Subject Outlines
19 — Subject Outlines
🔒 Pro feature — requires Dantian Training Hub Pro.
A Subject Outline (or Subject Guide) is the document students are given at the start of a subject: what the subject covers, when the classes run, what they will be assessed on and when it is due.
The Subject Outline Generator builds that document from information you have already entered in the Timetable Planner and in your Tutor courses. You write the prose once — overview, learning outcomes, reading — and the dates, class times, topics and assessment due dates are filled in for you. When the timetable changes, the outline follows it until you release a version, and a released version never changes again.
Outlines are built after a planning year is released. Subject outlines are part of the Timetable Planner, so they need the planner module to be licensed and active (see 20 — Timetable Planner).
What an outline is
An outline is a publication, not one document per subject. You choose:
- the planning year, and
- which delivery streams it covers.
You can then narrow it further with the Audience filters: a cohort, a subgroup or a semester.
This is what lets one year produce several different documents from the same data. For example:
| Document | Streams chosen | Filter |
|---|---|---|
| Combined Year 1 guide | all Year 1 streams | — |
| Oriental Medicine Frameworks only | that one stream | — |
| Semester 1 guide | all Year 1 streams | Semester = 1 |
Each outline is approved and released on its own. They are never released as a set, so one subject being late does not hold up the rest.
Before you start
An outline cannot be generated until both of these are true:
- The planning year is released. Until then the sessions are still drafts. The tab says “Subject outlines are a post-release step. This year is … — release the timetable first so its dates and teachers are confirmed.”
- Every stream in the outline has a course allocated. The course supplies the description, the online modules and the assessment tasks. If any stream is missing one, the tab shows Not ready for outlines yet and lists the Streams with no course.
You will also want, before you invite anyone:
- a page containing
[dthub_planner_trainer_review], selected as the Trainer review page under Training Hub → Settings → Timetable Planner → Trainer review settings (the same page trainers use for timetable review); - units of competency attached to each subject, and a qualification on each course, so the document header is complete.
Creating an outline
- Go to Training Hub → Timetable Planner, open the released year, and choose the Subject outlines tab (in the Release group of tabs). The Outlines for this year table lists existing outlines with their Title, Streams, Audience, Status and whether they Write to courses.
- Click New outline and give it a Title — this is what appears on the document and in the course tab. Several outlines can cover the same subject, so the title is what tells them apart (for example “Oriental Medicine Frameworks — Short Course, Semester 1”).
- Under Delivery streams, tick every stream the document describes. Ticking two subjects’ streams produces one combined guide with a description for each.
- Optionally set the Audience filters — Any cohort, Any group (subgroup) and Any semester are the defaults. Filters narrow the classes and assessments inside the streams you picked.
- Administrators also see On release — Write the approved prose back into the linked courses. Leave it off (the default) for an audience variant; see Writing back to the course below.
- Click Create outline.
- Click Read the course descriptions in. This reads each stream’s course once to start the draft; nothing is written back. You can later use Re-read the course descriptions, which refreshes what a release will be compared against and never overwrites what you have written.
Filling in the content
The Content section lists every section of the document, grouped by subject, then by stream, then by assessment task. Click Save all content when you are done.
For each subject you can also name the Subject Coordinator and Clinical Practice Supervisor (Ctrl/Cmd-click to pick more than one). The list offers the people attached to the year — anyone teaching one of its classes. Leave a role empty if the outline does not name one.
Text you write is shared with any other outline covering the same subject. Write the overview for Oriental Medicine Frameworks once and every outline covering that subject uses it. If one document needs different wording, tick Only for this outline under that box and your change applies there alone.
Sections marked ✓ approved have been signed off already. Editing the text clears that approval, because an approval of wording that has since changed is not an approval.
What is filled in for you
You do not type any of this:
- Class dates, times, weeks and topics — from the planner’s sessions.
- Online modules — from the Tutor course.
- Assessment tasks, due dates and week numbers — from the planned assessments.
- Unit codes and titles — from the Units of Competency on the subject and course.
- Qualification, audience and semester — from the course and cohort.
- Formative activities — quizzes in the course that are not one of the assessed tasks.
Week numbers come from the Timetable Planner’s own week calculation, so the outline and the printed timetable always agree.
Assessment detail
The detail for each task — task number, type, context, purpose, conditions, submission requirements and the marking guide — is best written on the assessment itself, in the Tutor course builder, where the author already is. It appears both in the outline and to students on the task, under About this assessment.
Anything written on the task wins. Anything left blank there falls back to what you type in the outline’s Assessment tasks section. Where the LMS offers no screen for this detail, the outline tab says so and the outline is its home.
