How courses work
Sections, topics, and Draft, Published and Archived.
A course is everything a student learns on one programme. This page explains how a course is put together, and the three statuses that decide who can see it.
How a course is built
Every course has three layers:
| Layer | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Course | The programme as a whole, with a title, description and cover image. | "Python Programming for Beginners" |
| Section | A chapter of the course. Sections keep topics in order. | "Week 1: Introductions" |
| Topic | One lesson. | "Greeting people" |
A topic can hold any mix of:
- a video, with chapter markers students can jump to
- a quiz, with a passing score
- documents, such as PDF notes or worksheets
- links to pages elsewhere on the web
- a lesson description that students read before they start
Tip: Keep topics short. One idea per topic, with a 5–15 minute video, is easier for students to finish than one long lesson.
Draft, Published and Archived
Every course has a status. You see it as a coloured badge on the Courses page.
| Status | Who can see it | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Only admins, and instructors it's assigned to. | While you build the course. Every new course starts here. |
| Published | Admins, and the students enrolled on it. Visitors can see it on your public website, unless you turn off Show on your website for the course. | When the course is ready to teach. While nobody is enrolled, you can Unpublish it to take it back to Draft. |
| Archived | Only admins, and instructors it's assigned to. Students' progress is kept. | When you stop teaching a course but want to keep its records. |
Topics have a status too. A topic is Draft until you publish it, and students only see published topics. That lets you add a new lesson to a live course and publish it only when it's ready.
Sections can be published or unpublished too. When you unpublish a section, students see none of its topics, even the published ones. When you publish it again, its published topics come back. Each topic keeps its own status the whole time.
Note: A course can't be published until at least one of its topics is published.
Tip: Click Preview at the top of a course to see it exactly as an enrolled student does. See Preview a course as a student.
What students need to finish a course
A student finishes a course when they have completed every required, published topic in it.
- A topic with a video is complete when the student has watched it to the end, or clicked Mark as Complete.
- A topic with a quiz is only complete once the student passes the quiz. If it has no video, passing the quiz completes it.
- A topic you have marked as not required (in the topic's Settings tab) is optional. Students see it marked Optional, and it doesn't count towards finishing.
Students can open the sections in any order. To make them go in order, turn on Students must finish earlier sections first under Access on the course's Details tab: a student then opens the next section once they have finished every required topic before it.
When a student finishes a course, Paatya issues their certificate straight away.