The Certificate Expiry and Re-certification options allow learners to re-take courses and re-certify for specific training as required, on a regular basis.

In order to allow a learner to retake a course, while maintaining a record of previous certification, the requirements for having achieved the certificate need to be reset in the system. This is typically in the form of grades awarded for various activities or activity completion.

When adding a Certificate activity to a course, administrators have the option to schedule an automatic expiry of the certificate after a set period of time from when the certificate was awarded. Or, if re-certification option is enabled, learners can expire their own certificate and retake courses right from their “My Certificates” report, as required.

Once a certificate is expired, the course grades are deleted and the certificate is marked as expired. The learner can then re-take the course and achieve a new certificate. Expired certificates will be maintained in the system with the status “expired” and learners can still open / print these for records.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Certificate Expiry

Administrators can schedule a certificate expiry when adding the Certificate activity to a course in the LMS.

Certificate Duration:
From the certificate activity settings, select the certificate duration in days.

Note: The default selection is "none", once a selection is made this will enable the other certificate expiry settings.

Delete Grades:
If your learners are required to retake the course once the certificate is expired, you must enable the setting to Delete grades / completion. If grades are not deleted, a new certificate will not be issued.

With the Delete grades / completion setting enabled, the grades, completion status and attempts will all be deleted for any of the following activities in the course:

Connect Quiz
Connect Slideshow
Connect Meeting
Connect Recording
RT Video
Assignment
Standard (Moodle) Quiz
Questionnaire
SCORM

Note: if it is required to delete grades or reset completion status for activities or conditions not listed above, please contact Refined Data Support.

Expiry Reminders:

Refined Reminders can also be created and scheduled for delivery a set period of time before and/or after the certificate expiry. These reminders can be used as a reminder for learners that their certificate is about to expire or as a follow up once it already has expired.

See Certificate Reminders for instructions on setting your reminders and using the [[expire]] tag for learners to auto-expire their certificate right from the reminder email, then be directed to the course page to re-take the course.

Re-certification

Administrators first need to ensure that Re-certification is enabled at the site level by going to: Site administration>>>> Plugins>>>> Activity modules>>> Certificate:

There are two settings for Re-certification:

Re-certification – the default is no; click on the box to enable it.
Reminder ID – select the reminder message you wish to have the LMS send to the learner, if they schedule themselves a reminder. This reminder is distinct from the certificate expiry reminder; when a learner acquires a certificate where Re-certification is enabled, they have the option to schedule a reminder at a specified time to support them in managing their re-certification. See section below: Using the Re-certification option for a Certificate

Creating the Certificate Expiry and / or Re-certification Reminders

Go to Browse Reminders:

Click on Add reminder:

There are several fields that you must put content into:

Message ID – a distinctive name that you will select for the certificate settings
Subject – The subject that will alert users as to what the message is about
Body – Whether you are creating the Certificate Expiry notification or Re-certification reminder, you can customize your message to provide your learners with the information they need.
[[Expire]] Tag: The [[expire]] tag can be used in either scenario, providing Re-certification is enabled for the certificate, and will direct the learner to the Re-certification page:

This tag is especially useful for Re-certification where the learner controls when the certificate is expired and when they re-take the course. However, this tag can also be useful for the Certificate Expiry notification if you are scheduling a reminder prior to the expiry date and would like to provide the option for the learner to jump in and re-take the course earlier.

See the Creating Reminders article for more information about creating reminders.

You need to enable Add New to create the message:

Click on Save changes. This Message ID will now appear in the drop-down menu in the Certificates settings. (How this reminder is used is explained below.)

Enabling Re-certification for a Certificate

Re-certification is ensured by settings in the certificate creation/update page for a course that needs to be repeated. Once Re-certification is enabled for the site, you can enable it for a certificate. When you create or edit a certificate, go to Expiry Options>>> Re-certification and select Yes. Also select Yes for Delete Grades:

	The grades must be deleted in order for a new grade to be issued. If delete grades is set to no be user will not be required to complete any activities before accessing the certificate.

The Re-certification setting at the course level reflects the setting at the system level. When re-certification is turned to off at the system level, users are unable to expire their certificates at the course level. Administrators have the ability to change the re-certification option at the course level for specific courses.

For example, if re-certification is turned off at the system level, the default option at the course level is also set to off. The re-certificate icon is disabled for end users in My certificate.

If re-certification is turned on at the system level, the default option at the course level is also set to on. The re-certificate icon is enabled for end users in My certificate.

Be sure to Save and return to course.

Using the Re-certification option for a Certificate

When a user successfully completes the course and retrieves their certificate, they will see two buttons: Review your certificate and Schedule Re-certification:

Clicking on Review your certificate prompts the LMS to issue the certificate to the user based on your issue settings and the certificate is added to the user’s My Certificates list. Clicking on Schedule Re-certification brings up the Re-certification page:

f the user is due to re-certify, they can click on the Re-certify NOW link. When the user clicks on that, a screen pops up to confirm: Are you sure you want to delete your grades for this course and re-certify?

If the user clicks Yes, their existing grades in the course are deleted and their existing certificate is Expired. They are then redirected to the course page where they take the course newly for their re-certification.

If the user clicks No, they are redirected to the Schedule Re-certification screen.

The expired certificate appears in their My Certificates list with the word EXPIRED in place of the date earned:

	When the user clicks on the curved blue arrow next to valid certificates in the My Certificates list, the LMS takes them to the Re-certification screen. The blue arrow appears next to only those certificates that have Re-certification enabled.

If the user wishes to re-certify at a different time, they select the date to re-certify in the Re-certification Date field and then click on Schedule Re-certification. They are redirected to the course and on the designated date, the LMS will email them the reminder selected under the Certificate settings (see the Set up section above). When they click on the message link with the Expire tag, they will be taken to the Re-certification screen.

Expiration of certificates by Administrators

An administrator can expire a certificate. The administrator does this by going to any report that displays certificates: front page Certificate Report, Flexible Certificate Report or Flexible Team - User Certificate Report (if the administrator is also a Manager in the system). If an administrator clicks on the red X next to a certificate in these reports, the certificate is expired and the user's grades are deleted; no message is sent to the user:

In the Flexible Team report, the administrator first has to click on the certificate icon, which redirects to the user’s list of certificates, and then the administrator can click on the red X to expire the certificate:

Reporting on Expired Certificates

An administrator can easily search and report on certificates that have expired. Expired Certificates are listed at the bottom of the list of certificates in the front page Certificate Reportand the Flexible Certificate / Completion Report as well as the user’s My Certificates listing, accessed through the Flexible Team - User Certificate Report. In the Flexible Certificate / Completion Report, an administrator can filter for expired certificates. In addition to whatever other filters are required, the administrator adds the expired filter by clicking on the box next to the option Expired:

Display or Download as needed. (The Expires Between options is used for certificates that are set to expire by a course creator not certificates that are manually expired by an administrator or scheduled to be expired by a user when they want to re-certify.)

IT Client Support

Certificate Expiry & Re-certification