How to Create a Course in Levelup using the Simple Course Authoring Tool

Let us look at what you need to do to create a course

1. Click on the ‘Admin’ section on the home page
2. Click on ‘Create New’ Button near the top right corner of the screen
3. When you click on the button, you get options to create a course, track, or sequential track. Click on ‘Course’

Here you would need to enter the basic details of the course.

4. Enter a Title for the Course. This is a required field
5. Enter a Short Description for the Course.
6. Next, provide a long description of the course.
7. Now choose a department. The course could only be accessed by people who belong to the department.
8. Next, you would need to enter the Version of the Course.
9. Add tags making it easier for users to search and find the most relevant courses.
10. At the next step, you will find a set of toggle switches:
    • Choose whether to offer certification upon completion or not.
    • Choose whether enrollment is necessary or not.
    • Choose if you want to enable video seeker for your videos.

TIP: If you feel that learners need to go through the entire course, you can set the video seeker off.

11. Now, we come to the Images Section. You can upload the image in JPG, PNG, WEBP and other formats. The dimensions should be less than 614×340 pixels.
12. Similarly, upload a thumbnail image which should be less than 366×204 pixels.
13. Once you are done, scroll back to the top and click on ‘Save as Draft’ to save the course.

PLEASE NOTE: Drafts are not visible to learners, only to admins. To make the course visible to learners, you would need to ‘Publish’ it. To do that, you would need to Add a Chapter. However, before you move towards creating chapters and uploading course material, make sure that you save the course as a draft.

Now, on the right side of the screen, you will get the options to add Chapters, Exam, Assignment, Assessment, and Poll to your course. Let us take a look at how you can add each of them to your course.

Adding Chapters to the Course

Once you have saved the Course as Draft now:

1. Click on ‘Add New Chapter’ on the ‘Edit Course’ Page.
2. You would be redirected to a new page, “Create Chapter”.
3. First, add a Title for the Chapter.
4. Next, enter the sequence number. If it is the first chapter of the course, then the sequence number should be ‘1’. If it is the second chapter, it should be ‘2’ and so on.
5. Click on ‘Save’ button located just above the ‘Title’ field.

Once the Chapter is saved, the option to add course material to the chapter will be available. To do this, click on ‘Add New Material’.

6. The ‘Create Material’ Box will open on the right.
   1. Start by entering a Title for the Material.
   2. Next, add the sequence number. Please note that this sequence will be followed within the chapter only.
   3. Select the ‘Material Type’ from the dropdown. You can choose between the following course materials:
      • Video – in MP4 format.
      • YouTube Video – you can add the URL of the video or its embedded URL.
      • Text – you can simply write a piece of text.
      • Document – upload Excel spreadsheets, MS Word Documents, PowerPoint Presentations or PDF documents.
7. As soon as you choose the type of material you want to upload, you will get the option to browse files on your computer and click ‘Open’ to upload the file.

NOTE: If you are uploading a document or presentation, enter the number of pages in the document or presentation. Ensure that you are entering the correct number. For uploading a video or YouTube URL, this step does not apply.

8. When you are done, click on the ‘Save’ button beside ‘Create Material’

Next, you will need to add a ‘Knowledge Check.

What is a Knowledge Check?

A knowledge check is a tool that helps learners to actively review what they have learned from the course.

1. To create a Knowledge Check, click on ‘Add New’ beside Knowledge Check.
2. Choose the type of Knowledge Check.
3. Choose whether the question will have one single answer or multiple answers.
4. Type in the Question and fill in the answers.
5. If you wish, you can also add an image to the ‘Knowledge Check’.
6. Click on ‘Save’ on top of the Knowledge Check box.
7. Click on ‘Update’ to Save the chapter.
8. Creating a chapter is not complete until you add an exam for assessment. Let us find out how you can add an exam to the chapter.

Adding an Exam

1. To create an Exam, click on create Exam.
2. You will be redirected to the Exam page.
3. You will be able to add questions to the exams and change the settings.

4. Here are some of the settings that you can change:
   1. Choose whether the learner can retry the exam once they have failed.
   2. You can set a passing mark for the exam.
   3. Choose whether the exam is timed or not.
   4. You can also choose whether each individual question will have different weightage.
   5. The system also allows you to randomize the order of questions.
   6. questions so to make things more challenging.

5. Once you are done setting the changes, you can proceed towards adding the questions.

To do that, click on ‘Add Questions’

6. You need to select the question type.

7. Type in the question, the options (if applicable) and the right answer.

8. If you wish, you can also add images to the question.

9. Once you are done, you can click on ‘Save’ to save the question.

10. You can also add multiple questions.

Adding an Assignment

You can also add assignments to the course. Here, trainers can assign a specific task, such as an essay, project, or presentation which needs to be submitted for grading. This is designed to help students learn and apply knowledge as necessary.

