Courses are the cornerstone of your educational institution, making the process of creating them crucial. Online courses are essential for reaching a broader audience, offering flexible learning options, and establishing your expertise.
This article will guide you through the essentials of creating high-quality, engaging courses that attract and retain users. Specifically, we will explore the types of courses supported in LearnWorlds, how to structure courses, the various learning activities available, and how to configure course settings, SEO, and course pages.
You will find more information on how to create a course in LearnWorlds, in this article.
Types of Course Access
You can select from various access types based on your requirements when creating courses. For example, setting a course as a draft makes it visible only in the admin view. Users cannot find or purchase draft courses, giving you plenty of time to create and finalize the content.
LearnWorlds provides six access options for your courses:
| Access | Description |
| Paid | Paid courses are accessible to those who purchase them or are manually enrolled. |
| Draft | Draft courses remain unpublished and invisible while under development. This mode allows you to work at your own pace, gradually adding content. Users cannot see or purchase these courses until they are published. |
| Coming Soon | Coming Soon courses are visible to users, but they cannot enroll in or purchase them. This generates anticipation among your users for your upcoming course. |
| Enrollment Closed | Enrollment-closed courses remain visible in catalogs and on course layout pages, but enrollment is not allowed. This feature is useful for limiting course participation. Users cannot purchase these courses; manual enrollment is required. Existing users retain access to the course content. |
| Free | By offering free courses, registered users can access and become familiar with your content, increasing the likelihood that they will purchase one of your premium courses. |
| Private | Private Courses are accessible only to those who have been manually enrolled in them. Since private courses are not published, they are not listed in course catalogs, so users cannot locate them. |
You can find more details about each option, aiding you in selecting the best setting for your course based on your specific requirements, in this article.
Paid, Draft, and Coming Soon courses are available in all our plans. Enrollment Closed, Free, and Private courses require upgrading to the Pro Trainer plans or higher. Course Structure
Courses are organized using sections that include learning activities. Each course may contain multiple sections, each section resembling a chapter with one or more activities. For instance, a section could include a video, an ebook, a live session, and a quiz.
Sections within the course platform can be assigned various statuses, including draft, soon, free, or paid. These statuses enhance the organization and management of your course content.
- Draft sections are designed to be hidden from users, providing you with a private space to develop your content without it being visible to learners. This enables you to take your time and ensure that your section is fully polished before making it accessible to others.
- Soon sections create user anticipation by offering a glimpse of what is to come without revealing the content. This can help build excitement and interest in the upcoming material, encouraging engagement and participation.
- Free sections are typically utilized as a teaser for users, allowing them to sample a portion of the paid course before making a decision to purchase the full content. This strategy can attract potential customers and demonstrate the value of the course, potentially leading to increased conversions.
- Paid sections are the most common status and are typically included in courses that have been purchased by users. These sections contain the core content and materials of the course, providing value to learners who have invested in acquiring access to the full educational experience.
Explore how to utilize sections and organize your courses here.
Learning activities form the core content of your course and are categorized into different types:
Multimedia: Video, PDF, Presentation, SCORM/HTML 5 Package, Audio, YouTube, SoundCloud
Live session: Live Meetings & Webinars With Zoom, Live Meetings & Webinars with Webex, 1:1 session, Group Sessions
Social: Activities related to the community of your school
Ebooks
Exams - Self Assessments: Self Assessments, Graded Exams, Graded SCORM package
Forms: Create surveys bound to your courses and receive feedback from your users.
Certificates: Certificate & Certificate of Completion
Embed: Embed, Slideshare, External Link
You can find out more information on the supported learning activities here.
Creating a course outline with our AI (Artificial Intelligence) assistant can save a lot of time in terms of generating a course structure that can organize the learning material and facilitate the students' learning process. You can find out more in this article. Course Settings
Within each course, you will discover settings options that allow you to customize your preferences. These provide the flexibility to adjust each course individually, ensuring it meets your specific needs. In the course overview, you can find the following options:
Contents
- Course Outline: Create, edit, and supplement your course with valuable content with learning activities.
- Course Page Layout: The cover of your course that introduces your users to the content and allows them to enroll.
Course Settings
- General: Customize your course card, add the course to a category, and manage course SEO.
- Access: Select the course's access type, find the URL, and set up an expiration date or drip feed.
- Pricing: Set up the course price and manage the related installment plans, Bundles, or Subscriptions.
- User progress: Review and modify the completion rules for each learning activity.
- Course Player: Change the course player skin, customize the course player, and specify the user navigation.
- Video library: Upload videos.
- Automations: Create automations related to that course.
Insights
- Dashboard
- Course insights
- Users
- Certificates
- Gradebook
- Activity Matrix
- Pending reviews
- Course Forms
Course SEO
The main purpose of the SEO configuration for your courses is to make the course pages more easily discoverable by search engines and properly index their information.
For further details on the process, refer to our relevant guide.
Course Layout Page Vs. Course Player
The Course layout page is the welcome page of your course where users can find more information about the course, check the contents (according to the contents sections you have added), and enroll. If the course were a book, the layout page would be the book cover.
The Course player is the classroom where the course takes place. As soon as a user enrolls in the course, the course content (learning activities you have created) appears in the course player.