Create a new course

A Course is a collection of lessons and assessments. Once a course is created, you can upload content and add practice quizzes and exam in a structured format for learners to consume the course content through the web portal or mobile application.

During course creation, the course administrator will have complete control over configuration options like course description, enrollment and certification.

In this article, you will learn more about how to create single and multiple course(s) on the platform in the respective sections:

Permissions Level

The Microsoft Community Training management portal provides role-based administration and depending upon the type of access level the administrators can perform an action on the portal.

The table below shows administrative role which are allowed to create courses in the portal:

Option 1 - Create a single course in a category

In this topic, you will learn simple steps to create a single course in the Microsoft Community Training platform. Before executing the below steps, switch to administrator view on the training portal:

1. Click on or More (...) icon on the category list pane to create course under a category.

   

2. Click or tap New Course. Skip this step if you choose option in step1.

   

3. Enter the Course Name. The course name is the course title that learners would see on the web portal and mobile app. For example: AI for Agriculture.

4. Enter the Course Description. The course description is a short summary which informs a learner about course content at the time of registration. For example: Farming in Agriculture.

5. Choose Enable certificate. This option enables the administrator to award certificate to learners after the course completion.

   Note

   Organizations can customize the certificate template awarded to the learners at the time of course completion.

6. Choose Restrict lesson ordering. This option enables the administrator to restrict the learners to consume the lessons in sequence. Learners will NOT be allowed to skip lessons within a course if this option is enabled.

   Tip

   You can use restrict lesson ordering to create learning paths on the platform to customize the learning experience for each learner.

   For example, trainers can pre-assess a learner's existing knowledge of the topic in the initial lessons and practice quiz and then guide the learner to continue in the current course or advice to first complete another course(s) on the platform before returning to the current course.

7. The administrator can configure the Learner Enrollment type for the course. We have three enrollment types available for the online courses that can be uploaded to the portal:

   • Automatically enroll all learners: This option ensures that all the registered learners are automatically registered to a course when logged in and it enables the administrator to mandate some of the courses to the learners.

   • Self-enroll (Allow users to enroll on their own): This option allows the administrator to create courses that allow the learners to search and self-register to the course.

     Note

     If Organization feature is enabled, then Self-enroll courses of an Organization will be visible to learners of that organization only. Users can register from Course library

   • Only admin can enroll learners: This option allows the administrator to keep the content private while the content is still being prepared. Administrators reserve the right to register learners and to make the courses available for a wider audience. Admin only courses are not shown in the course library.

   Tip

   All the mandatory courses should be marked as auto-enrolled. Also, if there are advance courses on any topics, then mark them as Admin enrolled and assign the course manually to the learners who have completed the basic course.

8. Click or tap Upload to upload option to open file picker and select an image file as Course Thumbnail.

9. Click or tap Create button to create the course.

Next> Once a course is created, the administrator can start uploading the content for the course

Option 2 - Add Course via Content Marketplace

In this topic, you will learn simple steps to Import courses from marketplace in the platform.

1. On the Microsoft Community Training portal, after login switch to administrator view.

2. Select the Content menu on the left bar and click on Categories tab

3. Select Marketplace, on the bottom-left of the page.

   

4. You will see a popup with content to choose from various providers.

   

5. After choosing content of your choice, click on ‘Import course’ button

   

6. Search and choose for category that you want the course to be imported to.

   

7. The course you selected will now be imported to selected category as shown

   

Option 3 - Create multiple courses in a category

The easiest way to create courses and upload content in the learning portal is to leverage the Bulk Upload Courses feature. Administrators can save time by creating multiple courses and uploading content at once using the Bulk Upload Courses functionality.

In this topic, we will learn the simple steps to create multiple courses under a category in the management portal. Before executing the below steps, switch to administrator view on the learning portal:

Prerequisite for using Bulk Upload Courses feature

Before you start doing the bulk upload of courses under a category, you need to make sure the course content is structured correctly and available in the required file format on your local machine. The steps below provide information on how to get your content ready for bulk upload courses:

1. Create a folder on your local machine with the course name you want to create on the portal.

2. Copy the content you want to add as lessons to the course inside the folder created in Step 1.

3. If required, repeat #1 and #2 above to create and upload multiple courses together .

4. Ensure that there are no sub-folders inside any folder with course names. Folders with course names should only contain lessons file as shown in the image below:

   

5. Select all the folders you want to upload and compress them into a ZIP file. Right click > Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder.

