Articles in this section

See more

Classroom - Setup Step 2 - Building & Packaging a Course

Avatar
John Mackenzie
Updated
Follow

Build your first course in Classroom by following these steps. Follow the instructions closely to gain the context and comfort that you need to learn how Classroom works. After you build 1 or 2 courses, the process becomes familiar.

Adding a course

  1. Go to Learning Center > Courses.
  2. Select Add Course.

    The Courses page with an arrow pointing to the Add course button

Filling in the course details

Fill in the general details for the course.

Course descriptions

Courses have 2 spots for descriptions:

  • Short description: Appears at a glance to the learner after the course is packaged (published) to your Classroom front end. It appears only for non-bundled packages, which are packages with only 1 course. Short descriptions are text only and must be fewer than 256 characters.
  • Long description: Appears when a learner chooses to see course details. It is a rich-text entry, so images, video, and embeds are supported. If there is no long description but there is a short description, the short description appears in its place.

FAQs

If your course requires a Frequently Asked Questions page, fill out this optional information. If you enter no information, learners don’t see any indication of the FAQ.

The Edit course page with the Course name, Short Description, Long Description, and FAQ fields

Levels

Classroom comes with the preset levels Beginner, Standard, Advanced, and Expert. For a unique level description, make up your own. Use this label for a different purpose if you want, such as identifying sessions from a specific conference.

Prerequisites

Choose the required completion order for courses by assigning a prerequisite course from the dropdown menu. Prerequisites are enforced in the admin Preview.

The Level, Custom level, and Prerequisite fields

Continuing education units (CEUs)

CEUs may be added to any course.

  1. Select Add CEU. To remove a CEU from a course later, select Remove to the right of the CEU row.
  2. Create a new CEU type, or choose an existing type from the dropdown list. Many groups use abbreviations for CEU types, but admins are not limited to abbreviations. Use words, symbols, and spaces if you want.
  3. Enter the number of units your course is worth. Courses may be worth fractional units. For example, if your course is 1 hour and 30 minutes long, enter 1.5.
  4. If the CEU should expire after a certain amount of time, enter the number of days after which the earned credit expires for the learner. When the credit is earned, it creates an expiration date for that learner based on the date they earned it.
  5. Select Save.

    The CEU fields with the CEU type, Type name, Units, and Expiration days fields and the Remove button

Note: A course can have multiple CEU types.
Caution: For CEUs to map between Classroom and MC Professional, the CEU Type label must be an exact match with the Credit Category label in your MC Professional account. CEUs can’t be mapped retroactively, so make sure the labels match before you create them. If they match exactly, the CEU appears in the member’s profile after they take the course. For more information, see Continuing education transcript.

Adding a lesson

Build out the content for your course. If you used our article Classroom - Setup Step 1 - Determining Content, you are already ahead. Getting your content inventoried and organized makes uploading easier and gives your learner a clear pathway to absorb and retain information.

  1. On the Courses page, select the name of the course.

    The Courses list with the course name outlined

  2. On the next screen, enter a name for your first chapter in the Title field and press Enter. A green check mark shows that the chapter title is saved.
  3. Under Session, select Add Lesson.
  4. Enter a name for the lesson and press Enter. A green check mark shows that the lesson title is saved.
  5. Select the blue pencil icon to upload your media and configure all conditions.

    The course editor with the chapter Title field and the Add Lesson and Add assessment buttons

Lesson types

Classroom divides lessons into 2 types:

  • Text lesson: Uses the rich-text entry titled Text Content. Content may include text, pictures, movies smaller than 25 MB, embed code, links, or inline HTML. Text content always displays above the media files and PDF lesson materials.
  • Media lesson: Has a single video or audio file uploaded in the Media File section, in addition to possible information in the rich-text entry. Adding a media file converts your lesson to a media lesson, which requires a video or audio file. Permitted files are mp4, ogv, webm, flac, m4a, mp3, ogg, and wav under 1 GB. Media content always displays after text content and before PDF lesson materials.

Uploading a media file

  1. Choose Select File. A list of the media files in your Content Library appears.
  2. If you already uploaded the course video to the library, search for it by any keyword in the file name. Choose Select to attach the video to your course.
  3. If you need to upload a video, select Upload file from computer and choose the file. A status bar and a preview of your video appear as it uploads.
  4. When the upload is complete, choose Select to attach the video to your course.

