Getting Started with MemberPress Courses

MemberPress Courses add-on adds the learning management system (LMS) to your MemberPress-based website.

This document will cover the basics of MemberPress Courses and show you how to create and manage your courses.

Setting Up Courses Add-On

Before creating MemberPress courses, you need to install and activate the MemberPress Courses add-on on your website. 

Next, you should set your Global Course Settings, which apply to all MemberPress courses.

In addition, you can choose the course template for your website. Courses will have the recommended ReadyLaunch™ Courses/Lessons template enabled by default. The ReadyLaunch™ template for courses is a full-screen template built for distraction-free learning. Also, it comes with additional customization options.

Alternatively, you can toggle off the ReadyLaunch™ Courses/Lessons template and use the Classic courses template. 

The Classic template resembles the standard WordPress post and will largely inherit your post styling. 

Note: Switching to the Classic course template removes the ReadyLaunch™ courses sidebar and header. This change will be applied to all your courses, lessons, and quizzes. 

Course Listing Page

All your public and protected courses (by MemberPress rules) will be available on the Courses Listing page on your website. Unless course slugs are modified, this page will be located at https://yoursite.com/courses/.

The Course Listing page displays your courses as a post grid with filtering (Category or Author) and search options. Through this page, visitors and users will be able to browse through your courses and start any course they need. 

Publicly available courses will be available to everyone. Protected courses will require users to register for a required membership first.

Protected courses can be hidden on the Course Listing page or shown with the padlock icon next to the course’s title. To list protected courses, you need to enable the Show Protected Courses in Listing under the Global Course Settings.

MemberPress Courses Basics

Adding courses to your membership website can bring many benefits to your business. It will provide additional free or paid content on your site, allowing you to generate income from selling courses. In addition, you can expand your services, adopt new business models, or even run an online school.

When creating MemberPress Courses, it’s essential to understand what elements they contain and how they work. Each MemberPress Course comes with the following elements:

• Course Page – this is the homepage of your course. This page contains the course overview (curriculum) and any course-related data you added to this page;
• Curriculum – the curriculum is a collection of sections, lessons, and quizzes within each course. In the backend, the curriculum is a course editor that allows you to compile and manage your course. Here, you can add, delete, or update any section, lesson, or quiz and set their order within the course. On the front end, the curriculum provides the course overview for students and allows them to navigate through the course;
• Sections – sections represent chapters or modules in your courses. They are groups of lessons and quizzes and provide better organization of the course. 
• Lessons – are individual posts containing the information and materials of (typically) one learning unit. 
• Quizzes – are individual posts that come with dedicated quiz question blocks. You can use quizzes to deliver knowledge to students by asking questions. Also, you can set passing scores and use quizzes to test students’ knowledge.
• Resources – you can add additional resources to your courses as files, links, or custom HTML.
• Certificates – you can enable certificates for any course. If enabled, certificates will be automatically generated for students as proof of completion.

Protecting MemberPress Courses And Enrolling Students

Now that you created your course, you need to enroll your students. To enroll students in any course created in MemberPress, they should navigate to your Course Listing page. 

Here, they need to click on the course they wish to enroll in to access the course page. Students can click on any listed lesson in the curriculum to start learning.

On the other hand, if you wish to sell your courses, you need to protect courses first. Then, your students will need to purchase a membership first to gain access to your courses.

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