Overview
If you are new to Synap, start here for a quick overview of our main features and the key concepts you need to know.
Accessing your Synap Portal
You can access your Synap portal via the unique URL that was created when you signed up. This will look something like https://mycompany.synap.ac. If you have forgotten your URL, or your login details then please refer to the Welcome email you received when you signed up. Alternatively, you can fill in this form to receive a reminder email.
Synap works on any modern browser, but we generally recommend using Chrome for the best experience.
Requesting Help & Onboarding
If you are reading this, then you have already found our Academy which is where you'll find lots of helpful information about setting up exams, inviting users and much more.
There are a number of other ways which we can help:
Onboarding Calls: We strongly recommend booking a (free!) Onboarding call with our team. This helps us to understand your use case better, so that we can recommend best practices and help to set-up your portal to get the most value out of our features. You can book an onboarding call via the Chat widget, and should also have emails from us with a link to your onboarding manager's calendar.
Chat Support: All Admins on your portal are connected to our chat support system, which appears as a small blue button in the bottom right hand corner of your screen. This is the best way to get in touch with any questions. The chat service is not live 24/7, but outside of office hours you can leave a message and someone will get back to you as soon as possible, usually within a day. Any replies will be sent to your email so you do not need wait online to receive a reply. Please leave as much detail as you can in any messages.
Documentation: The page you're on now! You can access this documentation directly from https://academy.synap.ac, or by clicking on the Question Mark (?) icon on the left hand menu of your Synap Portal. On most pages on your Synap Portal, you will find a link to the relevant documentation page in the top right hand corner of the screen.
Key Concepts
When you first login, you will see a number of different options and it might seem a little overwhelming! This is one reason why we strongly recommend booking in an onboarding call as soon as possible - our team can help to explain the various features that are most relevant to your use case.
If you are a new Synap customer and want to poke around right away, then the key things you need to know are:
1. Study Mode - View Synap as a Student
When logged in as an Admin, by default you will be viewing the platform in "Admin Mode" where you can administer the site, create content and invite new users. You can preview the site as a Student by toggling "Study Mode" on. To do this, click on the profile icon in the bottom left of the screen, and then click the 'Study Mode' toggle.
2. Your Library, Assignments, Collections and Exams
Synap supports a wide range of different assessment types and there are a number of different pages available for creating, managing and assigning them. The key things to bear in mind when you are just getting started are:
Your Library page is where you can view, create and edit your Content. This includes Tests, Notes, Documents, SCORM files, Surveys and much more.
Library Content serves as your internal 'repository' of content - it is not directly available to students.
Content is assigned to students via a particular assessment module, such as an Exam, Assignment or a Collection.
The different assessment modules available on Synap are:
Exams: Take questions from one or more Tests, and let you add scheduling, assignment and marking rules. Designed to be taken in one sitting
Assignments: Take a Course, which is a structured sequence of different library items, which students then progress through in a linear manner. Designed to be taken in one, or across multiple sittings
Collections: Take a range of Notes, Tests or Documents, and can be accessed by students in a very flexible way. Designed to be taken at the student's own pace
In practice, what this means is that if you want to create an Exam, then you should create your Test(s) first. If you want to make an Assignment, then you should make your Course and it's associated content first.
Look for preview buttons on content in the top right to view quizzes, collections and courses as a student without having to go into study mode and set access
The reason Synap is structured like this is that it creates a clear distinction between your underlying Content, and then the rules and schedules you use to assign it to students. Trust us, it makes things a lot easier in the long run!
3. Granting Access to Students
In Synap, you assign Assessments (Exams, Assignments & Collections) to User Groups. A User Group is, as the name implies, a group containing a certain number of users.
How you set up your User Groups is completely up to you and depends on your use case.User Groups can be assigned one or many different assessments.
Creating a User Group is very easy - you just navigate to the User Groups page from the left hand menu. On that page you will see a number of default groups (Admins, Students & Educators) which are created automatically. We recommend creating your own group(s) and assigning assessments to them, rather than assigning it to the default groups.
Planning & Initial Set Up
Synap is being used by businesses and institutions all over the world to deliver, exams, training and courses to thousands of students. There are so many different things you can do with the platform so it's important to have a plan. We recommend the following steps for getting started:
Portal settings Decisions around portal registration methods, branding, page access and the overall look and feel of the portal.
Content Whether it's quizzes, questions & tags or other learning materials, content always takes the most time. Get started with creating or moving your content first. During this process you should think about tagging questions and assigning facets to tags, This step is essential if you want to use the analytics system.
Users & access Decide how you want your platform to be organised, who is getting access to which content and if you'll be using educators to moderate groups. Also what sort of data you want to be attached to users using the custom attribute system. How will you be inviting / adding users to the portal? Will you be using zapier or other integrations?
Advanced content Think about how you want to deliver your content. Are your quizzes going to be used in exams or collections? What are the rules around finishing an assignment? Will users have access to this content forever? What analytics do your users have access to?
Automations & more Once you've done and tested all of the above, maybe it's time to automate some of your day to day portal tasks. What can be automated via zapier or the API? How can I scale this process?
📣 Remember - your onboarding manager is here to help you and talk about all of the above!
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