This page explains how the Course feature works for regular users, site managers and content managers.
Note: This feature is not part of the default Open Social product (basic/premium/distro) but can be ordered as an optional module for Enterprise customers.
1. Course Feature: Structure
A Course is a step-by-step program that guides users through content complete with video, text and an opportunity for users to keep track of their progress.
You can look up courses via the ‘all courses’ overview, which is positioned by default under the ‘explore menu’.
The course consists of four different levels:
- The course label defines which category a course belongs.
- The course itself provides an overview of what it is about and highlights the chapters, called sections, that it contains.
- The sections split the course into easy accessible chunks.
- The parts are the lowest level and contain the actual material of the course.
2. Course Feature: Setting Up Your Course
The Basics
- You can add a course as a Content Manager or Site Manager by using the ‘+’ button in the header menu.
- You can add normal users as Course admins (called “Course leaders”) to give them control over the settings and content of the course.
- The Course admin(s), content managers and site managers can edit the course information, create and manage sections, create and manage parts, delete the course, and manage enrollments to the course.
- You can only delete a courses managed by yourself.
- A course can be deleted on the edit course page.
- Note that deleting a course will also delete all of the sections, parts, posts, events and topics created in the course.
Creating a Course
Choose a Course Type
There are two different types of courses:
- Basic courses focus on the course material only.
- Advanced courses contains the course materials and add all the possibilities of a Group; add topics, events and a stream to the course.
Choose the Accessibility
All courses are currently only visible to the users who have logged in.
It is possible to limit accessibility by a setting a start date for the course. Before the date, Users can enroll to the course but not begin it yet. Only after the starting date will the content become accessible and the enrollment will then be closed.
All courses can be set to:
- Sequential, which where users can access the content freely at any time
- Non-sequential, where the courses guides the user through the content in the predetermined order. Other sections and parts will be visible but not accessible.
Fill in the Details
Fill in the course information and determine its specifications, like a title, description, start and end date, and add an image.
Connect Courses
You can connect courses in two ways:
- Add a course type to the course. This overarching taxonomy connects courses automatically to each other. This taxonomy will show up in the course and it is possible to search for it on the platform:
- Add a related course to the course. This is a manual maintainable block in the course overview that shows other relevant courses to users.
Add Sections to the Course
A course contains sections, and each section is made up of 1 or more parts. You can create a section by using the ‘create section’ button on the about page of the course.
You can also add parts during the creation of a section. There are two different part types:
- An article; provides the ability to style the text, add images, and include attachments.
- A video; provides the ability to embed a video into the course.
Article and video example:
Edit and Delete a Course
You can edit a course by clicking the pen symbol in the right corner of the header. At the bottom of the Course edit page, you can also delete an entire course.
Edit and Delete a Section
You can edit a course by using the pen symbol that is visible on the section overview or in the header section of the section page. If you want to delete a section: this can be done at the bottom of the section page in the edit mode.
Edit and Delete a (Section) Part
You can edit a part via the edit section page, by clicking on the edit button. This also applies for deleting/removing a part.
- As a user you can navigate through the different parts via the continue button in the bottom of the section or via the part navigation on the right.
- If you are using the continue button, the status of this part will be labeled as done.