As you develop your course, you work primarily in the edX Studio course outline. This section includes the following information about working with the course outline.
See the following sections for information about working with the course building blocks in the course outline.
To view the course outline, follow these steps.
Sign in to edX Studio.
On the My Courses page, select the course you want to develop.
The course outline opens by default when you open a course.
To open the outline when you are working in a course, from the Content menu, select Outline.
The first time you view an outline for a course, it contains no content. The following message is visible.
You haven't added any content to this course yet.
To add content, you create a section.
The following example shows a partial course outline in Studio, with indications for sections, subsections, and units. As you develop your course, it will begin to look like this example.
In this example, the course is organized into the following levels.
Components are not shown in the outline. You add or access components by selecting the units that contain them.
Use the links above for more information and instructions on working with each type of object in the course. The topics in the rest of this section provides more detail about the course outline.
The content you see in the outline in Studio is displayed to learners in the Course page in the LMS. The following image shows how a learner sees your course content.
Sections are listed in the course navigation pane. Learners select a section to see the subsections that it contains.
Subsections are listed in the course navigation pane after a learner expands a section.
Units appear in the unit navigation bar, represented by icons, after learners select a subsection. A tooltip with the unit’s name appears when learners move the pointer onto an icon.
Learners select icons in the unit navigation bar to access course units. They can also use the Previous and Next options at either end of the unit navigation bar to move back to the previous unit or forward to the next unit. The current unit is indicated with bold underlining in the unit navigation bar.
You can add content in the course outline by creating a new section, subsection, or unit, or by duplicating an existing unit, subsection, or section.
To add a section, subsection, or unit by duplicating content that already exists in the course outline, select the Duplicate icon for the item that you want to duplicate. You see a Duplicating indicator at the bottom of the Studio page.
Duplicated items are added to the course outline immediately below the original item, with the name “Duplicate of <original item name>”.
Note
Duplicated items inherit the release date of the item that they are duplicated from, but you must explicitly publish duplicated subsections and units before they are visible to learners. For more information about release statuses and visibility of sections to learners, see Sections and Visibility to Learners.
You modify settings for sections, subsections, and units in the course outline. Specifically, you can complete the following tasks.
To modify settings for a section, subsection, or unit, select the Configure icon for that object. In the following example, the Configure icon is circled for a section, a subsection, and two units.
For more information, see the links above.
You can publish new and changed units for an entire section or subsection. You can also publish individual units.
To publish new and changed units, select the Publish icon for a section, subsection, or unit. In the following example, the Publish icon is circled for a section, subsection, and unit.
Note
The Publish icon only appears when there is new or changed content within the object.
For more information, see the following topics.
You can reorganize your course content by dragging and dropping sections, subsections, and units to new locations in the outline.
To move a section, subsection, or unit, move your cursor over the handle on the right of the object’s box until the cursor changes to a four-headed arrow. For example, in the image below, the handle for the subsection Lesson 1 - Getting Started is selected.
Then, click and drag the object to the location that you want.
If you expanded the section or subsection you are moving the object to, when you move the object, a blue line indicates where the object will land when you release the mouse button. For example, in the image below, the subsection Lesson 1 - Getting Started is being moved to the end of the section Introduction.
If you did not expand the section or subsection you are moving the object to, the outline of that section or subsection turns blue when you have moved the object to a valid location. You can then release the mouse button. For example, in the image below, the subsection Lesson 1 - Getting Started is being moved to the collapsed section Introduction.
Note
When you move a subsection to a different section, the release date and time for that subsection does not change.
You delete sections, subsections, and units from the course outline.
Warning
You cannot restore course content after you delete it. To ensure you do not delete content you may need later, you can move any unused content to a section in your course that you set to never release.
Select the Delete icon in the box for the object you want to delete.
You are prompted to confirm the deletion.
Note
When you delete an object, all objects that it contains are deleted. For example, when you delete a subsection, all units in that subsection are deleted.