This new feature gives Administrators the power to unlock courses in a Learning Path at predefined intervals. Courses can be “released” to Learners after a certain number of days have elapsed since the Learning Path assignment date for a Learner. This feature can be used to ensure that Learners move through the training at a certain pace, or as a “cohort”, which is useful for collaboration and team learning.

To begin using this feature, it must first be activated from the Account –> Features tab available to Account Owners.

Once the feature is activated, there will be a new setting for “timed-release of courses” under the Learning Path settings tab. This means the feature will need to be enabled at the Learning Path level as well, to enforce the timed-release of courses in that Learning Path.

There is an additional setting that can be checked once the timed-release feature is checked. This is called, “Hide Timed-release Course Details” (as seen above). When this feature is enabled, the details of the course (which includes course description, modules, and module descriptions) will be hidden from the Learner until the course is released for activity.

If this setting is not enabled, the details will be visible to the Learner before the course is released for activity.

Once the timed-release of courses is enabled for a Learning Path, a “Timed-release of Courses” tab will become visible to the Administrators access the Learning Path. This is where the timed-release span (days) can be set for each course (see below).

Once the time span has been set for each course, press “save” to enforce the new timed-release spans on courses in the Learning Path.

Here are some important rules to follow and consider when configuring timed-release spans on courses in a Learning Path:

1. The timed-release value must be a non-negative integer (decimals are not allowed).

2. When the timed-release feature is enabled for a Learning Path, the timed-release value for the first course in a Learning Path will default to 0. This means that the first course will be immediately available for Learner activity, unless the timed-release span is edited and saved prior to assigning Learners to that Learning Path.

3. When the timed-release feature is enabled for a Learning Path, the timed-release spans for all courses in the Learning Path will increase by one number value after the first course. If there are 4 courses in the Learning Path when this feature is enabled, the timed-release spans will be 0,1,2,3.

4. When the timed-release feature is enabled for a Learning Path, the value of a timed-release span for any course must be equal to or greater than the timed-release span on the proceeding course in the Learning Path courses list. This is because the timed-release span values must follow a chronological order.

5. When the timed-release feature is enabled for a Learning Path, and an Admin re-orders the course list in the Learning Path, the timed-release spans do not re-order with the course re-ordering. This is because the timed-release spans must remain chronological. When courses are re-ordered in this scenario, the courses will inherit new timed-release spans.

6. When the timed-release feature is enabled for a Learning Path, the timed-release spans are enforced the moment Learners are assigned to that Learning Path. This means that a group of Learners must all be assigned to the Learning Path at the same time to inherit release time spans that are in “perfect” alignment, all the way down to the second(s) the course(s) will be released in the Learning Path. If a learner is assigned to the Learning Path minutes or hours after a group of Learners was assigned, his/her courses will be released minutes or hours after that group’s courses are released.

When a course in a Learning Path is not released for activity yet, the assigned Learner(s) can see that the course will be available in “x” days, and this information is listed to the right of the course completion percentage progress bar (as shown below):

When a course(s) is released in a Learning Path, the Learners that will receive access to the course(s) will receive emails from Litmos to log into that Learning Path and access the course(s). This email template can be managed by Admin from the Account –> Emails tab. The template is called “Timed-release Template”: