Learning Mastery controls

John_Gaspar

My Business School uses Outcomes for assurance of learning and we're manually turning Learning Mastery on course by course in the Feature Option settings for the relevant subjects. I have a few questions.

Question1: Is it possible to enable Learning Mastery at a sub-account level, for just the Business School?

Question 2: Is it possible to enable Learning Mastery for a subset of courses in a sub-account (ie just those using Outcomes)?

Question 3: If we turn it on for all courses at the sub-account level are there any negatives for courses that aren't using it?

Thanks

dbrace

Hi @John_Gaspar,

I will try my best to answer your three questions:

Question 1: Is it possible to enable Learning Mastery at a sub-account level, for just the Business School?

Yes, if you go to the sub-account's "Settings > Feature Options" area (the link would be formatted something like https://CANVAS_DOMAIN/accounts/SUBACCOUNT_ID/settings#tab-features) and then to the "Course" section at the bottom, it is possible to enable "Learning Mastery Gradebook".

When doing that you would need to decide which configuration is best for the situation:

1. Enabled and Locked (this would require the feature in every course in the sub-account)
2. Enabled and Unlocked (this would turn on the feature in every course in the sub-account but it could be turned off, either by an admin or an instructor)

Question 2: Is it possible to enable Learning Mastery for a subset of courses in a sub-account (ie just those using Outcomes)?

The answer is yes but you would need to use #2 in my answer to question 1. That could be accomplished manually by either an admin or an instructor using the GUI (intentionally or unintentionally) or by scripting (probably by an admin but possibly by an instructor with access to the API).

For scripting options, consult the documentation at https://developerdocs.instructure.com/services/canvas/resources/feature_flags. I believe the specific feature flag is known as "outcome_gradebook" in the API and (depending on how you would script it) would look something like what is below (which is a cURL)

curl --request PUT \
--url https://CANVAS_DOMAIN/api/v1/courses/COURSE_ID/features/flags/outcome_gradebook \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer ACCESS_TOKEN' \
--header 'User-Agent: USER_AGENT' \
--data state=on

Question 3: If we turn it on for all courses at the sub-account level are there any negatives for courses that aren't using it?

I do not have an exact answer but I do not believe there is any negative to enabling the Learning Mastery Gradebook, unless you consider seeing "Learning Mastery Gradebook" as a gradebook view option to be a negative.

https://community.instructure.com/en/kb/articles/660932-how-do-i-use-the-learning-mastery-gradebook-to-view-outcome-results-in-a-course

I hope that helps.

-Doug