Totara Learn Open Discussions

Appraisals by Event Trainers

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Is it possible to assign an appraisal to a face-to-face event so that only the event trainers can enter information on users that were assigned to their event? In our situation we have different paper evaluations, depending on the general course subject area, that trainers fill out on each attendee and would like to include this in the LMS. For example, we need to be able to assign appraisal 1 to course A, course B, but not to course C; then assign appraisal 2 to course C, but not course A or course B. Then require the event trainers to complete the appraisal within a determined number of calendar days of the event being concluded for each course event they are assigned.

Unfortunately it seems that appraisals are more geared towards annual evaluation between manager and trainee, instead of trainer and trainee. I have also seen where people have not used appraisals, and have used certifications because of the limitations the appraisal process has.

Any ideas or other solutions would be greatly appreciated.

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Hi John

Appraisals are also able to be filled in by the Learner's Appraiser. A learner's appraiser is able to be assigned to a user's job assignment the same as a manager. However Appraisals are not assigned to courses or events they are assignment to the user. There is also a 360 Feedback activity where the user can nominate the person providing feedback on a predefined form.

We would be interested on more details on your requirements - is this just for face to face activity you want this assigned for ?

Regards

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Wouldn't the Learner's Appraiser apply across the board and only make the appraisals for completion accessible to that appraiser? We're needing appraisals by the event trainers. 360 really doesn't apply in this situation, as I wouldn't think the user should be nominating the feedback provider, as that provider will be their trainer and that would rely on the learner actually starting the process.

For now my request/intention is for face to face with the possibility of adding it to other events in the future.

The requirements as I understand them are (based on our own home-grown lms):

1. Assign or some how tie an internal evaluation (appraisal if that word better applies) to either the course so that trainers can fill in the feedback form on each learner in their assigned events for that course. We currently have about 15 of these forms in our own lms.

2. The form assignment will need to be changeable so that if a new form is added it can be assigned to any upcoming event but will not affect previous form assignments.

3. The ability to tie in other grades from other courses as necessary. Yes, some of these forms actually refer to grades from other courses.

4. There should be a completion deadline for the forms based on the scheduled end date/time of the event. For example, 10 calendar days after is our standard (I'm open to being able to allow that to be dynamically set). After which the form will be locked, and would require unlocking by users tasked with the duty (LMS admin or even the ability to change the role needed in the settings) if the form needs to be edited or completed by the trainer.

5 Once locked or completed by the trainer they would need the ability to select who receives it. Managers, Manager's manager, learner, trainer and a place to put in a different email address if necessary. The e-mail includes the completed form in pdf format. I'm open to not e-mailing and just have the users mentioned receive a notification in the system, but right now email is the preferred method.

6. A block, or link to the completed feedback form on the learner's RoL page.

We were trying to figure out a way to tie the appraisals into a report building setup (either through Zoola or another third-party application) where the report would include the grades options and pull in the rest of the forms into one document. That can be messy and prone to errors.

So based on all of that and the previous discussion it appears that we might have to either modify our current core, develop a plugin or plugins that can incorporate all of the needs above and more as they come up, or pursue the reporting option. Just wanted to make sure I'm not reinventing the wheel.

John

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Yes, it is purely related to their performance at the event and how they meet or do not meet the standards of professionalism in the classroom. It seems that a lot of the bits are built into the appraisals and 360. However, as stated by everyone so far it's not event driven which is rather disappointing.

The completion of the appraisal would not affect course completion in any way. This is more of just a way to provide learners, and their managers quality feedback from the trainers inside the system. Having said that, I suppose that others could potentially want it to have weight in the completion status, but we do not.

John

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We have had a similar request from a client recently for functionality like this. Their need centred around the line manager reviewing the employee's performance in the role following training, to then mark them as being competent in that topic and prove the value of the training to the business.

This is a cross-over between competencies and appraisals but tied to individual courses. They want to be able to perform an in-work assessment (a form) of that employee, then mark them as "competent" against that course. With the ability to report on this site-wide and review the competency status in an appraisal.

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I've discussed this with others here in my office and we don't think making it part of the course as an activity would best suit our purpose. The access to it could possibly be best placed elsewhere. As a reminder it has no impact on the completion of the course, etc. However the final result will always need to be available to the trainer, learner and the learner's manager.

Reporting on the course in itself isn't a necessity either, as it should only be accessible to the three parties mentioned. If any other reporting is needed then I would think that could be explored on a case by case basis.

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For our client, this would not be the best approach.

Their primary driver for this request is broken into two areas:

Validating the learner has learned and applied the knowledge in the workplace
Prove the value of the training intervention (ROI) to senior stakeholders

The form itself could be accessed via the course if it was a trainer undertaking the review, but as a line manager would need to do this the best place would be somewhere via the Team page. A report source would be needed (or new columns added to existing sources) for them to report at a site-level. An example need for a report would be for the number of courses that have/have not resulted in improved employee performance in the workplace.

Maybe my request is diverging too much from John's initial post, apologies if so. I just think the two requirements are similar in terms of requiring feedback/review of an employee following training to be logged in the system.

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