A course is web-based instructional content delivered to you on your computer. During a course, you practise and are assessed on your mastery of the skills and knowledge learned in the course.

The following types of courses are examples of what may be available in your Library:

• Business Skills
• Certifications
• Compliance
• Desktop Skills
• IT Skills
• Analyst Research
• Engineering
• Well-being
• Live Learning
• Instructor-Led Training (ILT)

A SkillSim (Skillsoft simulation) is a technology-enabled simulation that puts you in an authentic business or professional situation.

You play a major role in a variety of simulated interactions where your decisions have a direct impact on the course of events and result in realistic consequences. The SkillSim is designed to help you practise or assess your mastery of skills and knowledge learned in a series of Skillsoft courses. As you progress through a series of scenes, you will receive feedback on your performance. To assist you, the simulation incorporates links to context-sensitive Skillsoft course material.

A series is a container of specifically-ordered assets used to group related assets together (for example, to obtain a certification). Series cannot have subsets.

 

Instructor Led Training (ILT) courses are scheduled courses that you attend at a specific time. An ILT course can have one or more sessions, which are scheduled instances of the course. There are 2 types of ILT sessions:

• ILT physical sessions: These sessions are held at physical locations, for example, a classroom or conference room.
• ILT virtual sessions: These sessions are delivered online via web conferencing applications.

You can enrol yourself in an ILT session, or your manager or training administrator can enrol you. Depending on the configuration of your site, your manager may need to approve the enrolment if you enrol yourself. If your manager enrols you, you are notified by email of the location, duration, time, and date of the scheduled session.

If sessions of a course are currently unavailable (that is, there are no scheduled sessions or all scheduled sessions are full), you can add an ILT course to your watchlist in order to be notified when a new session is scheduled.

Live Learning courses are a derivative of traditional, instructor-led technical training. Instead of gathering students in a physical location, lectures are delivered to participants with streaming audio, video presentations and application sharing over the Internet. Lectures are also available as recordings for on-demand viewing. Live Learning courses are hosted and delivered as a collection of launchables; once you enrol in a Live Learning course, all of its assets become available to you on the course summary page.

Note: If you have difficulty printing a Live Learning student guide, refer to the Live Learning troubleshooting topic for assistance.

Certain collections of books have audio editions available for download in MP3 format.

Business Exploration Series courses (Business Impact Series and Challenges) provide learners with engaging, visually rich, scenario-based learning that enables them to experience real world situations in safe, exploratory environments. These learning assets use video and Flash to make the learning experience engaging and authentic.

Express guides are electronically-delivered equivalents of the student guides that IT professionals receive when they attend instructor-led training classes. They consist primarily of text and graphics and do not contain interactive practise questions or assessments.

Job aids are standalone documents that support the transfer of knowledge and skills from courses to the workplace. They are performance-support tools designed to be used on an ongoing basis, or around a specific work-focussed events, such as performance reviews, interviewing or strategic planning. Job aids are not dependent on course content.

If a job aid is available for a particular course, you can launch it from the course summary page.

Learning Sparks are innovative, instructional products, designed primarily for information technology subjects such as Cisco and IT Security. Learning Sparks make learning fun by engaging learners in highly interactive scenarios.

Practise labs are designed to help you practise and assess your current skill levels and maintain on-going expertise. An expert introduction provides you with insights and key pointers to the core skills practised in the lab. After the introduction, you work in a learning environment that replicates a real-world job situation, and you complete hands-on exercises designed to build a rounded aggregation of competencies and skills.

Projects give IT professionals the opportunity to test their skills in structured learning environments that reflect real-world situations. They consist of extensive programmes of unified, integrated projects that challenge developers to solve practical business problems, and they foster the acquisition of core programming skills.

Use a hosted IDE or Microsoft Visual Studio to build a robust business application by completing a series of coding projects. Skillsoft's innovative code judging application can evaluate your solutions, provide targeted feedback, and pinpoint helpful reference materials.