Type, conditions and submission requirements are chosen from lists you manage under Training Hub → Settings → Assignments → Subject outline — assessment banks:
- Types of assessment — one per line; these are the choices in the Type of Assessment dropdown on an assignment.
- Assessment conditions bank and Submission requirements bank — each entry starts with its name on the first line, followed by the wording; separate entries with a line containing only three dashes.
The banks come pre-filled with suggested wording (for example In class, supervised, Open book, Via the Learning Management System). An assignment picks an entry; its own field overrides the entry only when it has content.
Order the tasks by entering a task number (1, 2, 3, or 1a, 1b) on each assessment. The outline orders tasks by that number, not by date. Tasks with no number are listed last.
The marking guide is a blank copy of the rubric the work is actually graded against, generated as a PDF. You do not transcribe or link it by hand, so it cannot describe a different rubric from the one used for marking. Students can open it before they submit, from the Download the marking rubric link on the task.
Cancelled assessment tasks are left out of the document, so students are never told to submit work that has been withdrawn.
The review round
Review happens in two stages, in order:
- Review — the subject coordinator, and optionally one or two trainers.
- Sign-off — opens only once every stage 1 reviewer has approved.
Reviewers comment and suggest. They never write to your courses, and they cannot release.
A review round is optional. You can release an outline with nobody reviewing it, but once a round is started it must finish.
Choosing reviewers
Under Who reviews this outline?, pick the people for Review — the coordinator, and up to a couple of trainers and Sign-off — after every reviewer has approved, then click Save reviewers. The lists offer the people attached to the year.
Saving nominations does not email anyone. Nominating someone only records that they are a reviewer; you decide when the outline is actually ready to be read.
Inviting them
- In Email reviewers, under Who to email, tick who to email.
- Add A note to include (optional) — it appears in the email above the link.
- Click Email selected reviewers.
The invitation’s subject is “Subject outline ready for your review — [title]” (or “… ready for sign-off — [title]” for stage 2). It explains what to do and carries an Open the outline button.
The Review status table then shows each reviewer’s stage, when they were Emailed, whether they have opened it, their note and sign-off state. Someone who has already approved cannot be emailed again, and sign-off reviewers cannot be invited until review is complete — their checkbox stays disabled until then. Anyone emailed before is marked (emailed before — tick to send again).
Set the review page first. Reviewers work on the front end, on the page set as Trainer review page in Settings → Timetable Planner. If no page is set, sending is refused rather than emailing a broken link. That page needs the
[dthub_planner_trainer_review]shortcode on it.
What the reviewer does
Reviewers do not need access to the WordPress admin area. The email links them to the review page, where they log in and see:
- every section of the outline, in document order;
- a Download the draft PDF button, to read it as students will see it;
- a Comment or suggest a change box under each section, with a Comment field and Suggested replacement text (optional), and a Send button;
- at the bottom, Approve (or Sign off for a sign-off reviewer) or Hand back for revision, with an optional Anything to note? box.
When suggesting a change, the box is pre-filled with the current wording so they can edit it rather than retype it.
If someone is reviewing more than one outline, the review page lists them all under Subject outlines for your review, each marked awaiting your review, awaiting your sign-off or you have approved this.
Acting on feedback
Comments appear under Review on the outline, beside the section they were written about.
- Adopt this text puts a suggested rewrite straight into the document. Adopting is an administrator action.
- Close with a reply closes it with a note back.
If the section has been edited since the comment was written, it is flagged “⚠ that section has changed since this was written” and cannot be adopted — the suggestion was written against different wording.
Hand back clears that round’s approvals and returns the outline for revision.
Releasing
A release freezes the document. The released version replays the snapshot taken at release and never re-resolves, so a guide issued as v1.0 still prints exactly as issued after the timetable moves on.
-
Check Before this can be published. It sorts findings into Must be fixed, Missing content, Worth checking and For information — nothing to fix. Only Must be fixed stops a release; an outline with blanks is still publishable, so leave out what does not apply.
-
Optionally click Download the current draft to see the document exactly as it stands.
-
Under Release a version, choose What kind of change is this?:
- Minor — a date, deadline, requirement or outcome changed (1.0 → 1.1)
- Patch — wording or formatting only (1.1 → 1.1.1)
- Major — a new year or a rewrite (1.1 → 2.0)
The first release is v1.0 whichever you pick.
-
Fill in What changed? (required — it is the changelog entry the release is remembered by), for example “Task 2b moved to week 17”.
-
Click Release version and confirm.
