Schedule a course

Publishing a course means that you are ready for other people to start accessing your course. You can continue to add new content, or edit existing content, long after you've published your course.

Publishing a course does not mean you have to sell the course right away. In fact, many instructors choose to publish their course days or weeks before students begin to enroll. This gives you the opportunity to invite friends, family, or beta testers to look over your course material before your students start to enroll.

How to Schedule Your Course

1. Go to your "Manage Courses" page.
2. Click on the title of your course.
3. In the pop-up menu of course information, click on "Schedule" in the right-hand Tools column.

   

4. You should now be on the schedule page, which looks like this:
5. Choose a Course Type: on demand, open access, or scheduled.
   
   On demand courses begin when a student enrolls, and allow you to release steps based on the number of days after your student enrolls. 
   
   Open access courses begin when a student enrolls, and allow you to release all of your content to your student as soon as they sign up. 
   
   Scheduled courses begin and end on set calendar dates, and allow you to set the date on which each step is released to your students. 
   
   Tip: More information about choosing a course schedule type can be found here: Choose a course schedule type.
   
   Note: Once you publish a course, you cannot change the start date or the type of course. You can always make a copy of a course and change the start date on that copy. You can change registration status and student class size limits at any time.

Schedule Settings: On Demand Courses

1. Enter the date you wish to publish this course in the "Publish course on" field.
2. Make sure that course registration is set to "open." (You can close registration later, if you wish).
3. Fill in the maximum number of students, or leave the default value. 
   
   Note: The maximum number of students you can have in a single course is 8,000.
4. Here's an example of the publication settings for an on demand course:
   
   
5. Click save to publish your course. 
   
   

     Note: Once you publish a course, you cannot change the start date or the type of course. You can always make a copy of a course and change the start date on that copy. You can change registration status and student class size limits at any time.

Schedule Settings: Open Access Courses

1. Set the date you wish to publish this course in the "Course starts" field.
2. Make sure that course registration is set to "open." (You can close registration later, if you wish).
3. Fill in the maximum number of students, or leave blank. 
   
   Note: The maximum number of students you can have in a single course is 8,000.
4. Here's an example of the publication settings for an open access course:
   
   
5. Click save to publish your course.
   
   

   Note: Once you publish a course, you cannot change the start date or the type of course. You can always make a copy of a course and change the start date on that copy. You can change registration status and student class size limits at any time.

Schedule Settings: Scheduled Courses

1. Set the date you wish to publish this course in the "Course starts" field.
2. Make sure that course registration is set to "open." (You can close registration later, if you wish).
3. Set the second course registration screen to your desired settings.
   
   
   
   "Closes when the course starts" is the default setting. This means that no one will be able to enroll on or after the Course Starts date.
   
   "Never closes" means that students will be able to enroll until you manually close registration.
   
   "Closes at the end of the first step" means that no one will be able to enroll after the day/date of the first lesson has ended.
   
   "Closes at the end of the last step" means that no one will be able to enroll once the last step has been released.
4. Fill in the maximum number of students, or leave blank. 
   
   Note: The maximum number of students you can have in a single course is 8,000.
5. Here's an example of the publication settings for a scheduled course:
   
   
6. Click save to publish your course.
   
   

   Note: Once you publish a course, you cannot change the start date or the type of course. You can always make a copy of a course and change the start date on that copy. You can change registration status and student class size limits at any time.

If you published a scheduled or on demand course, you will also need to  schedule your lessons. If you published an open access course, you do not need to schedule your lessons.