A foundational component of Absorb LMS, Online Courses are a highly customizable tool to deploy Assessments, Third Party Content, Videos or more to your Learners. Online Courses can be considered a container for content. This article details how to create an Online Course.

For additional details related to Online Course configuration, please review our Overview of Online Course Settings article.

For additional details related to Enrollment Rules, please review our Creating Enrollment Rules article.

Creating a New Online Course

The following method details how to create a new Online Course with a single Learning Object and Self Enrollment Rules:

1. Access the Admin Interface. You may default to logging into the Admin Interface depending on your organization settings, or, click the Admin button from the Learner Experience.
2. From the left-hand side menu, click the Courses button. The Courses menu will expand.
   
3. Under the Courses menu, click Courses. This will open the Courses Report.
   
4. On the Courses Report, under the right-hand side Actions menu, click Add Online Course. You will land on the Add Online Course page.
   
5. Now on the Add Online Course page, proceed through the General section and fill out the basic required fields. By default the General and Syllabus sections are already expanded.
   
6. The first element is the Status toggle. This toggle determines whether or not the Course will appear in the LMS for your Learners. If INACTIVE the Course will not be visible in a Course Catalog, as an example. You may keep your course INACTIVE until it is ready to launch, or immediately turn it to ACTIVE by clicking the toggle. 
   
7. Title is the name of the Course, as it will be displayed to Users. You must enter a Title for an Online Course, but it may be any string of characters you prefer.
   
8. Description is an optional field where you can store information about the Course. Description will be visible to Learners.
   
9. Language is an optional field that allows you to indicate which language the content of this Online Course is in. If you click the field, a drop-down will open and you may select the relevant Language.
   
10. Tags is an optional field which allows you to associate Tags you have created in your LMS, with this Online Course. If you haven't created any Tags clicking this field will not showcase any options. If you have, click the field and select from the drop-down any relevant Tags to associate them with this course.
    
11. Next is the Syllabus section. The first option underneath this section is Must Complete. This refers to the order course content must be completed. By default All lessons, in any order is selected, but you may change it based on your preference. If All lessons, in order by chapter is selected, a Learner will be required to proceed from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 and onward in a strict progression. Exams only requires the Learner to complete only Lessons that contain Weighted Assessments.
    
12. Show Terms & Conditions requires a Learner to accept the stated Terms & Conditions prior to gaining access to the content in the course. By default this toggle appears OFF but can be clicked to toggle it ON. Once toggled ON a field appears where you can enter the Terms & Conditions.
    
    
13. Mobile Device Alert is a toggle which determines if a mobile device compatibility concern is expected/possible based on the course content associated with this Online Course. You may click the toggle to turn it ON, this will confirm Users launching the course receive an alert that the course may not work on their mobile device.
    
14. Proctor is a toggle related to the Course Proctor feature. If toggled ON you are presented with a few Proctor options to select based on your preference:
    
15. The Outline section contains all of the Chapters and Lessons in the Online Course. You may change the Chapter Name if required, and then click Add Learning Object. The Add Learning Object modal frame will open.
    
16. From the Add Learning Object modal frame, select your preferred Learning Object. More information about Learning Objects can be found here.
    
17. You are not required to add more Chapters to the Online Course then 1. You may click the Add Chapter button to add a new Chapter to the Online Course.
    
    
18. At the bottom of the page under Add More Course Settings is the Enrollment Rules section. Click the Enrollment Rules description to expand the Enrollment Rules section. Alternatively you can click the Enrollment Rules button at the top of the page.
    
    
19. Under the Allow Self Enrollment section, click All Learners.
    
20. From the right-hand side click the Publish button.
    

Following the completion of the above method a single Online Course, with a Learning Object and Self Enrollment Rules will be published to the LMS. If the Status toggle was Active at the time of publishing the course, it will appear in the Course Catalog of Learners within a few moments. This is but one of many possible configurations for an Online Course.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions, or tips and tricks for configuring Online Courses:

1. Does an Online Course require Enrollment Rules?
   • Enrollment Rules are optional as Administrators can enroll Learners into any Online Course whether there are Enrollment Rules or not.
2. Is an Inactive Online Course deleted?
   • No. An Inactive Online Course is not visible to Learners in locations such as the Course Catalog or My Courses page. However an Inactive Online Course is still visible to Administrators in the Administrator Interface.
3. There is a no character limit for fields such as Description or Notes. 
   1. The Name field has a character limit of 450.