Frequently Asked Questions

What is the MC Strategies/College of Direct Support Client Services Team?

The Client Services Team is responsible for coordinating all actions necessary to enable startup and ongoing support of your training web site. They are the persons to contact regarding all aspects of your site.

How long will it take to set up my account?

We establish your account in two phases:

Site setup – physical web site setup usually occurs within 3 days of receiving a fully executed contract

Training – we will contact the designated administrator(s) and schedule training within a week of site setup.

Do you provide documentation for the System?

Yes. The documentation is available online from the Administrator Home Page. The documentation explains how to use each administrative application. Because learners may be widely distributed, printed documentation is impractical. The System contains online help for both learners and administrators.

What is a CDS Learning Administrator?

When we speak of the CDS Learning Administrator, we are talking about the person within your organization who is responsible for overall system administration. Depending upon the goals of the organization, this person may be responsible for all lesson planning. They may also elect to delegate that responsibility and retain control of overall learning administration. In any case, this person is our key contact for all matters relating to the College of Direct Support.

What if my learners have a question?

There is Help Documentation available to all learners on their Learner Home Page. Obviously, the CDS Learning Administrator is the person who contacts us regarding all CDS issues, but there will be occasions when that might not be feasible. The CDS Support Team is not to be used as your ‘backup’ while out of the office for vacations, etc. so we encourage the CDS Learning Administrator to train a ‘backup’ and provide CDS with their name and contact information.

Trouble-Shooting

I can't get to the web site

Check your internet connection - see if you can access another internet site such as www.microsoft.com or www.yahoo.com. If you:

Still can't get to the web site….

Learner Questions

I can't log into the system

Make sure the learner ID and password are correct. Lowercase/uppercase does not make a difference. Make sure you are at the correct web site. http://www.collegeofdirectsupport.com/ is our demo site. Your web address will be www.collegeofdirectsupport.com/YourFacilityName or the abbreviation for your state if you are a facility on the state site. You should only be prompted for a Learner ID and password.

When I login to College of Direct SupportÒ the screen says "Personal Page for John Smith," where does the system get my name?

Your CDS Learning Administrator has completed a brief profile on the system for each learner, which is the source of your name. Whatever is typed in the first name field is the name the system uses to communicate with the learner. If the name is incorrect, contact the CDS Learning Administrator, and they will be able to make the change.

What is the Learner ID?

The Learner ID is what the system uses to identify a learner, what lesson(s) they have completed, what tests they have taken, and all of the other information in the system. It is extremely important to login to the system using the same Learner ID each time to ensure that the learner receives credit for all that he/she has accomplished.

What do I click if I want to see all of the lessons and my progress?

Click My E-Learning Lessons on your personal page. You will see several tabs that allow you to select the lesson information you want. Your lesson plan will list each lesson that has been assigned, show the completion date and score of completed lessons, and will show the lessons that need to be completed.

I have put in the right answer, but it scored me incorrectly.

1. If you leave an answer blank, it will be scored as incorrect.

2. If you leave (intentionally or un-intentionally) a test in the middle, it will grade the unanswered questions as incorrect.

3. Have your CDS Learning Administrator go into Online Learning Reports and run a Learner Test Summary Report. This will give a summary of your answers and a listing of the correct answers to your CDS Learning Administrator.

4. If you and your CDS Learning Administrator still believe that the answer we have is incorrect, your CDS Learning Administrator can email content@mcstrategies.com or cds-info@webinservice.com with the issue.

5. Your post-test summary report shows the answers you submitted, not the correct answers.

Are there completion certificates? I noticed that the learner name shows up on the learning transcript page, so really, someone could just print this out as proof of completion.

Yes, the learner can print out their transcript and/or completion certificates. The “Report” button on the Learner Home Page allows access to E-Learning Credits Earned. There is a link titled ‘CDS’, which is the completion certificate for the lesson listed.

What is allowable to print?

Completion Certificates

E-Learning Transcript Page

Reports

Assessment Event Checklists

CEU Application

Can you bookmark to one of our pages?

The system has an automatic bookmark feature that returns you to the same place you were in a lesson before you left, but you cannot use ‘Favorites’ in the browser to bookmark a lesson page. In order to bookmark a page in a lesson, you must click the ‘Personal Page’ icon at the top of your lesson page, and then click the ‘Logout’ button on your personal page.

I have completed all my assigned lessons. How do I get more lessons added to my lesson plan?

Check the self-enrollment section to see if there are additional lessons available. You may view courses available for self-enrollment, by clicking the ‘Self-Enroll E- earning’ quick link on your personal page, then select ‘E-learning self enroll‘. You may also contact your CDS Learning Administrator and ask for additional lessons.