6. Once the ZIP file is created, your content is ready for bulk upload. You can rename the ZIP file if required.

   Important

   Course Details (like thumbnail, description, enrollment type, etc.), Practice quizzes and exams cannot be added to the courses via bulk upload functionality unless you are exporting courses from one instance to another. The admins have to add them manually later.

Steps for bulk upload courses to the portal

1. Click or tap More (...) icon on the category list pane to bulk upload the courses under a category.

   

2. Click or tap Bulk Upload Course (Preview) from the drop-down menu.

3. Using the file picker, select the ZIP file which contains course content for bulk upload.

   

4. Wait for file upload operation to be completed. Do not close the browser window at this point.

   

   Note

   Depending upon your network connectivity and size of the ZIP file, it can take some time to complete the upload operation.

5. After upload, you will see the following message on the top-right corner which indicates that content file was successfully uploaded to the portal for processing.

   

   Warning

   If there are issues with the content or structure of the zip file then the upload operation will fail.)

6. On the course details page, progress status will be updated at regular interval. Refresh (Press F5) the page in case you don't see the newly uploaded courses on the portal.

   Note

   For video content, processing can take hours depending upon the number of videos, size and configuration of media service end point. This processing is a non-blocking operation and admins are allowed to do other tasks)

7. Once the content is processed, you can add course description, change enrollment type, enable certificate, etc. as per your requirement. By default, course details are set to following:

   a. Course Name – Folder Name 
   b. Lesson Name – File Name
   c. Course Description – Null
   d. Course Thumbnail - Null 
   e. Enable certificate – unchecked
   f. Restrict lesson ordering - unchecked
   g. Enrollment type – Self enrollment
   

Next> Once the course is uploaded, you can add assessments or publish the course for learners to consume the content via the web portal or mobile application.

Option 4 - Create multiple translations of a Course

The learning portal allows you to create multiple translations of a course in different languages. Once a course is created within a category via either Option 1 - Create a single course in a category or Option 2 - Create multiple courses in a category, administrators can create its translations.

Understanding Course Translations

Course translations are an important tool for administrators for the scenarios where the same course can be made available to the learners in their language of choice.

The impact of course translation for administrators and learners is explained in the following example.

Let us assume that a course by default is created in the language English and its subsequent translations are created in Spanish and Italian.

Impact on Administrator: An administrator will now only need to manage the default version of the course,

1. Content Assignment: Only the default version to be assigned to the learners individually or via groups. Deep links can also be shared only for the default version.
2. Progress Tracking: Analytics will be available against the default course on the platform irrespective of which translation a learner consumes.

Impact on Learner: A learner can select any of the enabled languages on the platform,

1. If the learner enables either of English, Spanish or Italian - the respective course translation will be available to the learner in My Courses and Course Library.
2. If the learner enables another language, such as French - the default version (here, English of the course will be available to the learner in My Courses and Course Library.

Next, let us understand how to create course translations once a default course is created via either Option 1 - Create a single course in a category or Option 2 - Create multiple courses in a category.

Creating Course Translations

In this topic, you will learn simple steps to create translations of a course in the Microsoft Community Training Platform. Before executing the below steps, switch to administrator view on the learning portal:

1. To create a translation for a course, click on + Add course in a different language.

   

   Warning

   Courses with enrollment type Automatically enroll all learners can NOT be translated.

2. Enter the Course Name. The course name is the course translation's title that learners would see on the web portal and mobile app. For example: AI for Agriculture - Spanish.

   

3. Enter the Course Description. The course description is a short summary which informs a learner about course content at the time of registration. For example: Italian translation for the course AI for Agriculture.

4. Choose Enable Certificate. This option enables the administrator to award certificate to learners after the course completion. Administrators can select one of the certificates from the list for the course.

   Tip

   You can create certificate templates in different languages and enable them basis the course language.

5. Choose Course Language. This is the language in which the course will be translated.

   

Next> Once a course translation is created, the administrator can start uploading the content for the course as per the translation's defined language.