Create, add, and share awards in myCourses
In this article:
Create a new award
You can create awards that can be shared with other facilitators or instructors, or that are restricted to your current course.
Add the Awards tool to your Navigation Bar, or navigate to Course Admin and select Awards under the Assessment heading.
Click Add Award to Course in the Course Awards tab.
On the following page, you will see a list of shared certificates and badges. Select one of these and click Add, or click Create to make your own award.
Enter a name, description, and criteria for the new award.
Select an award type (Badge or Certificate) from the drop-down menu.
Select the appropriate radio button to indicate if you want the award to be available to other award managers (e.g., other instructors and facilitators). Your own awards will always be available for your use in other courses.
Select an expiry option:
Never: the award will not expire.
Fixed date: the award will expire on a specific date.
Relative Day of the Month: The award will expire on a day relative to the day the award was granted. If you want to notify the award recipient before an award expires, select the Notify Before Expiry checkbox and indicate the number of days of lead time.
When the award is expiring, the student is notified in myCourses, and depending on how the instructor has configured the notification, students might also get a notification email.
When the students log into the course offering in which the award was earned, a pop-up appears informing them that the award is expiring. All awards are displayed as images and you can click on an image to view more details.
Subscriptions alerts on the minibar also displays a notification about expiring awards
In the Choose Award Image area, select one of the following:
From Existing Library: choose an image from the myCourses Image Library.
Upload New Icon: add a new icon to the myCourses Image Library.
Create your own award image: this will launch the OpenBadges website, which is a free resource that helps you create custom icons.
(If you select Certificate under Award Type) In the Choose Certificate Template area, select one of the following:
From Existing Library: choose a .pdf template from the myCourses Image Library.
Upload New Template: add a new template to the myCourses Image Library.
Verify that the Issuer Information is correct.
Select the checkbox to use this award in your current course.
Click Save and Close.
Add an existing award to a course
Add the Awards tool to your Navigation Bar, or navigate to Course Admin and select Awards under the Assessment heading.
Click Add Award to Course in the Course Awards tab.
On the following page, you will see a list of shared certificates and badges. Select the Show Only Awards I Created checkbox to filter the list to display only your own awards, or toggle between the All, Badges, and Certificates filters.
Select the awards you want to add from this list.
Click Add.
Awards can also be copied between courses using Import/Export/Copy Components on the Course Admin page. When copying awards using Import/Export/Copy Components, all associated release conditions are also copied.
Copy an award from another course
Your own awards are always available for you to add in any of your courses. However, if these awards are associated with release conditions, you must use the Import/Export/Copy Components tool. Sharing awards or adding existing awards through the Awards tool does not transfer release conditions.
In your new course, navigate to the Course Admin page, and select Import/Export/Copy Components under the Site Resources heading.
Select Copy Components from another Org Unit.
Click Search for offering.
Locate and select the course containing the award you want to copy. We recommend that you search by term (e.g., Fall, Winter) or course name.
Click Add Selected and then Select Components.
Select Awards, then choose one of the following:
To include all awards, select Copy all items and click Continue.
To include only some awards, select Select individual items to copy and click Continue. On the Select Items to Copy page, select the awards you want to copy. Click Continue.
Click Continue.
Click Finish.
Share awards with other courses
When you create an award, you can choose to share it with other courses. New awards are available to all your courses by default, but you can also choose to share awards with other instructors and facilitators at McGill.
On the Course Award page, click Create or Edit Award.
Under the Availability heading, choose one of these options:
Select Make this award available to all of my courses if you only want to share the award within your own courses (default).
Select Make this award available to other award creators and their courses if you want to share the award with others. You can further restrict the award to the course in which it is created and its "child org units", which is not applicable to a typical myCourses page.
Click Save and Close.
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