level.

Set skip exercises for certain students, within your course

1. Navigate to your course.
2. Click on group Members in the menu at the top.
3. Click the Learners tab.
4. Check the box next to the student you want to enable 'set skip exercises' for.
5. Click the dropdown menu More and select Set skip exercises.

The content_cut icon in the member's overview and the result overview will display to indicate that the student can skip exercises set to 'skippable'. 

Set a question to skippable

1. Navigate to your assignment. 
2. Navigate to the question, select more_horiz-icon and click Edit.
3. Click more_vert-icon and check the box Skippable.