Managing the Certifications Service

The Certifications service helps track a student's progress towards certification in a particular area of study. As students complete courses and exam requirements, the Education Management administrator updates their Certifications record. When the Education Management administrator determines that a student has completed the required number of units and courses, the Certifications record is updated to show the student's new certification status. Certifications record track certification at the Requirement (i.e., Course) or Curriculum level.

The Certifications service focuses on identifying the certification status of an individual throughout their course of study. As an exam is completed, the student's Answer Sheets record is added to the student's Certifications record to track the student's completion status of the Course or Curriculum for certification. Because units are not used to identify when certification is completed, a Certification record is needed for each curriculum or course a student is enrolled. The Answer Sheets identify when a student has completed or passed a course, and is therefore linked to the Answer Sheets tab on the Certifications record. It is up to the Education Management administrators to add an answer sheet to the Certification record and to determine when a student has completed a curriculum or course of study. Then, once certified, a Certification can be linked to the student's Curriculum Applications record.

This topic covers the following sub-topics:

• Creating a Certifications Record
• Linking Answer Sheets to a Certification
• Linking Certifications to Curriculum Applications

Creating a Certifications Record

Follow these steps to add a new Certifications record to Aptify:

1. Open a new record from the Certifications service.
2. In the Type field, enter the type of certification the student is aiming to complete.
   • Options include Requirement (which corresponds to a Course), Curriculum, and External. An external certification type is for a course not offered in the organization's Education Management system but rather from a third party.
3. Enter the Student in the field provided. This field links to the person service.
4. Modify the Date Granted field, if necessary. This field defaults to the current date but you may want to clear out this field if the student has not attained certification yet.
5. In the Date Started field, enter the date when the student began the certification course or curriculum.
6. Enter the number of Units required to satisfy this certification in the field provided.
7. Enter a certification Title, if applicable. This corresponds to any particular name for the certification track the student is working to achieve.
8. In the Status field, enter the student's current status in the certification process. 
   • As the student moves to the next phase, update the field to reflect the current certification status. Options include: Declared, In-Progress, Granted, Cancelled, and Expired.
9. If the student has achieved certification, enter the date when the certification expires in the Date Expires field.
10. If the certification's Type is a Requirement, enter the applicable course in the Requirement field. This field links to the Courses service.
11. If the certification's Type is Curriculum, enter the applicable curriculum in the Curriculum field. This field links to the Curriculums service.
    
    
12. Click the Comments tab and enter any additional information as needed.
13. Link any applicable Answer Sheets for this student to the Certifications record on the Answer Sheets tab. See Linking Answer Sheets to a Certification for details.
14. Save and close the Certifications record.

Linking Answer Sheets to a Certification

The Answer Sheets tab on a Certifications record connects the student's Answer Sheets records to the student's Certification information. Each Answer Sheet added to the student's Certifications record represents the course exam or certification exam the student has completed.

Follow these steps to add an answer sheet to a certification:

1. Open the student's certification record.
2. Click the Answer Sheets tab.
3. Open a new Answer Sheets sub-type record.
4. Enter an Answer Sheet in the field provided. This field links to the Answer Sheets service.
5. Enter the date the Answer Sheets record was added to the Certifications record.
6. Optionally, you may enter any comments about the certification record for this person.
   
   
7. Click OK to save and close the record.
8. Add additional Answer Sheets as needed.

Linking Certifications to Curriculum Applications

As a student attains certification in an area of study, the Education Management administrator links the student's Certifications records to his or her Curriculum Application.

Follow these steps to update a student's Curriculum Application with certification information:

1. Open the student's Curriculum Applications record.
   • See Creating Curriculum Applications for information on the Curriculum Applications service.
2. Click the Certifications tab.
3. Right-click in the gray area and select New from the pop-up menu to open a Certifications sub-type record.
4. Enter the student's Certification in the field provided. This links to the Certifications service.
5. Enter any additional information about this certification in the Comments field. 
   
   
6. Click OK to save and close the record.
7. Add additional certifications as necessary.
8. Save and close the Curriculum Applications record.

Related topic

Using the Certificate Print Wizard