Developing Course Units#

To work with units in the course outline and develop your course, you need to understand the following concepts and complete the following tasks.

You add content to units with course components.

What is a Unit?#

A unit is a part of a subsection that learners view as a single page.

A unit contains one or more components, such as text with HTML markup, problems, a discussion, or a video.

Viewing Subsections in the Outline#

For more information see Course Outline

Viewing the Unit Page#

In Studio, when you select a unit name in the outline, the Unit page opens.

The following example shows a unit page in Studio with two components, with circles and text to show different areas and controls in the page.

The unit page with numbered indicators.
  1. A component in the unit.

  2. Options for testing the unit.

  3. Status panel for the unit.

  4. A unit navigation bar that shows where in the subsection this unit is located, and provides easy navigation options to nearby unit pages.

  5. A way to add new units to a subsection through the unit navigation bar.

  6. Navigation tools to quickly get to other sections or subsections.

Viewing Units as a Learner#

To a learner using the edX learning management system (LMS), each unit in the subsection is represented by an icon in the unit navigation bar at the top of the Course page. The current unit is indicated with bold underlining in the unit navigation bar. The components in the current unit appear below the unit navigation bar.

The following image shows a subsection in the LMS that contains several units.

A unit in the LMS, with all of the unit icons in the unit navigation bar indicated. Green check marks are visible for some units.

A green check mark next to a unit icon indicates that a learner has completed the unit. A learner has completed the unit if the learner has completed all the following actions.

  • Viewed all of each video.

  • Submitted answers for all of the problems.

  • Viewed all HTML content for at least five seconds.