Create a New Skill

Each lesson needs at least one skill. These are the key abilities learners will develop throughout the lesson. Creating a skill provides meaningful benchmarks for the learner and makes it easier to test what they’ve learned.

In this article, you will learn how to:

Create a new skill
Use the skill editor
Write the concept card for a skill
Publish changes to a skill

—

How to Create a Skill

Select your profile picture in the top navigation menu, then select Topic and Skills Dashboard.
From the Topics and Skills Dashboard, select Create New Skill.
In the Create New Skill panel:
- Enter a description for the new skill under the New Skill Description text field.
- Under Review Material, enter a brief overview of what the skill is and how to use it.
  
  Tip
  
  For example, if the skill is identifying prime numbers, the review material might describe what qualifies a number as prime.
Select Save. This will open the Skill Editor, where you can add more information and refine the skill as needed.

Note

Once you select Save, the skill is created but not published. Use the Skill Editor to expand and refine what you’ve started before publishing.

—

Use the Skill Editor

The Skill Editor consists of five parts designed to help learners understand the skill and help question writers create effective content.

Skill Description

A short description of the skill learners will develop. This appears whenever the skill is referenced.

Review Material

A quick overview of the skill’s use and relevance.

Misconceptions

This section is used to write any misconceptions that learners may have about a skill. Topic managers and admins use these to create targeted feedback for common mistakes.

Rubrics

Brief descriptions of what an easy, medium, or hard question looks like for this skill. This helps question creators maintain consistent difficulty.

—

Write the Concept Card for a Skill

In Oppia, learners interact with a Concept Card when they need extra help. It consists of two sections:

Skill Description: The name/title of the skill.
Review materials: A brief overview of the skill and how to perform it.

Pro-Tip

When writing your concept card, think about what a learner might find confusing and how you would explain the skill to them directly.

—

Publish Changes to a Skill

After refining the skill in the editor, you must publish it to make it available for use.

To publish changes:

Open the Skill Editor for that skill.
Select Publish Changes in the navigation menu.
In the text field, describe the changes you made.
Select Publish Changes.

Important

You cannot publish a skill until the Skill Description and Review Material fields are completed.

—

Assign a Skill to a Topic

After creation, a skill is not visible to learners until it is assigned to a topic.

In the Topics and Skills Dashboard, find your skill.
Next to the Unassigned label, select the three vertical dots.

*Fig. 2. Skill dropdown menu on the Skills Dashboard*

In the dropdown menu, select Assign to topic.
Search for and select the desired topic.
Select Save.

—

Delete a Skill

To delete a skill:

Visit the Topics and Skills Dashboard.
Under the Skills tab, find the skill you want to delete.
Select the three vertical dots to the right of the skill.
Select Delete from the dropdown menu.