The terms “course” and “course version” can easily cause confusion for admins. This article aims to eliminate this confusion by providing a description of how the two pieces work together to create a seamless course experience for learners.
Courses
In the platform, “course” refers to a set of learning content built to teach learners about one or more topics. A course can contain one or more “course versions”, making course versions subordinate to courses.
Course versions
Course versions are variations of a single course. One course may be configured differently for different audiences and/or may be updated periodically with updated content. To account for this variation within a course without affecting learners, the platform utilizes course versions.
Course versions allow different audiences to see variations of the same course. For example, if a course is configured for a marketing team and then a supply chain team wants to take the course, you may wish to reconfigure a few aspects of the course for the new audience. Rather than rebuilding a completely new course, you can create a new course version within the same course without changing the content for the cohort that already took the course.
Functionality for courses vs. course versions
As a result of the hierarchy between courses and course versions, certain functionality is only available to courses. The table below outlines the major differences between course and course versions.
| Functionality Available |
Course | Course Version |
| Access course settings | x | |
| Create a self enrollment splash page | x | |
| Add splash page to catalog | x | |
| Contain multiple course versions | x | |
| View all course versions and all cohorts at once | x | |
| View analytics in HILD, Completed Courses, and Current Courses dashboards | x | x (would need to select cohorts that viewed specific course version) |
| Update course content without affecting other course versions | x | |
| Set unique pacing without affecting other course versions | x | |
| Publish without affecting other course versions | x | |
| Enable learning measurements without affecting other course versions | x |