Course Builder

The course builder provides an easy, intuitive way to build out your courses. You can add new sections, lessons, topics and quizzes without ever leaving the page. This article explains how to use every aspect of the course builder to make creating and editing courses smooth.

Accessing the Course Builder #

There are a few ways you can access the course builder.

Existing Courses #

If you’ve already created a course:

1. Navigate to ECHO DESIGN LMS > COURSES
2. Hover over an existing course
3. Click the “Builder” link

Alternatively, you can click on the course title or “Edit” link to bring up the “Edit Course” page. Once there, click the “Builder” tab in the top navigation bar.

Creating Your First Course? #

1. Navigate to ECHO DESIGN LMS > COURSES
2. Click the “Add New” button at the top of the page
3. Click the “Builder” tab in the top navigation bar

Course Builder Overview #

At the top of the course builder, you’ll see:

• The total number of steps in the course
  • This is comprised of all lessons, topics and quizzes that have been assigned to the course
• An “Undo” link, after you’ve made your first edit
• A link to “Expand All” or “Collapse All” course steps
  • This makes it easier to see all steps at once, and more quickly rearrange, add or remove course steps

Immediately following this, you’ll see all of your course content. This is where you’ll spend the majority of your time building out your course.

Add Content to Your Course #

There are multiple ways to add content with the course builder. How you go about adding your content will depend on a few things:

• what type of content you’re adding
• personal preference

IMPORTANT
All new content created via the Course Builder (i.e. Lessons, Topics, and Quizzes) is automatically published and set to “Public” once the changes are saved for the course.

Section Headings #

Section headings provide a simple way to break your course into sections. They don’t contain any actual content, and are simply a text-only heading that can be placed between any two lessons. They work in a similar fashion to chapters in a book.

1. Click on the lesson before where you want the section heading to appear
2. Click the “New Section Heading” link
3. Type your heading
4. Hit ENTER, or click the “Add Section Heading” button

To edit a section heading..

1. Click on its title
2. Make your edits
3. Press ENTER or click the “Save” button

To remove a section heading…

1. Hover over the section heading
2. Click the red “Remove” link

For the remainder of the content we’re going to discuss (lessons, topics and quizzes), you have two options:

• create them first, one at a time, and then use the course builder to add them to your course, -or-
• create them with the course builder, organize them within the course however you’d like, and then go back later to add content to them

This depends on your own personal preference and how you’ve chosen to develop your course content.

Lessons #

Aside from section headings, lessons will likely be the first type of content you’ll want to add to your course. You can create brand new lessons directly from the course builder, or add existing lessons that you’ve already created. Let’s take a look at each.

Create New Lessons #

1. Click the “New Lesson” link
2. Type the name of your lesson
3. Press ENTER, or click the “Add Lesson” button

Add Existing Lessons #

Your existing lessons can be found in the “Lessons” box in the sidebar. By default, your most recent lessons are shown, but you can click “View all” to see all lessons, or use the search box to find a specific lesson by title.

There are multiple ways to add existing lessons.

Add a single lesson: Hover over a lesson in the lesson box and click the “Add” button. This will add the lesson to the end of your course.

Drag and drop: If you’d like to add lessons in a particular spot within your course, you can click and hold down your mouse, drag the lesson to the course builder in the spot you want it, and then release. This will place the lesson in your specified location within the course.

Topics #

Topics are completely optional, but are great for breaking up content within a lesson. A course must contain at least one lesson in order to add a topic. Let’s walk through how to create new topics, as well as add existing ones, with the course builder.

Create New Topics #

1. Make sure your course has at least one lesson. Follow the instructions above to add your first lesson.
2. You need to expand the lesson by either clicking “Expand all” at the top of the builder, or click the down arrow to the right of the lesson
3. Click the “New Topic” link
4. Type the name of your topic
5. Hit ENTER, or click the “Add Topic” button

Add Existing Topics #

IMPORTANT
Shared Course Steps must be enabled or existing lessons, topics, and quizzes will not be available for selection.

Your existing topics can be found in the “Topics” box next to the course builder. By default, your most recent topics are shown, but you can click “View all” to see all topics, or use the search box to find a specific topic by title.

There are multiple ways to add existing topics.

NOTE
Before adding topics, you should click on the lesson where you want to insert a topic. This will select the lesson, highlighting it with a grey background and blue border.

Add a single topic: Hover over a topic in the topic box and click the “Add” button. This will add the topic to the end of whichever lesson you currently have selected.

Remove a Topic #

Hover over the topic you’d like to remove, and click the red “Remove” link.

Quizzes #

Quizzes can be added to lessons and topics, or as a final quiz to the course itself. Any combination of these will work. You can create new quizzes directly from the course builder, or pull in existing quizzes you’ve already created.

Course quizzes are located at the bottom of the course builder, under the “FINAL QUIZZES” heading. Lesson and topic quizzes can be found within the lesson/topic that they belong to.

Create New Quizzes #

1. Navigate to the lesson/topic where you want to add a quiz (or simply scroll to the “FINAL QUIZZES” section at the bottom)
2. Click the “New Quiz” link
3. Type the name of your quiz
4. Hit ENTER, or click the “Add Quiz” button

Add Existing Quizzes #

IMPORTANT
Shared Course Steps must be enabled or existing lessons, topics, and quizzes will not be available for selection.

Your existing quizzes can be found in the “Quizzes” box in the sidebar. By default, your most recent quizzes are shown, but you can click “View all” to see all quizzes, or use the search box to find a specific quiz by title.

There are multiple ways to add existing quizzes.

Add a single quiz: Hover over a quiz in the quiz box and click the “Add” button.

Remove a Quiz #

Hover over the quiz you’d like to remove, and click the red “Remove” link.

Rearrange Course Content #

In addition to adding content, you can also use the course builder to rearrange lessons, topics and quizzes. There are two ways to move content around.

Drag and drop #

Immediately before each section heading, lesson, topic and quiz, you’ll find an icon with 6 dots. When you hover over this icon, your cursor will turn into a hand. This means you can click, hold down, and drag that piece of content to another place within your course.

“Move” Arrows #

Also located before each section heading and lesson, you’ll find up and down arrows above and below the drag and drop icon. Clicking these arrows will move the content either up or down.

NOTE
At this time, the move arrows are only available for section headings and lessons, not topics or quizzes.