Administration Questions

I'm looking at the administration portion, and I can't figure out how or where the option to reset lessons is located.

To re-assign lessons, go to E-Learning, Assign Training, choose the option for individual/learner/group, then when the assignments come up, look over on the far right-hand side and you will see a "reassign" button. You'll simply click that and follow the instructions from there. DO NOT ‘REASSIGN’ WITHOUT CHECKING WITH CDS CLIENT SUPPORT FIRST.

How can a CDS Learning Administrator set the passing score?

Minimum passing scores for both pre-testing and post-testing can be set by the System Administrator through the System Option. The System Administrator may also set the pre-test and post-test score for each module created if your training goals are different from the system-wide settings.

How can I limit a learner from taking a test repeatedly until they are able to determine correct answers by process of elimination?

When you are editing your modules, you will see an option called retake frequency. This allows you to set a number of days the learner has to wait between taking tests.

I see references to e-mail addresses throughout the system. Will the staff have to supply an e-mail address?

No, they are not required, but if you want to take advantage of the e-mail features in the system, you will need them. It's not all or nothing though. You can manually add e-mail addresses as you need them.

Module Questions

I'm trying to delete a module from a learner, but after I click the delete button, the module still appears.

Check to see if the learner has completed a lesson from the module. If a learner has completed a lesson in the module, the delete button will delete all lessons that are not complete from that module, but the module name will remain.

You may not be able to delete a module if it was assigned at a different level of administration. For example, you cannot delete a module from a learner that has been assigned to the entire department without deleting it for the department.

Why won’t my module ‘Reassign’?

- If the module name is missing on the original module assignment then the system can’t reassign.

Will Rename delete a module name from the learner transcript.

- No, the rename automatically applies to the learner records.

Why doesn’t the retake frequency always work?

-If the learner uses the ‘back browse’ button after completing their test, instead of going to their personal page they will circumvent the system. -Learners should never use the back browse while in the lessons or the test.

Why are learners allowed to test out of a lesson when the module is set to require lesson completion prior to testing?

-If there is any value in the Pre-Test score box the system defaults for lesson completion are invoked.

Client-Authored Training Questions

If you use an authoring tool such as Macromedia, Flash, Front Page, etc. to create training; that training can now be pulled into College of Direct SupportÒ through this feature. Our goal is to simplify your training management duties by giving you one place to manage it all.

We linked to a MS Word document, and I was able to change the data from the learner’s screen. I don’t want my learners to be able to change the data.

Depending on the software you use to create the training, there are several ways to “lock” the file. If it is a word document, you can make it read-only, an Excel spreadsheet can be locked, Power Point presentations should be published, etc. Check the help features in the software you are using to determine exact instructions. FYI -- This can be good and bad. It’s a great way for multiple people to view something and make central changes in real time.

Classroom Training Questions

How does all of this classroom training work? How do we utilize this feature?

You can now manage your classroom training as well as your on-line training. You can schedule instructors, create classrooms, and setup classes to be assigned to the learner. These classes show up for the learner when they click "Classes & Events." This is great for orientation classes, CPR, or any situation where on-line training is not an option.

Is classroom training only for e-learning lessons?

No, classroom training is a used to schedule/manage your facility classrooms. It is not meant for e-learning lessons. You may enroll a participant or allow open enrollment. The system allows you to publish available classes for open enrollment as well as limit the number of participants per class.

Service Related Questions

What internet provider do we use?

MC Strategies, Inc. has a contract with Verisign that ensures us a secure website and also allows us to offer security certificates to ensure each client has an individual secure website.

What plans have you taken to provide un-interrupted service to the training website?

Service can be interrupted from basically four different places - a problem at your facility, a problem here with our system, a problem with our Internet service provider, or on the phone lines somewhere in between.

We have taken measures to ensure that our system has minimal down time by doing two things -- signing with a reputable service provider and having a backup system in place.

MC Strategies, Inc. has a contract with a major service provider that has a local point of presence. What does that mean? That means we receive fast, reliable Internet connections and are provided with service technicians to solve any problems within a timely manner. Fewer miles between the "point of presence" and the physical location of our office means less chances for problems to occur. We also have in place a redundant system that we can initiate if there are difficulties on our end. Occasionally, we will have scheduled down time for maintenance or updates. You will be notified prior to the scheduled down time so that the inconvenience will be lessened.

How is a client's website set up?

Each client has it's own database. What does this mean for the client? A Personal Client Database means that the clients will only have data in their database that is for their employees. One of the advantages is they have the ability to run reports for their facility, customized to their departments. It also means that only authorized users from their facility can access the site. And it means that they won't be competing with the world to access their site.