Using E-Signatures in Axis LMS
In certain circumstances, you may want or need to add in a way to collect an electronic signature from your users during their participation inside of an online course. This is especially important if you are required to follow the 21 CFR Part 11 FDA Regulation.
This article will discuss using the built-in e-signature functionality, but for more sophisticated and fully-featured e-signatures, you may want to look into one of the many services that specialize in e-signatures and offer all the bells and whistles that come along with it. If you go that route, you will want to make sure that the service can be embedded (it needs to have an embed code) to use it inside Axis LMS.
Add an E-Signature Document to Your Online Course
Adding an E-signature document is as simple as adding pretty much any other kind of content to your online course.
1. Navigate to the Course Builder area for your course
2. Click the CREATE tab
3. Scroll down, locate, and click the 'Add an E-sign Document' option
This will bring up a dialog where you can enter in the contents for the document and a title. Ultimately this will wind up as a piece of content you can position in your course. You can place it wherever you choose. You can also optionally require users to authenticate themselves prior to applying their signature.
One additional thing you may want to do is prevent users from moving on through the course until they have signed the document. This can be done using Page/Section rules. You essentially place content you do not want to be shown/revealed until after the user has signed the document into a separate section, and then apply a rule to the section (do not show this section unless e-sign document has been signed). You can get specific instructions for each e-sign document by clicking the menu button next to the e-sign document from inside Course Builder, then EDIT. Along the bottom of the edit dialog, it will reveal instructions for you.
What the User Will See
When a user is inside the course, the will see the E-sign document as a line item they need to open and sign. Once they open it, the document will be shown. They will need to scroll to the bottom where the will be able to click to apply their signature:
When a user is inside the course, the will see the E-sign document as a line item they need to open and sign. Once they open it, the document will be shown. They will need to scroll to the bottom where the will be able to click to apply their signature:
Once they have signed it, they will not be able to re-sign it.
Reporting/Auditing
You can view all signed documents by going to an individual users' dashboards, and clicking the E-signatures tile in the reports area. The user's signature, IP address, and the time/date is recorded and stored for each electronic signature.