SmartBuilder > Help Documentation > SmartBuilder Interface > Main Toolbar > Publish a Lesson

Publish and share a lesson that only registered learners can view

These instructions explain how you can host a lesson which can only be viewed by learners who are registered in SmartTracker as part of your organization. This will allow you to run reports to see how specific learners have performed in the lesson (e.g. completion status, score, duration).You will also be able to view aggregate data such as how many hits there are on each page, or how many learners answered option A vs. option B for a question.

If you only need aggregate data, or don’t want to require learners to login to view the content, then follow the instructions for Publish and share a lesson with anyone.

  1. On the main toolbar, click Publish Lesson Publish Lesson Button.
  2. If you are not already signed into the portal, click the sign in link and complete the steps to sign in.
    Lesson Publish Options
  3. Select the Upload to SmartTracker checkbox and change the Register as dropdown to New content limited to my organization.
    Lesson Publish Options: Organization Limited
  4. Click Finish.
  5. From the Publish Complete window, click the Copy Link button.
    Copy Lesson URL link
  6. Provide this link to your learners so that they can view the lesson. For example, you can place this link on a web page, or email it to learners.

Note Unlike SCORM, which strictly associates learner data with a specific lesson, xAPI can collect learner data from a variety of lessons (or other sources) for inclusion in a single report.

SmartTracker reports, which use xAPI, are segmented using the Lesson Activity ID. By default, the Lesson Activity ID is based on the title of the lesson. For example, if the lesson title is "Project Management", then the lesson ID will be "http://smartbuilder.com/xapi/activities/projectmanagement"

There are some situations where it is desirable to share data across different lessons, and other situations where it is not desirable. Therefore, organizations must manage their own Lesson Activity IDs. For example, if there are two lessons created by different authors in your organization, but they share the same Lesson Activity ID, then their data will be commingled in reports. If you do NOT wish to share data across these lessons, you must make sure that you change the Lesson Activity ID for one of the lessons.

Get Lesson Activity ID

Additionally, when making edits to a lesson during testing, or updating a lesson that has been deployed and has results already recorded, it is strongly advised to create a fresh Lesson Activity ID. If activities (usually questions) within the lesson have been added, removed, or altered, then the old data may not make sense with the new data being reported.

Example In a lesson, Question 1 has 3 answer options, with the 3rd option being correct, and it already has 100 responses recorded. A request is made to update the text of the question, to add a 4th option, and to make the 4th option the correct response. Once the lesson is updated, if it uses the same Lesson Activity ID, the original question text and 3 options will show up on the report, and the results reported after the change will be confusing since new and old data are being mixed.

So in most cases, the best practice is to create a new Lesson Activity ID that is unique, such as "http://smartbuilder.com/xapi/activities/projectmanagement_v5" or "http://smartbuilder.com/xapi/activities/projectmanagement_2018_02_10".

Note By default, learners are not allowed to self-register to join your SmartTracker organization. This means you must add learners to SmartTracker before they can view any lessons which are registered as content limited to my organization.

To manually register learners in your SmartStart organization

  1. Login to the SmartBuilder portal: https://portal.smartbuilder.com/.
  2. Click on the SmartTracker tab.
  3. Click on the Learners sub-tab.
  4. Click the Add Learner button.
    SmartTracker Add Learner
  5. Complete the fields then click the Add button.

To allow learners to self-register in your SmartStart organization

  1. Login to the SmartBuilder portal: https://portal.smartbuilder.com/.
  2. Click on the SmartTracker tab.
  3. Click on the Settings subtab.
  4. Click on the Organization Info menu.
    SmartTracker: Self Register
  5. Click the Self Registration link, then check the Allow learners to self-register checkbox, then click Update.
    SmartTracker: Allow Self Register

    When a learner clicks on a link to a lesson that is registered as content limited to my organization, they will be prompted to login to SmartTracker, or to sign up. When they sign up, they will receive a password via email, and they will then be able to sign in and launch the lesson.

    SmartTracker: Sign Up