    The Content Library with a list of uploaded media files and a Select button for each

Tip: Create a naming convention for your files that makes organizational sense to you, so that locating them in the library is straightforward.

Setting video completion and duration

By default, media lessons require the learner to complete 85% of the video content to proceed. We recommend at least 90%. Admins can remove this requirement entirely or change the percentage for each lesson. A percentage restricts a learner from moving on to the next component until they watch the video to your specification.

After you upload your text content and media file, enter the amount of time that you estimate the learner spends on the lesson content. If the amount is zero, no indication of time displays.

The lesson editor with the Lesson name, Text content, Estimated duration, and Media file fields

Assigning a chapter and prerequisites

All sessions must be in a chapter. Content can be created within any chapter, but the assigned chapter is editable only within the session editors. The chapter dropdown displays all available chapters. To reassign a session to a different chapter, choose the new chapter from the dropdown, and the session is rearranged for you.

After you build out more sessions, select a session that must meet your outlined conditions to move on. Examples are watching a certain percentage of a video or achieving a certain score on an assessment.

Note: Prerequisites can only be sessions within the same course. Prerequisites are removed from an entire course if contents are rearranged with the action arrows in the course creator.
Tip: To be sure the course flow makes sense with prerequisites, add them last.

Adding lesson materials

Learners can also get information from files uploaded to the lesson materials section. Upload files for the learner to download or read during the session.

  • PDFs can be embedded and available for download. Other file types don’t embed and are available only for download.
  • To embed items without making them available for download, clear the Display attachments section checkbox. This removes the attachments section that displays on the lesson screen. Depending on the user’s browser and PDF reader, the ability to download a document from within the reader might still exist.
  • Use descriptive content titles, because learners identify the files by their titles.
  • Upload any number of files. Each file must be less than 20 MB.

To the learner, items display in this order: text content, media file, and then lesson materials.

The lesson editor with the Chapter, Prerequisite, Display attachments section, and Lesson Materials settings

Select Save when you finish the lesson.

Adding an assessment

Assessments are collections of questions. Outside of Classroom, they might be called tests, quizzes, exams, pre-tests, knowledge checks, or surveys.

  1. To add an assessment after a lesson or at the end of a chapter, select Add Assessment.
  2. Enter a name for the assessment and press Enter.

    The course editor with a lesson and a new assessment in the session list

  3. Select the blue pencil icon next to the assessment to set up its conditions.
  4. Set the conditions and select Save.
  5. Select Questions to add questions and answers manually.

    The assessment questions page with buttons for adding each question type

For descriptions of every assessment setting and question type, see Classroom - Creating Assessments.

Tip: Regardless of how you get assessment questions and answers into Classroom, always work from a hard copy, such as a document or spreadsheet, that you keep on your server as an answer key. Don’t create and manage assessment details in Classroom only.

To add many questions at once, import them from a .csv file. Select Import for instructions, and download the template so that you set up the file correctly.

The Question Import page with the import instructions and the template download link

Adding your course to a package

All of the work so far has built the content of a course. Now package the course so that the finished product is published and visible to your learners on the front end of your Classroom site.

  1. Go to Store > Packages.
  2. Select Add Package.

    The Packages list with the Add package button

  3. Enter a package name. Most packages contain 1 course, so as a best practice, copy and paste the course name as the package name.
  4. Make sure the Active checkbox is selected to publish the package when you save.

    The Add Package page with the package name and description fields

  5. Under Courses, select the course that you want to publish into the package. A package with multiple courses is a bundle.
  6. Select the group or groups that can access the package.

    Note: Why aren’t my members showing up in Classroom after they’re added to a permissioned group in MC Professional? Even though a member was added to a permissioned group in MC Professional, members won’t appear in Classroom until they log in through your Classroom portal.

  7. (Optional) In the Tags area, type any tags to include for the package.

    The Tags area of the Add Package page

  8. Select Save.

For a description of every package setting, including level, summary visibility, and groups, see Classroom - How to make courses available on the frontend.

You’ve built and packaged a course. After you save and publish, the package appears as shown here to the users who have permission to see it on your Classroom site.

A published package as it appears on the Classroom site to users who have permission to see it

Related articles