1. On the Course creation page, click on the ‘Add New’ button beside “Assignment”  
2. You will be redirected to the ‘Create Assignment’ page. 
3. Here you will need to enter Assignment Details  
4. First, you will need to provide a Title for the Assignment. Please note that if you don’t enter any title, the title is set as ‘Assignment’ by default.  
5. Next, you will need a summary of the assignment requirements using the rich text editor. You also upload a file. Supported file types include MP4 video, YouTube video URL, Excel spreadsheets, MS Word Documents, PowerPoint Presentations, and PDF documents.   
6. Once you are done, click on ‘Save’  
7. After you have done that, additional settings open in the right side of the screen.
8. You can mark the course complete when:

• Assignment is uploaded by the learner (does not affect Pass/Fail): Choose this option if you don’t need the assignment to be assessed.
• Assignment is graded by the trainer: Choose this option if you need to assess the assignment to pass the candidate. This is set on by default

9. The next toggle switch will allow your trainees/learners to enter free-text answer. This is switched on by default.

10. You can also allow file uploads with the next toggle switch, when you turn it ON, the following options will appear, helping you set what type of files you can upload:

• Documents – Max 20MB.
• Allow Audio/Video (default: OFF) – Max 200MB.

11. You can also set a time limit. The toggle is set off by default. If you enable it , you can enter the time limit in hours & minutes.

12. In the next setting, you can allow access to the assignment, if an Exam exists. This means that your trainees will be given an assignment after they have passed or failed the exam.

• Learner has passed the Exam (default: ON).
• Learner has passed or failed the Exam (default: Off).
• You can also set the passing grade for the exam, that the trainee must attain in the exam to get the assignment. The default is set at 60%, but you can adjust it between 0-100%

13. You will get the following notifications:

• Note: Assignment and Exam grades are calculated individually.
• Note: If an Exam exists, learners must pass both the Exam and Assignment to pass the course.

Saving the Assignment

14. To save the assignment, you can click on “Save”

Adding Attestation

What is Attestation?

The Attestation feature ensures that learners formally acknowledge their understanding and compliance with course materials, policies, or guidelines. This feature is particularly important for compliance training.

1. Click on the add new option besides attestation. 
2. You will be redirected to the Attestation page  
3. You can start by adding a title for the attestation (default value: “Attestation”).  
4. Just below that you will find the question listing. 
5. The Attestation is created with a single prebuilt acknowledgment question:

Question – I certify that I have completed this course, understand its content, and agree to comply with all applicable policies and procedures. I acknowledge my responsibility to stay informed of any updates and understand that non-compliance may have consequences, including disciplinary action.

Your trainees will get the option to choose between “I Agree” or “I Disagree”

6. You can also edit the question. To do that, you simply need to click on the ‘edit’ option.

7. The Edit Attestation window will open up. You can edit the question, edit the option or even add an option.

8. Once you are done, click on ‘Update’ at the top of the Edit Attestation window.

9. If you want to add more attestation questions, you can click on “Add”. You will get two options:

• “New”
• “Add Existing”

10. If you click on New, the new question window will open on the right side. 
11. You can add the question, and the options. You have space for two options, you can add more questions by clicking on the ‘+Add Option’ 
12. You will also get a checkbox at the bottom: “Add this question to the Content Library’s Question Bank.” Click on it if you want the new question to be added to the question library. If the checkbox is selected, then the question will be added to the Content Library’s Question Bank and tagged as Attestation.  
13. You can also add an existing question from the content library. To do that, click on add new:  
14. This will opens a dialog box allowing trainers to select questions from the Content Library’s Question Bank. Please note that only questions tagged with Attestation will be displayed.  
15. You can select the question(s) from the list of available questions. After you are done, click on the ‘Add’ button. 

Adding a Poll to a Course

1. You will get the option labeled “Poll” beneath the Attestation sections, with a button beside it allowing you to add new. 
2. When you click on it, it opens the Edit Poll page. 
3. On this page, you can enter the Title for the poll. 
4. You also need to provide a short description of the poll. The following description is added by default:  “Thank you for your participation. The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect your feedback, which will help us improve the Course.”

5. The next section is the Question Listing Section. Here two questions are added by the default:

• Question 1 – How would you rate this course?
• Question 2 – Please share any additional comments or feedback about this course.

6. You can edit these default questions. Click on edit option to open the Edit question window on the right side or the screen.  
7. Here, you can choose the question type. You can choose between rating scale, basic text, or multiple-choice question. 
8. If you are choosing multiple choice question, you can add the options or make it a single answer or multiple answer question. 
9. If you choose simple text question, you can choose whether it will be a single line or multiple line answer. 
10. For rating scale questions, you can use a maximum rating of 1 to 5. You can choose the type of rating as well, by choosing between smiles, hearts, star, number and thumb likes.

11. You can also click on “Add” on the Question listing section to add new poll questions.

• “New” – Opens a form to create a new question, like Exam but no images.
• Add Existing” – Opens a dialog box allowing trainers to select questions from the Content Library’s Question Bank.

12. If you choose ‘New’, it will open a form to create a new question. 
13. You need to select a Question Type and follow the actions mention in steps 8,9 and 10. 
14. You also get the option of Adding Existing Questions 
15. On clicking Add then Add Existing Question, it opens a dialog box allowing you to select questions from the Content Library’s Question Bank.  
16. You will get a list of questions from the Question Bank, filtered by the Poll tag.  
17. You can simply select and add questions, which are then listed under the Question Listing Section.

Publishing the Course

Now, all that is left is to publish the course. To publish the course, Navigate back to the Edit Course page.

Click on Publish at the top right corner of the page. You can also save it as a draft and revisit it later to make changes.

Your course is now published!