Creating courses

Creating courses

Introduction to Courses

The WizIQ course creation wizard easily lets instructors create and edit the following course types:

  • Self-paced courses: Such courses do not follow a set schedule and enable the learners to control the pace of the course as per their own convenience. These courses are well-suited for learners located at different geographical locations and time zones because they can easily undertake the course at their own pace.

  • Scheduled courses: Such courses follow a particular time schedule, that is, start and end dates that the instructors set.

  • As an instructor, you can create self-paced courses when you do not want to deliver live, instructor-led classes. On the contrary, with scheduled courses, you can deliver a series of instructor-led classes through the WizIQ Virtual Classroom (VC) platform. Additionally, with scheduled courses, you can control when the learners access your course content, such as videos or related documents.

  • Furthermore, while creating courses, instructors can also specify any activities that the learners must perform to successfully complete a course. The course activities can include any files (in the .doc , .docx , .xls , .xlsx , .ppt , .pptx , and .pdf formats), recordings, tests, assignments, and live classes.

Differences between Course Types

The following matrix contrasts the differences between self-paced and scheduled courses.

Table 1: Course Difference Matrix



Self-paced Courses

Scheduled Courses

Course Settings

Structure

Created in terms of sections

Created in terms of weeks

Schedule

No start or end dates

Fixed start and end dates

Sequencing



Course Activity

Video

✓

✓

Document or Presentation

✓

✓

Test

✓

✓

Live Class

✗

✓

Live Class Recording

✓

✓

Assignment

✗

✓

Course Creation Process

Using the WizIQ course creation wizard, all users with the instructor role can easily create a course, and then enroll learners in that course or send invites to the learners for enrollment. To create any course, you need to specify the options available in each of the following sections:

Course Settings

The first step in creating a course involves configuring certain course related settings. The following table describes these settings.

Table 2: Course Settings – Description

Setting

Description

Payment

Define whether you want to create a free or paid course.

For paid courses, you can specify the price in seven digits with two digits after the decimal point.

Currently, WizIQ lets you specify the course price in USD only.

Note that all the payments made towards your course are deposited in the Stripe account of WizIQ; while the money collected from your course is periodically transferred to you. Although Stripe charges a transaction fee as mentioned on their website, WizIQ does not charge any fee over and above the Stripe transaction fee. Read the Stripe transaction fee policy here .

Administrators can view the transaction details of all the paid courses in their academy under the Academy Settings > Transactions page.

Visibility

Restrict the course visibility and determine if the course shows up for all the academy learners and visitors.

To set visibility, select one of the following options:

  • To all visitors and registered users of the academy: Makes the course available for all the visitors and registered users of the academy.

This setting is applicable only if you have enabled self-enrollment for visitors in your academy.

  • Only to the registered users of the academy: Makes the course available to all the registered learners of the academy.

  • Only to the users you enroll: Makes the course available to only a specific set of learners you enroll for that course.

Sequence

Specify whether you want the learners to progress through the course in a particular sequence. This ensures that the learners complete the required course item(s) before proceeding further into the course.

Select the Enforce Sequencing option to enable sequencing in your course.

Discussion

Enable your learners to engage in course related discussions and post queries that you or other learners can resolve.

When you enable this option, your learners can participate or contribute in any number of discussion posts. Furthermore, each discussion post is threaded and includes three levels of nesting. The first two levels can include attachments; while, the first level can have a maximum of five tags. Tags can help easily search the required discussion post. In addition, the option to vote or filter discussion posts is also available.

Select Enable Discussions while creating a course to enable this feature.

Course Schedule

Irrespective of the type of course that you are creating – self-paced or scheduled, your courses must define any mandatory activities that the learners must undertake. Course activities help learners develop a better understanding of the course, provide additional useful information, or let instructors assess the learners’ progress. The activities that you can specify for the learners are – files, recorded class, assignment, test, and live class.

Any file that you upload while adding an activity in a course, is added to the library. You can reuse these files in other courses or any live class.

For scheduled courses, you can specify the start and end dates of the course, while the course schedule is organized in the form of weeks. Further, for each week, you can define a weekly activity and/or activities for a specific day or all days of the week. You can also specify if these activities are mandatory for the learners to successfully complete the course.

If you have enabled sequencing and specified a weekly activity along with activities for any three days in that week, then the weekly activity has a higher priority.

Similarly, for self-paced courses, you can specify activities that are mandatory for the learners to complete the course. Note that the course schedule for self-paced courses is organized in the form of sections.

The following table describes the options you can define while setting a course schedule.

Table 3: Course Schedule – Description


Description

File

Provide any course supplements or reference materials in the form of video, audio, or text files using this option.

You can upload a file from your computer, any cloud-based storage platform – Dropbox and Google Drive, among others, or your WizIQ content library.

Recording

Upload one or more previously recorded classes from the content library using this option.

Assignment

Examine the progress of your learners by providing them assignments.

While creating assignments, you can specify whether the learners must submit the assignment on or before a due date or any time during the course. You can also access the assignments completed by your learners and review them from the path: Courses > View Course > Assignments.

Assignments are unavailable for self-paced courses .

Test

Verify and evaluate the knowledge acquired by the learners enrolled in your course by designing tests for them.

