17.5. Ending a Course

This topic describes how to complete several end-of-course tasks.

For more information, see the following other topics about certificates.

17.5.1. Sending a Farewell Message

As you prepare for the end of your course, you can send learners a course farewell email message.

17.5.2. Assigning Final Grades

To assign a final grade to each learner enrolled in a course, you generate grades after the course end date and time have passed. For more information, see Generate a Grade Report for All Learners in a Course.

The learner’s final grade and the grading configuration you set in Studio determine whether the learner has earned a certificate for the course.

17.5.3. Issuing Certificates

Note

Before you can issue certificates, the administrator for your instance of Open edX must configure the platform to allow course teams to generate and issue certificates. For more information, see Generate Certificates For a Course and Enabling Course Certificates in Installing, Configuring, and Running the Open edX Platform.

Studio automatically generates certificates for both self-paced courses and instructor-paced courses. When certificates become available, options for learners to view their certificates are available on the learner dashboard, the learner Profile page, and the course Progress page.

You can specify when you want to make certificates available.

  • For self-paced courses, by default, Studio generates certificates for learners when they have completed enough of the course, and with a high enough grade, to qualify for a certificate.

    If you want Studio to generate certificates only after learners have completed the course, you can disable this feature. For more information, see Allow Learners to Receive Early Certificates.

  • For instructor-paced courses, three options are available.

  • By default, certificates become available to learners 48 hours after your course end date. If you change your course end date, Studio automatically adjusts the date for certificates as well.
  • You can specify a different date to make certificates available. For more information, see Specify a Different Certificates Available Date.
  • You can allow learners to receive their certificates when they have completed enough of the course, and with a high enough grade, to qualify for a certificate. For more information, see Allow Learners to Receive Early Certificates.

17.5.3.1. Issue Certificates on a Specified Date

If you do not want Studio to generate certificates 48 hours after the course end date, you can specify the date when you want Studio to generate certificates. You can change this date at any time.

For more information about how to specify a day to issue certificates, see Specify a Different Certificates Available Date.

17.5.3.2. Allow Learners to Receive Early Certificates

To allow learners to receive certificates before the course end date or before they have completed the course, you use the Enable Student-Generated Certificates setting on the instructor dashboard.

Note

By default, self-paced courses issue certificates to learners as soon as learners have completed enough of the course, with a high enough grade, to earn a certificate. You do not have to change any settings.

  1. View the live version of your course.

  2. In the LMS, select Instructor, and then select Certificates.

  3. Select Enable Student-Generated Certificates.

    To prevent learners from receiving early certificates, select Disable Student-Generated Certificates.

17.5.3.2.1. Allow Learners to Download Early Certificates

To allow learners to download early certificates, you modify the Certificates Display Behavior advanced setting in Studio.

  1. In Studio, on the Settings menu, select Advanced Settings.
  2. On the Advanced Settings page, locate Certificates Display Behavior.
  3. In the Certificates Display Behavior field, enter "early_no_info". Be sure that you include the double quotation marks.
  4. Select Save Changes.