Material - Reversion Options - Impacted Curricula (Simplified Versioning)

Design Note: An updated interface is available for this page, which can be enabled by administrators in Feature Activation Preferences. With the new design, the functionality of the page is unchanged.

To access Materials Management, go to Admin > Tools > Learning > Catalog Management > Materials. A new material version is created by editing the material. See Simplified Material Versioning Overview.

Important: To maintain compliance when reversioning a material inside a curriculum, administrators must have the permissions for material versioning (either the replace permission or the version with append permission) AND the permission for curriculum versioning. If an administrator creates a new version of a child material but does NOT have permission to version curricula, the curriculum will not be updated and version updates cannot be maintained.

If the reversioned material is included in a curriculum, then the new version of the material is automatically updated within the newest version of the curriculum that contains the material. When this occurs, the curriculum is reversioned. The effective date of the new curriculum version is set to the effective date of the new material version. The comments for the new curriculum version are the same as the new material version. This occurs even if there are no users enrolled in the curriculum.

If a material inside a curriculum is versioned with append, the previous version is hidden from the curriculum once expired, and is no longer visible on the user's transcript page by default. There is an option on both the Curriculum Player page and Training Details page to expose the expired training when needed. The expiration of the previous material version is captured on the Structure History page for curricula, which is accessible from the Course Console and the Training Details page for the curriculum. An option to expose and hide expired training in a curriculum is available on both the Training Details page and on the Curriculum Player page for the curriculum.

Note: Administrators can view the dynamic learning assignments for curricula containing any version of the material if it is still active.

  • If the new material version replaces the previous version, then the new version maintains the same settings within the curriculum as the previous version (i.e., item sequence, number of required items, pay upfront, pre-approved, auto-register).
  • If the new material version appends the previous version, then the behavior depends on whether there are already two versions of the material within the curriculum.
    • If there is currently only one version of the material in the curriculum, then the new version is added with the same sequence number as the previous version. If all items in the section are required, then the new version is also required. If not all items in the section are required, then the number of required items for the section is unchanged. The new version has the same pay upfront, pre-approved, and auto-register settings.
    • If there are currently two versions of the material in the curriculum, then the new version replaces the expired version in the curriculum. The new version is added with the same sequence number as the expired version. The number of required items for the section is unchanged. The new version has the same pay upfront, pre-approved, and auto-register settings.

Because two versions of a material may exist in a curriculum, one of the versions within the curriculum may expire, leaving only one active version. When this occurs, the sequence is unaffected, because both versions had the same sequence number. The number of required items in the section returns to its value prior to adding the appended version.

The number of curricula that contain the previous version of the material and are impacted by the reversioning is displayed above the Results section. This is only displayed if the administrator has permission to manage curricula versions. Administrators can click the link to access a pop-up that displays the title, version number, and description for each of the impacted curricula. This enables administrators to easily review the impact of reversioning the material with regards to existing curricula. Within the Impacted Curricula pop-up, the following actions are available:

  • Click the Export to Excel link to export the list of impacted curricula to an Excel document.
  • Click a curriculum title to view the curriculum's Learning Object (LO) Details page. To return to the list of impacted curricula, administrators can use the breadcrumbs on the LO Details page.

Due Date Considerations

When a material contained within a curriculum is reversioned, its due date behavior may differ from the due date behavior of a standalone material.

The due date behavior for a reversioned material contained within a curriculum depends on the due date option selected for the material version during the reversioning process:

  • Apply a Previous Version Due Date - If this option is selected for the new material version, the material displays the same due date as the previous material version within the curriculum, regardless of the due date set for the curriculum. Note: If the previous version's due date settings result in a due date that has already passed, the past due date is respected and the new material version will be in a status of Past Due within the curriculum on users' transcripts.
  • Training is due - If this option is selected for the new material version, the new material version is due on the specific date selected, regardless of the due date of the original material version or the due date of the curriculum.
  • Relative Date - If this option is selected for the new material version, the new version of a material contained within a curriculum will be due the selected number of days from the date the new version became effective, regardless of the curriculum due date. For example, if the original material version inside a curriculum was due 30 days from the date it was assigned, when the material is reversioned, it will be due 30 days from the date the material was reversioned. The due date of the curriculum does not affect the due date of the material.
  • No Due Date - If this option is selected, the new version of the material has no due date. The curriculum's due date is unaffected.

Use Cases

Jon is a learning administrator at ACME Corp. He is about to reversion a material and wants to quickly access the list of curricula that will be reversioned as a result of reversioning the material. He clicks the link on the Reversion Options page. This opens a list of all curricula that will get the new material and a new version. The list also provides a direct link to the Curricula Details for each curriculum.