At the beginning of 2021, we announced the merge of classroom courses and webinars into one entity, ILT (Instructor-Led Courses), as part of the Transition to the New Management of Classroom Courses and Webinars. This allowed for greater flexibility in the definition and management of both classroom and webinar courses (which was essential when the pandemic turned everything virtual!).
As a part of this transition plan, we announced the plan to deprecate the Web Conferencing widget in E-Learning courses on October 7, 2021.
This guide to help you understand why this change is happening and what you can do if you’re still using this widget to create new webinar sessions.
What is the Web Conferencing Widget?
The Web Conferencing Widget is a Course Widget that allows Superadmins and Power Users to create webinar sessions from E-Learning courses, and allows learners to access webinar sessions from E-Learning courses.
Admin view of Web Conferencing Widget
Learner view of Web Conferencing Widget
Why is this change happening?
This change is part of the first phase in the Webinar Courses Migration to VILT Courses that is to be completed with the January 2022 monthly release. This change prevents new sessions from being created with this widget as they will not be part of the migration. This is because their configuration is incomplete based on the comparison to the new way ILT sessions are managed.
What happens after this change?
Starting from October 7, users will no longer be able to create webinar sessions from the widget. Please note, any webinar session created prior to October 7 will still be available but they will not be part of the upcoming migration in January 2022 due to incompatibility. This also means that your learners will not be able to access webinar sessions from E-Learning courses.
What do I need to do?
If you haven’t already, stop creating sessions from the widget and start creating them from the Course Management area. For detailed help with this, refer to this Knowledge Base article, Creating and Managing ILT and VILT Sessions. We also suggest that you recreate any sessions planned after October 7 from the Course Management area as soon as possible.
I rely on delivering a combination of E-Learning and ILT courses for my learning program. What options do I have?
We realize that some customers have benefited from the Web Conferencing widget as it allowed them to benefit from the unique characteristics of E-Learning courses while also giving learners a way to join webinar sessions. Here are a few options to continue associating E-Learning and ILT courses with one another:
- Use Learning Plans
- Consider creating a Learning Plan that includes both E-Learning courses and ILT courses so that your learners can enroll in and access both
- Use the File Repository Area Widget to link to ILT courses from your E-Learning courses
- Did you know that the File Repository Area course widget supports links? Consider adding a link to your ILT course from an E-Learning course, or from an E-Learning course to an ILT course so that learners can easily discover the other courses you’d like them to complete
We’re curious, have you had a use case for the Web Conferencing widget? If so, what processes have you put in place for this transition?
If you need any further clarification or information, please let us know in the comments below!