A release is refused while a review round is still open: “This outline is still with its reviewers: … Release once they have approved, or remove them from the round.” Releasing is an administrator action.
The Release history table lists each Version, when it was Released, By whom, and a Download link for its document; the newest is marked current.
Where the PDF goes
The released PDF is stored in Training Hub’s secure file storage, not the public Media Library, and served only to people entitled to it — staff with Training Hub access always, students while they are enrolled in a course the outline covers. It cannot be reached by guessing a URL.
Released outlines appear as a Subject Outline tab on the Tutor course, which works on Tutor Free as well as Pro. A new release replaces the previous version on the courses.
Writing back to the course
If an administrator ticks Write the approved prose back into the linked courses on the outline’s settings, the release also copies content into the course’s own fields — description, learning outcomes, materials and requirements.
Before releasing, What releasing will change in the LMS shows a Pre-write diff (Course, Field, What happens). If a field has been edited in the LMS since the outline last wrote it, that change is reported as drift and left alone — your edit in the course is never silently overwritten. Reconcile those by hand.
If two outlines both write to the same course and their text differs, releasing is refused until you turn write-forward off on one of them or make the sections agree.
Settings used by outlines
| Setting | Where | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Trainer review page | Settings → Timetable Planner → Trainer review settings | Where reviewers read and comment |
| Types of assessment / conditions / submission requirements banks | Settings → Assignments → Subject outline — assessment banks | The dropdown lists on each assessment |
| Units of Competency (code + title) | Settings → Course Details | Unit codes and titles on the document |
| PDF Business Name, PDF Logo | Settings → Pages & Reports → PDF Reports | Document branding |
| Subject colour | Settings → Timetable Planner → Subjects | The colour of that subject’s table headers |
The outline takes the qualification from the course and the cohort year from the planner. There is deliberately no site-wide default for either: a document that cannot name them prints neither, rather than printing something confidently wrong.
Permissions
| Who | Can do |
|---|---|
| Administrators | Everything: open the Timetable Planner and the Subject outlines tab, create and edit outlines, nominate and email reviewers, adopt suggestions, turn on write-forward, release versions and delete outlines. |
| Reviewers (nominated users) | Open the outline on the Trainer review page while logged in, download the draft PDF, comment, suggest replacement text, approve or sign off, and hand back. They never need wp-admin and cannot release. |
| Students | Download the released PDF from the Subject Outline tab on a course they are enrolled in. They never see drafts or comments. |
The Timetable Planner menu is limited to administrators, so in practice the Subject outlines tab is administrator work. Releasing, adopting suggestions, write-forward and deleting are always administrator-only.
Data and privacy
- Stored: each outline’s settings, the content you write, subject role assignments, reviewer nominations, review decisions and notes, comments and suggestions, and each released version’s frozen snapshot and PDF.
- Export: a reviewer’s subject-outline reviews and comments are included in Tools → Export Personal Data under the Pro section.
- Erasure: an erasure request removes the person’s own reviews and comments, and their subject role assignments. Where they only replied to someone else’s comment, the comment stays and just their reply is cleared.
- Uninstall: planner data, including outlines, is kept when Pro is uninstalled unless the Pro opt-in to permanently delete all Pro data is ticked. See 28 — Permissions, Privacy and Maintenance and 29 — Licensing and Updates.
Troubleshooting
“Choose a Trainer Review page in the Timetable Planner settings first”
No Trainer review page is set in the Timetable Planner settings, so there is nowhere to send reviewers. Set one, with the [dthub_planner_trainer_review] shortcode on it.
A reviewer says they cannot see the outline They must be logged in, and nominated on that outline. The page tells them which of the two is wrong (“Please log in to review this outline.” or “You are not a reviewer for this outline. If you think you should be, contact the coordinator.”).
The reviewer checkbox is greyed out Either they have already approved, or they are a sign-off reviewer and review is not finished yet.
A section says “Not written yet” No text has been entered for it, and the course has nothing to supply. Write it in the Content section.
An assessment task is missing from the document Check that it is not cancelled, that its stream is one the outline covers, and that it is not excluded by a cohort, subgroup or semester filter.
The qualification or unit title is blank The qualification comes from the course; the unit title comes from the Units of Competency term’s description. Fill in whichever is empty.
“Write a note saying what changed” The What changed? box is required for every release. Enter a short changelog note and release again.
“This outline is still with its reviewers” Someone nominated for the round has not approved. Wait for them, or remove them under Who reviews this outline? and save.
A released outline has not changed after I edited it That is intended. A released version is frozen. Release a new version to publish changes.