Courses in Valamis are scopes of your environment that help divide your content and users into specific areas.
There are two tools related to courses: Course Manager and Course Browser.
Course Manager
A Course Manager is, first of all, an instructor tool for creating and managing courses. Still, it can be made accessible to normal users, if needed - for example, you can allow learners to create their own subcourses (for a given current course) for their collaboration needs. Courses are only created in the Course Manager.
Non-Valamis sites are also visible in Course Manager and marked as Non-Valamis sites. They can be filtered out of the list. They are also not visible in the Course Browser for learners, which only shows courses. Non-Valamis sites can be converted to courses by publishing them in Course Manager.
Read more about using the Course Manager in this article.
Course Browser
A Course Browser is a tool for listing available courses for users to browse and join.
Course Browser provides a simple list of courses for learners to join or browse. By default, it shows two tabs:
- My courses - the courses you participate in. By clicking on any course, you will be redirected to its content.
- Available courses - the courses you may join or request access to. Paid courses are also shown here, if eCommerce is enabled. You may check the course information of each course, which may include the course description, its price, discounts, member limits, current number of participants, prerequisite learning paths and their statuses, etc.
In the Preferences of Course Browser, you will see the following settings.
Course list settings:
- Show only child courses- shows only the subcourses for the current course
- Display organization courses- include organization courses in the list.
- Show courses with these templates- filters the course list according to selection.
- Show courses with these categories- only display the courses of the selected categories.
- Replace dropdown menus with action buttons- if Simplified view is disabled, this setting switches between the Actions dropdown and separate action buttons for Join, Leave, and Send request.
- Shopping Cart Page URL- the URL for the page with the Shopping Cart app on it. Used in cases with eCommerce to redirect when purchasing courses.
Simplified view - if enabled, a more minimalist view will be used. The following settings are available if you enable Simplified view:
- Show courses- choose only to show either the My Courses or Available Courses tab.
- Show Actions buttons- enables Join, Leave, and Send request action buttons. If disabled, users will only be able to view courses.
- Show the number of participants
- Show ratings
- Limit the number of courses shown