Manage Course Beta Testing#
Define When the Beta Test Starts#
To define the start of the beta test, you use Studio to specify a number of days before the course start date for self-paced courses or before the section and subsection release dates for instructor-paced courses. For more information, see How Beta Testers See Course Content.
In Studio, from the Settings menu, select Advanced Settings.
In the field for the Days Early for Beta Users policy key, enter the number of days before content releases for beta testers to have access.
Select Save Changes.
Add Beta Testers#
Before you can add beta testers:
You need the email address or username of each beta tester.
Each beta tester must register and activate a user account for that email address/username.
When you add beta testers, note the following.
If the beta test starts before the course Enrollment Start Date, testers cannot enroll themselves in your course. However, you can enroll the beta testers prior to the Enrollment Start Date.
If you add the beta testers after the defined start of the beta test, and they are enrolled in the course, they see your course on their Current Courses dashboards when they log in.
If you add beta testers before the test starts, or if they are not enrolled, they do not see your course on their dashboards. You can enroll the beta testers in the course yourself, and you may want to send an email message to remind them when the test begins.
Add or Remove Individual Beta Testers#
View the live version of the course.
Select Instructor, and then select Membership.
In the Course Team Management section, select Beta Testers.
Under the list of users who currently have that role, enter the email address or username of the person you want to add.
Select Add Beta Tester.
The person who you added appears in the list of beta testers.
Note
If the beta test starts before the Enrollment Start Date of your course, you can also enroll the beta tester. See Enrollment Events.
To remove the Beta Tester role from users individually, find the user in the list of beta testers, and then select Revoke access to the right of that user’s email address.
Add or Remove Multiple Beta Testers#
If you have a number of beta testers that you want to add, you can use the “batch add” option to add them all at once, rather than individually. With this feature, you have options to enroll the beta testers in the course (before or after the Enrollment Start Date) and send an email message to notify the beta testers that they have been added.
To add multiple beta testers:
View the live version of your course.
Select Instructor, and then select Membership.
In the Batch Beta Tester Addition section of the page, enter one or more addresses or usernames separated by commas or line feeds (the Enter key). You can also copy data from a CSV file of email addresses and paste it here.
To enroll the beta testers in your course, leave Auto Enroll selected. If the beta test starts before the course Enrollment Start Date, testers cannot enroll themselves in your course.
To send an email message to the beta testers, leave Notify users by email selected.
Select Add beta testers.
To remove the Beta Tester role from one or more users, enter their email addresses in the Batch Add Beta Testers field and then select Remove beta testers.
Note
When you select Remove beta testers, the Auto Enroll option is not affected. The user’s role as a beta tester is removed, but they remain enrolled in the course.
Reporting Issues During a Course#
Despite the efforts of the course team and the beta testers, additional problems, questions, and issues can occur while a course is running.
Often, learners report issues by asking questions in a discussion. Your discussion moderation team can watch for posts that indicate problems.
To let learners know the best way to report problems, you can post information in the course welcome message, or post it in a discussion.
Maintenance chart
Review Date |
Working Group Reviewer |
Release |
Test situation |