The test creation wizard lets you create multiple choice questions with either a single or multiple correct responses, or a choice matrix table. You can also specify the basic settings, such as maximum marks for each question, negative marking, and passing score, among others. Further, you can define some advanced settings, such as the number of attempts allowed for each question and the option to pause the test, among others.

Live Class

Schedule a live class for your learners on a specific day at a preset time using this feature.

While scheduling a live class, you can specify details, such as its title start time, duration, and the maximum number of attendees. Additionally, you can specify if attending the live class is mandatory for the learners to complete the course.

This feature is unavailable for self-paced courses.

Course Profile

After you have completed configuring the course settings and course schedule, you can specify the course profile by adding description of your course. This will help the learners understand the overview and objectives of your course, the course highlights, and any other information relevant to the course.

Creating a Course

The WizIQ course creation wizard presents a simple workflow that easily lets you create any type of courses. The wizard contains a series of pages that include various options using which you can easily create a course.

To create a course

  1. Log in to your WizIQ user account as an instructor.

  2. On the bottom right, click to view the options for creating a course.

  3. Click or to start creating a scheduled or self-paced course respectively.
    The Course Settings page of the WizIQ course creation wizard opens.

  4. Perform the instructions as given in the following sections to proceed further.

    1. Configuring Course Settings

    2. Configuring Course Schedule

    3. Publishing the Course

Configuring Course Settings

To configure the course settings

  1. On the Course Settings page, under Select type of course, select one of the following options:

    • Free Course: Available to all the learners in an academy.

    • Paid Course: Available to the learners who pay for the course. If you select this option, then in the text box that appears, specify the course amount in USD.

  2. Under Course Visibility, select the desired option.

  3. Select Enforce Sequencing to allow the learners to proceed further into the course in a sequential manner.

  4. Select Enable Discussions if you want to enable course discussions.


Figure 1: Course Settings Page

  1. Click Next to proceed. The Course Schedule page of the wizard opens.

Configuring Course Schedule

To configure the course schedule

On the Course Schedule page, click Save Draft if you want to complete creating the course later. You can access such courses from the path: Courses > Draft.

  1. On the Course Schedule page, under Course Date, select the start and end dates for your course.

  2. Click Save, and then click Confirm to confirm the specified dates. Else, click Reset to specify the dates again.

Remember: You cannot change the start date after you click Confirm.

  1. Under Course Title, specify a name for the course.

Remember: The course title must not exceed 70 characters.

  1. If you are creating a scheduled course, then proceed as per the instructions given in Step 5 . Else, see Step 6 for instructions on creating a self-paced course.

  2. For scheduled courses, under Course Schedule:,

    1. Beside Week1, click to provide a schedule title for each week in your course. Thereafter, click Ok to proceed or click Cancel.

    2. In the All Week section, click the Add Activity dropdown to select a desired activity for the first week for the learners.

    3. Add the selected activity.

    4. Click to add another weekly activity.

To remove any activity, click


    1. Click the down arrow beside the date range of the week to define the desired daily activity.

    2. Click Next after adding the activities.
      The Course Profile page of the wizard opens.


Figure 2: Course Schedule Page – Scheduled Course

  1. For self-paced courses, under Course Schedule, in the Course Title box, specify the course title.

  2. In the Course Schedule section, do the following:

    1. Beside Section1, click to provide a section title. Thereafter, click Ok to proceed or click Cancel.

    2. Click the Add Activity drop down to select a desired activity for the learners.

    3. Add the selected activity.

    4. Click to add another section.

To remove any activity, click .

i. Click Next after adding the activities.
The Course Profile page of the wizard opens.


Figure 3: Course Schedule Page – Self-Paced Course

Configuring the Course Profile

To configure the course profile

On the Course Profile page, click Save Draft if you want to complete creating the course later. You can access such courses from the path: Courses > Draft.

  1. On the Course Profile page, in the Title box, verify the course title.

  2. In the Subtitle box, provide additional information for course.

  3. Under Course Highlights, mention the distinct features of your course.

To add more points in the course highlights, click .


Remember: It is mandatory to mention at least three course highlights.

  1. Under About the Course, mention the course objectives.

  2. (Optional) Beside Class logo/Pic, click Upload from Desktop to upload a logo for your class.

  3. (Optional) Under About the Instructor, provide your bio.

  4. (Optional) In the Language of instruction dropdown, select the preferred language of instruction for the course.

  5. Click Publish Course to if your course is ready to publish.
    Your learners will be able to access the course after you publish it.


Figure 4: Course Profile Page

Editing a Course

You can easily edit a previously selected course by changing the course settings, adding or removing activities, and more. You can also edit any course that you have saved as a draft.

To edit a course

  1. Log in to your WizIQ account.

  2. Click to open the side menu.

  3. Click Courses, and then perform one of the following tasks:

    1. To edit a currently active course, click the ACTIVE tab, and then click EDIT COURSE under the course you want to edit.

    2. To edit a course that has been completed by your learners, click the PAST tab, and then click EDIT COURSE under the course you want to edit.

    3. To edit a course saved as a draft, click the DRAFT tab, and then click EDIT COURSE under the course you want to edit.

  4. Proceed as per the steps mentioned for configuring th e Course Settings , Course Schedule , and Course Profile sections.