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How to Build a Course
How to Build a Course

This article is all about building courses in your Opus library.

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Written by David Lamont
Updated over 7 months ago

Only Admins and Managers can create courses. Admins can create, edit and assign any course in the course library. Managers can create, edit and assign courses based on the permissions that Admins set for them.

Click here to learn more about Admin and Managers permissions

Click here to learn about how assignments work

Here is how to create a course from scratch:

  1. Go to the Courses page and click the "+ New Course" button or click the blue "+" button in the top left of your dashboard screen and click "Course".

  2. There are 3 ways to build a new course in Opus:

    1. Build a "Blank Course" from scratch.

    2. Build off of an existing template from our Marketplace.

    3. Use AI Assist. Learn more about AI here.

Course Screens

A course is comprised of one or more concepts related to a topic. Within a course there are 7 types of screens:

  • Text

  • Course Break

  • Image Choice

  • Multiple Choice

  • True/False

  • Short Response

  • Open Ended

Create a new Screen

Click the "+" button to create a new content screen. Hover between two existing creens to reveal the "+" button, or click the empty grey screen with the "+" in the center

Copy/Paste Screens

To copy/paste screens, select one or more screens and:

  • To copy: click "Command C" on your computer or "Copy from clipboard" in the "..." dropdown to the right of the screens

  • To paste: click "Command V" on your computer

  • To multi-select screens: hold down "Shift" while clicking multiple screens.

You can include Course Cover images in order to give trainees a visual sneak peak into the content. Please note that the current size for these images is 400x180 pixels.

Screen Types

Text

Each course should ideally start and end with Text screens. The first Text screen should introduce the course and include things like: course title and length of the course. The final screen should acknowledge that the course has concluded - this is optional as trainees will receive an automatic congrats screen from Opus.

All other Text screens are used to provide the trainee with information relevant to the questions posed throughout the course.

Course Break

Insert a course break to breakup lengthy courses with full bleed screens that feature large headline-sized text.

Quiz Types

Multiple Choice

Multiple choice prompts can be presented with questions or fill-in-the-blank sentences. Correct answers can include "all of the above", "none of the above", or there can be more than one correct answer, for example: "both a and c".

Image Choice

Image choice prompts are a lot like multiple choice but utilize images instead of words. Correct answers can include one choice or "select all that apply".

True/False

Keep true false answers simple. Make sure you select the correct answer at the bottom of the prompt

Short Response

This prompt is for short answer questions that have a clear, correct answer (What is the first and last name of the President of the United States?). Trainees must respond by typing out their answers.

The answer should be fairly obvious and easy to spell out, or a number. Short answer prompts are a useful way to drive home a point or idea that has been previously explored and should be well understood by the trainee.

Open-Ended

This prompt is for open-ended questions with no correct answer - trainees can respond with anything they'd like. Use this to ensure understanding of more complex topics, or for general feedback (like a survey). For example: What is one of our core values, and what is one way you live this value every day?

Merge Fields

There are a few merge fields you can use when building a course to personalize content with ease.

  • Insert: {{name}} to auto populate the trainee's name

  • Insert: {{company}} to auto populate the name of your company

Media and Emojis

Media

At the bottom of the Design options to the right, click Add media to include an image, gif, video, or document in your screen. You can only add one piece of media per screen.

There are 3 categories of media available once you've opened the Add Media modal

  • My Resources - any resource you've uploaded to the library

  • Gifs - supported by giphy

  • Images - free stock photos

In addition you can upload a file from your device or paste a link.

Emojis

Click the smiley face in the Style panel to unlock the emoji picker. Use emojis to reinforce an idea or concept. Emojis can also take the place of punctuation marks like periods, bullet points, dashes and more!

AI-Assist Screen Suggestions

Not sure what to add next? Use AI Assist to receive thoughtful screen(s) and quiz suggestions based on the pre-existing course content. AI Assist uses the content you've already added to the course to offer additional content screens or automatically generate a quiz.

It's important to keep in mind that AI Assist results are suggestions designed to help you write course content, and may not be ready to publish. AI Assist results may not always be factually accurate. AI Assist does not use or have access to any other data other than content written in screens in the current course.

Course Statuses

Every course has one of three a statuses - Draft, Published, Unpublished Changes.

Status can be found on the Course list under the Status column or in the top left corner of the Course page.

Draft: a course that has never been published and can be edited.

See all of your draft courses by sorting the course list by "Status".

All courses you build start as drafts and are only accessible to Admins by default.

Drafts cannot be assigned or added to a Module.

Published: a course that has met all of the requirements to be assigned to a trainee.

Only published courses can be assigned or added to a module. If a course does not meet the requirements to be published, you will be notified of what's missing on the course page after you hit the publish button.

Unpublished Changes: A published course that has been edited but not yet re-published to reflect the new edits.

Courses with the status "unpublished changes" are published courses that may or may not be assigned. The most recent edits made to the course are not visible to current assignees because the course has not been published since those changes were made been made.

Course Preview and Settings

Preview

To preview your course, you must have the mobile app downloaded.

  1. Click the small phone icon in the top right corner of your course builder.

  2. A preview will be sent to your phone to preview the in-app experience

Course Settings

To add and update settings on your course, click the "Manage" tab or the cover screen to reveal and edit you course settings.

Course settings allow you to manage due dates, award certificates, allow for wrong answers, set passing grades, and generate a qr code for your course

For a wider selection of course settings, click the ellipses in the top right on the page and select settings from the dropdown menu.

How to Publish a Course

  1. Click the blue pPblish button in the top right-hand corner of the course page.

  2. Adjust course settings as needed

  3. Confirm access - select whether Admins and Managers can edit the course or comment only

  4. Click the blue Publish button on the bottom right of the modal

The publish button is only clickable once your course has met the basic requirements of an assignable course.

If any vital content elements are missing you will be unable to publish the course and will be directed to the missing elements on the left sidebar with a red dot.

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