Developing Course Sections

What Is a Section?

A course is created from a series of building blocks that are branched into different categories. Based on the structure of a course, a Section is the topmost level, which then branches out into one or more subsections, units, and components respectively. Each section may be dedicated to periods, chapters, or other organizational principles of a course.

The image below depicts the sections visible within the course outline. The Studio view of the course outline can be seen on the left. Whilst an instance of the course outline can be seen within the LMS on the right side of the image.

The numbers annotated on the figure correspond to the following levels named below.

 1.    Sections

 2.    Subsections

 3.    Units

Please note that components are not shown on the Course Outline page. In fact, if you would like to manage or access components you may do so by selecting and entering units that contain them.

Learners’ Visibility of Section Content

If the section's release date is unscheduled or has not passed yet, learners will not be able to view any content in that section.

Once the section has been published, learners can access section content if the following conditions apply:

1. Release dates scheduled for subsections have passed and the content has been released.
   
2. The unit within the subsection, containing the content
   
3. Learners can access the unit openly, and it has not been hidden from them.
   

Managing the Release Status of Sections

For learners to view and access content within a section, the section must first be published. Furthermore, the creator of the course has the ability to manage the release status for each of the sections within the course. To learn more about the types of release statuses that may be applied to each section, read more on the following topics.

• Unscheduled Section Status
• Scheduled Section Status
• Released Section Status
• Section Released with Unpublished Changes Status
• Section Containing Staff Only Content Status
  

Unscheduled Section Status

The default course start date is set to 1/1/2030 00:00:00 UTC. When creating a new section within the course, given the course author does not alter the default value assigned, the section’s release date will be displayed as Unscheduled. Correspondingly, learners will not be able to view any content in that section regardless of the publishing status of the content itself, as the section has been deemed unscheduled.

On the other hand, in case the course author has modified the course start date, hence the default release date of a newly created section, is the course start date itself.

Therefore, if you wish to make content visible to learners, you must make sure to set your desired time of release.

Scheduled Section Status

On the occasion that a section has been scheduled for publication on an expected date and time in the future, the content will not be accessible to students till after it has been published and the scheduled release date has passed. To put it differently, the whole section will be inaccessible for learners to view with disregard to the release status of the content within the section.

Released Section Status

If a section is marked with a ‘released’ status it will be visible to learners. As a matter of fact, the learners can only view the published subsections and units within a given section.

Section Released with Unpublished Changes Status

Under the circumstances that you make any modifications to a unit within a section that has been released, but do not publish the changes, the students can only see the newest published version of the modified unit.

For that reason it is important you publish the unit in order for learners to be able to view the updates and changes.

Section Containing Staff Only Content Status

It is possible for content to be available only to members of the creating team, meaning the unit will be hidden from the participants of the course and learners cannot view content regardless of the section or subsection’s release date.

How to Create a Section

To put it shortly, when you are creating a new section within a course, the date and time of publication will be marked ‘Unscheduled’ if the author does not change the course start date from the default value of 1/1/2030.

Moreover, if you have altered the default course start date to a desired value and have not left it unchanged, the section’s default release date will equal the course start date.

Newly created sections will be immediately accessible by learners if the course start date has already passed.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to create a new section.

1. Click on the Course Outline page option that appears both at the top of the page as well as below the current section within the outline. Hence, click on New Section.

This will add a new section at the end of the course content, with the section name selected.

2. Type in your desired title for the new section. Also, using a descriptive name is recommended so that learners can navigate through course content in a simpler manner. This will also enable you to analyze insights by selecting content with ease.

3.  Build your newly created section by Adding subsections as you see fit.

Preferably, it’s best to test course content as you create new sections.

Renaming Sections

You can rename a section via the Edit icon that appears next to the section name once you hover your mouse over it.

Hence, click on the Edit icon to activate the name field, making it editable. Then simply type a new name to replace the previous one, and press the tab or click anywhere outside the name field to save the name.

Scheduling a Release Date for a Section

Follow the steps below to schedule a date and time for your section to be released and made public.

1. Within the section box, click on the Three-dot icon and then select the Configure option to launch the Settings popup.

2. Define an appropriate release date and time for the section.

The regulated time standard used when scheduling is UTC, known as the Coordinated Universal Time. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to ensure you have specified the correct time according to the time zone you intended to use. You can verify the time using a time zones converter like Dateful or Time.is, for instance.

3. Click on Save to maintain any changes.

Read about Release Dates to learn more.

How to Publish All the New Section Units

Click on the Publish icon in the section box to publish all the new and modified units in a section.

Please note that the Publish icon is only active and appears next to the Section name when there are unsaved changes made to a section.

Check out Unit Publishing Statuses for more information about release date statuses and the visibility of content to learners.

How to Hide a Section from Learners

It is possible to keep learners from accessing certain content by hiding all the content in the section. This can be done regardless of the subsections and units’ status within the section.

Check out Visibility Settings to learn more.

You can hide a section from course participants by following the steps below.

    1. Click on the Three-dot icon and then select the Configure option within the section box to launch the Settings dialog box.

    2. Select Hide from Learners under the Section Visibility section.

    3. Finish off by clicking Save.

Now, the section content is no longer available to learners.

In contrast, by repeating these steps and deselecting the Hide from Learners option, you can make the content accessible to the learners once more.

Deselecting Hide from learners does not imply that all the hidden content in the section has been unlocked and made visible to participants. This is because you may have previously set a particular subsection or unit to be hidden from learners. Therefore, some content will remain hidden. Additionally, unpublished units and any changes made to published units will remain unpublished.

How to Delete a Section

Deleting a section would mean that all the constituting subsections and sections will also be deleted along with it.

It is not possible to restore content that has been deleted; therefore, a good solution to be safe is to store a copy of the unused content within a section in your course and schedule the section to never release. This allows you to ensure you do not delete content that may come in handy in the future.

​​​​Follow these steps to delete a section.

1. Within the section you wish to delete, click on the Delete icon.

2. Once you receive a confirmation prompt, approve the operation by selecting Yes, delete this section.

• Related Articles

• Developing Course Subsections

  What Is a Subsection? The sections which comprise a course are split into subsections, which are in turn further divided into one or more units. You can use subsections to organize your course by topic or by another organizing principle. Moreover, ...

• Creating a Section within the Course

  1. In the Studio, open the course outline. 2. Select New Section. Near the bottom of the course content, a new section is then created; the name of the section is selected. 3. Name the new section. 4. Enter a release date for the section you have ...

• Exporting and Importing a Course

  Once you've shared a course, you can use Studio's course export and import tools to save a backup copy of the course, then reimport and edit the course as needed. The file format you mostly use for importing and exporting courses is a tar.gz file. ...

• Developing Course Units

  What Is a Unit? Courses are composed of sections branched out into subsections and units respectively. Each unit is a single page that learners view as part of a subsection. Moreover, several components make up a unit, including text with HTML ...

• Publishing the Course

  Once you have designed and created your desired content you must publish it to finalize; making it available to learners. 1. Return to the course outline, where you are able to view the unpublished unit you had created within the subsection its ...