Best Practices: Choosing the Enrollment Method that’s Right for You!

By Janelle Giseke, Moodlerooms Senior Trainer

Sometimes as course designers, we put all our efforts into building stellar content, and fail to think about how students are going to take advantage of the course. Determining the best option for enrollment into your course will lessen administrative work time, and allow you more time to focus on course facilitation. 

Accessing the choices you have for enrollments is easy! All you have to do is navigate to the Settings block, and head to Course Administration > Users > Enrollment methods. This area of Course administration allows an instructor or site administrator to choose applicable enrollment methods, or create individualized enrollment instances with specific guidelines.  All enrollment options are available to utilize individually or simultaneously to work with every organizations enrollment needs. It’s important to note that some enrollment instances are not available by default and may need to be turned on by a site administrator if you don’t see them available in the course. In today’s blog, we want to take a look at several of the most popular enrollment methods including how you would use it, and why it might be the right enrollment method for you!  

Manual Enrollments

What are manual enrollments?

The Manual enrollment method allows for selective enrollments, per user, created by the site administrator or course instructor. 

Why would I use it?

Institution A has created a new employee course where a few number of users are enrolled into a course each month. Since the enrollment is small and sporadic the site administrator has decided to manually enroll participants on an individual basis. 

How do I configure manual enrollments?

1. Decide the default options for role and enrollment creation in the Manual enrollment settings.
2. Select Enrolled users from the settings block, then click Enrol users to choose users to enroll in the course.
3. The default user role and enrollment duration are listed in the settings pop up window, but can be altered as needed.

Note: If choosing to use group enrollment keys set Allow self enrollments and Use group enrollment keys to Yes. Enter an enrollment key in the self enrollment settings to block users from enrolling accidentally in the course. Use group key, created in the group area, to send to the users to enter as their enrollment key when they self enroll.

Self Enrollments 

What are self enrollments?

The Self enrollment method allows users with the proper credentials to enroll themselves into courses of their choosing, at a time of their choosing. 

Why would I use it?

Organization B has multiple types of users that enroll in their courses and would like to control the duration of enrollment and user role type. For these reasons they have chosen to use the self enrollment method and give out the corresponding keys to each user to self enroll in the course.

How do I configure self enrollments?

1. Create one or many self-enrollment instances per course, allowing for either the same settings for every instance (one user type) or different settings for multiple instances (multiple user types). 
2. Customize enrollment settings.
3. Send enrollment keys to participants for self enrollment.

Note: If choosing to use group enrollment keys set Allow self enrollments and Use group enrollment keys to Yes. Enter an enrollment key in the self enrollment settings to block users from enrolling accidentally in the course. Use group key, created in the group area, to send to the users to enter as their enrollment key when they self enroll.

PayPal

What are PayPal enrollments?

The PayPal enrollment method allows users to complete a payment authorization through PayPal to gain entry into a course.

Why would I use it?

Academy C requires payment for enrollment in their courses and would like to remove administrative overhead costs. By setting up a PayPal account and enrollment method they allow participants to enroll in their courses once the payment has been completed. 

How do I configure self enrollments?

1. Create a PayPal account.
2. Configure PayPal settings at the site level.
3. Create a PayPal enrollment instance by determining the settings at the course level.

Cohort-Sync

What are Cohort-sync enrollments?

A site administrator can create a cohort (or group of users) and then that group can be enrolled into a course with one click by selecting the cohort you want enrolled.

Why would I use it?

Foundation D has groups of new volunteers that must complete a series of courses. By creating a cohort, the volunteers can be quickly added to each course as an entire group all at once.

How do I configure cohort-sync enrollments?

1. Site administrators will first need to combine a group of users into a cohort. 
2. Select from the predetermined cohort groups to enroll the course from the Cohort-Sync enrollment method. 

Note: Site administrators must create cohorts unless the default settings for another role are altered.

If you are a site administrator wanting to learn more about enrollment options, consider enrolling in the Effective Site Administration online course. Alternatively, if you are an instructor wanting to learn more about enrollment enroll in the Course Building Fundamentals course.

~Janelle Gieseke