9.1. OLX Course Building Blocks

Before you begin using OLX (open learning XML) to set up a course, you should understand the building blocks of an edX course.

9.1.1. Courseware

Courseware is the main content of your course and consists mainly of lessons and assessments. The following list describes how courseware is organized in OLX.

  • Course chapters are at the top level of your course and typically represent a time period. In Studio, chapters are called sections.
  • A chapter contains one or more children which correspond to top-level pages in the course. In Studio, these are called ‘subsections’ and are currently restricted to sequential elements at this level. OLX supports any XBlock at this level.
  • Courses are composed of structural elements, such as sequential and vertical, and leaf-nodes or content elements, such as html or problem. Studio has a fixed hierarchy where children of sequential elements are vertical elements (called units), and children of vertical elements are leaf elements (called modules).

For more information, see The Courseware Structure.

9.1.2. Supplemental Course Content

In addition to the courseware described above, you course can contain supplemental content, such as textbooks, custom pages, and files. The following list describes the types of supported content.

  • Course about pages appear in the course list for prospective students and are used to market your course. For more information, see The Course About Pages.
  • Course assets are any supplemental files you use in your course, such as a syllabus as a PDF file or an image that appears in an HTML component. For more information, see Course Assets.
  • Course pages are custom pages that you can have appear in the top navigation menu of your course. For more information, see Course Tabs.

9.1.3. Course Policies

Course policies determine how your course functions. For example, policies control grading and content experiments. For more information, see Policies.