SkillBriefs are single-page, condensed summaries of the instructional content of a course topic. Use SkillBriefs as an instant reference after you have completed a course.

If a SkillBrief is available for a particular course, you can launch it from the course summary page.

Mentoring provides a convenient way of accessing the Ask My Mentor feature for a particular course or certification path. Mentoring assets map to specific certification exams, and, therefore, they appear in the Library beneath applicable exams in a certification-related curricula folder.

You can access mentoring support by clicking in one of the following locations:

• A course summary page that has a related mentoring offering. Browse the certification-related categories in the Library, or use search.
• The objectives screen of a mentored exercise.

The Ask My Mentor page allows you to take advantage of three types of mentoring: live chats, questions and answers by email, and daily messages.

• Chat with a Mentor: If you have a quick question about a course or certification, your mentoring team can provide you with a quick answer. To enter a live chat with a mentor, click Chat with a Mentor.
• Email My Mentor: If you have a detailed question about a course or certification, your Mentoring Team can provide you with a detailed answer via email. To email a mentor, click Email My Mentor.
• Change Daily Email Options: You can receive daily email messages that contain questions and information relevant to the specific certification. To activate this feature and specify the frequency with which to receive messages, click Change Daily Email Options.

A learning programme is a collection of learning assets that are grouped together based on subject matter, target audience, a learning goal or some other organising principle. The learner’s completion of a programme (and its individual assets) can be tracked. Learning programmes can include required and elective assets; they can also have a defined structure, requiring learners to complete the assets in a prescribed order.

Live Events are scheduled live and interactive forums during which recognised thought leaders offer cutting edge thinking on a leadership topic. Live Events are recorded for viewing at a later date.

Videos covers a variety of business- and leadership-related themes. Videos include:

• Leadership QuickTalks
• CEO QuickTalks
• On-Demand versions of Live Events
• Live Video Events

SkillSoft Leadership Advantage (SLA) is a targeted leadership development programme comprised of a collection of learning assets that have been thoughtfully selected and organized by leadership experts.

Individual learning tracks offer a combination of new and existing SkillSoft and Books24x7 assets that combine multiple modes of instruction, including text, video, and interactive practice activities that are intended to keep the learning quick, easy, and engaging. Each track is designed to take no more than two hours to complete, although you can complete as much or as little of any track in one sitting as you wish.

A KnowledgeCenter™ is a pre-packaged, user-friendly learning portal that allows learners instant access to trusted, targeted content. Each KnowledgeCentre includes material selected by subject matter experts to help learners to build knowledge around a topic quickly and efficiently. KnowledgeCenter materials can include featured topics refreshed on a monthly basis, Books24x7 online books and reference materials, SkillSoft courses, Live Learning courses and related assets, SkillSims, practice labs, projects, and more.

TestPrep Exams are practise tests that help you prepare for a certification exam by testing your knowledge in a simulated certification testing environment. You can take a TestPrep exam in Study Mode (where you receive feedback after each question) or in Certification Mode (designed to mimic a certification exam).

Final Exams: These are final tests associated with a series of courses or learning path. Questions are drawn from all courses in the series to create an inclusive exam to test your knowledge of the subject matter. You demonstrate your competency with the associated courseware by successfully completing the final exam. In some cases, you must complete a final exam in order to earn college credits or to meet the requirements for professional-level certifications.

Some learning assets, such as courses and learning programmes, can have associated evaluation forms that allow you to provide feedback about your experience. In some cases, courses that you take as part of a credential require that you complete an evaluation in order to receive credit for the course.

If you complete an asset that has an associated evaluation, an evaluation is automatically added to the Assigned Learning tab of your learning plan. (Evaluations for learning programmes and Live Learning courses are only added after the entire programme or course is completed.) After you complete the evaluation, it is then automatically removed from your learning plan.

If the evaluation is optional, you do not have to complete it, and you can remove it from your learning plan at any time.

If the evaluation is required, you can only remove it from your learning plan by completing it. Each time you sign in to Skillport, you are reminded to complete the required evaluation.