STUDENT MATERIALS PURCHASED VALIDATION

Student Materials Purchased Validation is a feature of the Instructional Support System that verifies that students have purchased their course materials before they are allowed to work in the lessons. 

How it works

• Campuses who want to verify that materials have been purchased must turn on the Validation Options (see “Setting Student Materials Purchased Validation” below).

• Once this option is turned on, the next time a student logs on and launches a lesson, the student will be asked to enter the Validation Serial Number that came with his or her course materials.

• If the serial number is valid, he or she will be allowed to continue with the coursework. The student is marked as validated in the system and will not be asked to enter serial number again.

• If the serial number is not accepted because it is invalid or because it has already been used, or if the student does not have a serial number, the student will not be allowed to continue.  If you desire, you can manually override the validation process and allow the student to work (see “Manually Overriding Student Materials Purchased Validation” below). 

Turning On Student Materials Purchased Validation

You can control whether or not to verify that students have purchased their course materials by setting the Student Materials Purchased Validation option.  This option enables you to allow students to work in their courses with or without verifying that student materials have been purchased.

After the Validation option is turned on, the first time students launch a lesson they will be asked to validate that they have purchased their course materials. If the Validation option is then turned off, students who did not launch a lesson while it was active will not be asked to validate that they have purchased their materials.

 If a button or menu item used in the steps below appears gray and is inactive, then one of the following is true:

• You have not completed all of the preceding steps, so the button is not yet active.
• You have not been assigned Instructional Support System privileges to perform the function.
• You do not yet have courses and sections assigned to you, so that function is not applicable.

To Set Student Materials Purchased Validation

1. Click System Options at the left side of the screen.

2. On the System Options screen, click Set Student Materials Purchased Validation.

3. In the Student Materials Purchased Validation dialog box, click the button next to “Allow students to work in their courses without verifying that student materials have been purchased” item to allow students to work without verifying that their materials have been purchased.  Click the button next to the “Verify that student materials have been purchased before allowing students to proceed with their coursework” item to verify that students have purchased their course materials before they can do the coursework.

 The standard setting is to allow students to work in their courses without verifying that student materials have been purchased.

 Once validation is turned on, students in all courses will be required to validation that they have purchased materials.

4. When you finish setting the student materials purchased validation option, click OK.

 If you change your mind and do not want to alter the student materials purchased validation option, you can click Cancel at any time.  This will keep the option shown when you first opened the Student Materials Purchased Validation dialog box.

Manually Overriding Student Materials Purchased Validation

If a student does not have his or her Validation Serial Number, or has a serial number that is invalid or used, you can manually override the validation process and allow the student to work.  Once you do this, the student will be able to work online and will not be asked for the Validation Serial Number again.

 An instructor must have override privileges in order to perform a manual override.

To Manually Override Student Materials Purchased Validation

1. At the Enter Validation Serial Number dialog box, click Instructor Override.

   If the Used Serial Number dialog box, Incorrect Serial Number dialog box, or Invalid Serial Number dialog box is displayed, click OK to return to the Enter Validation Serial Number dialog box.

2. In the Validation Override dialog box, enter your log-on name in the Instructor Log-On Name box.

3. Enter your password in the Instructor Password box. Click OK.

4. In the Override Complete dialog box, click OK.  The student for which you are manually overriding validation is marked as validated and is allowed to proceed with their coursework.

 Only instructors with the override privileges and valid log-on names and passwords can override this validation process.

Setting User Privileges for Student Materials Purchased Validation

There are two Student Materials Purchased Validation user privileges. One controls whether or not each user type is allowed to turn student materials purchased validation on or off, and the other controls whether or not each user type is allowed to override the validation process.  If access is denied, users of that type will not be able to perform the function; instead the button corresponding to the function will appear gray and be inactive.

   If a button or menu item used in the steps below appears gray and is inactive, then one of the following is true:

• You have not completed all of the preceding steps, so the button is not yet active.
• You have not been assigned Instructional Support System privileges to perform the function.
• You do not yet have courses and sections assigned to you, so that function is not applicable.

To Set System Options User Privileges

1. Click System Options at the left side of the screen.

2. On the System Options menu screen, click Define User Privileges and Access Rights.

3. On the Define User Privileges and Access Rights screen, select a user type from the User Types list.

4. Click System Options…

5. In the System Options Functions dialog box, check the box next to “Set student materials purchased validation” item to allow staff members of the selected user type to set whether or not student materials purchased validation occurs.  If this item is not checked, staff members of the selected user type will be unable to perform this function.  Also, the Set Student Materials Purchased Validation item on their System Options menu screens will appear gray and be inactive.

6. Check the box next to “Can override student validation” item to allow staff members of the selected user type to override the student validation process.  If this item is not checked, staff members of the selected user type will be unable to perform this function.

7. When you finish setting the system options user privileges, click OK.

If you change your mind and do not want to alter these user privileges, you can click Cancel at any time.  This will keep the privileges shown when you first opened the System Options Functions dialog box.

    If no items in the System Options Functions dialog box are checked, staff members of the selected user type will be unable to perform any system options functions, and the System Options button at the left side of their screens will appear gray and be inactive.

Student Materials Purchased Validation Dialogs

One or more of the dialog boxes described below may be shown as part of the validation procedure.

Enter Validation Serial Number

The following dialog box is displayed when students attempt to launch a lesson for the first time after the Student Materials Validation has been activated. This is the main Student Materials Purchased Validation dialog box seen by students.

Students should enter their Validation Serial Number in the text entry boxes then click OK. If the serial number is valid the dialog box will close and work in the lesson can begin.

Used Validation Serial Number

The following dialog box is displayed when the serial number entered by the student has already been used. Serial numbers are stored in the Instructional Support System database indefinitely; they are not deleted when the student or the student’s course/section is deleted.

Invalid Validation Serial Number –Incorrect Number

The following dialog box is displayed when the serial number entered by the student is invalid.

Invalid Validation Serial Number – Entered Incorrectly

The following dialog box is displayed when the serial number is entered incorrectly, e.g. not enough numbers were entered or an alphabetic character was entered.