Testing Your Course Content#
The way your course looks in Studio is different from the way that learners will see and experience it when it is live in the LMS. As a best practice, you should test content continually as you build your course, by interacting with the course content from a learner’s point of view.
The method that you choose for experiencing the course content as a learner depends on the publishing status of the content.
For more information, see the following topics.
Beta testing your course is another way to evaluate course content. For information about setting up a beta test for your course, see Beta Testing a Course.
To test content before a course has started, you can add yourself as a beta tester on the instructor dashboard. Make sure to set the course start date and the appropriate Days Early for Beta value. For more information, see Beta Testing a Course.
Viewing Published and Released Content#
If your course has started, you can view published and released course content from the point of view of a learner. When you select View Live or View Live Version from the course outline in Studio, you can choose specific views in the LMS to experience the course content exactly as a particular learner would.
Note
For courses that have not started, View Live mode provides only Staff view, and you can only view content that has a publishing status of Published.
In courses that have started, when you use Staff view in View Live mode, keep the following points in mind.
In addition to units that have a publishing status of published and live you also see units that are published but not yet released.
You see published units that are in Visible to Staff Only or Draft (Unpublished changes) status, regardless of the release dates of the containing section or subsection, but you see only the latest published version of such units.
You do not see units that are in Draft (Never Published) status. To see these units, you must use Preview mode, as described in Previewing Draft Content.
If you view the course in a role other than Staff, you do not have access to the Instructor tab or to staff functions such as View Unit in Studio, Staff Debug Info, or Submission History.
For information about unit publishing statuses, see Unit Publishing Statuses.
View Published and Released Content#
To view published and released content as it would appear to members of different groups, follow these steps.
From the Studio Course Outline page, select View Live. Alternatively, from a unit page, select View Live Version.
A separate browser tab opens for the course in the LMS.
In the LMS, select one of the View this course as options, as described in Viewing Course Content Based on Roles.
The course view refreshes to present published course content as a learner in the selected group would see it.
For more information about each view, see Staff View, Learner View, or Specific Learner View. For more information about viewing cohort-specific course content, see Viewing Cohort-Specific Course Content.
Previewing Draft Content#
Before your course has started, or before you release content to learners, you can test how the content will appear when it is released.
Similar to viewing published content, you can choose specific views in the LMS to experience draft or unreleased course content as learners belonging to different groups would, but you select Preview from the course outline in Studio instead of View Live.
In Preview mode, if you use one of the student-based View course as options, you can see draft course content unrestricted by release date. You see any content that has a publishing status of Published and Live as well as content with publishing statuses of Draft (Never Published) or Draft (Unpublished changes).
When you use Staff view in preview mode, you also see any content that is Visible to Staff Only.
Preview Draft Content#
To preview draft content and see how it would appear to members of different groups when it is released, follow these steps.
From a unit page in the Course Outline in Studio, select Preview.
A separate browser tab opens for the course in the LMS.
In the LMS, select one of the View this course as options, as described in Viewing Course Content Based on Roles.
The course view refreshes to present course content as it is currently configured in Studio, and as a learner in the selected group would see it.
Note
If you use randomized content blocks in your course, you cannot preview unpublished units that contain content from randomized content blocks, because the randomized content is not assigned until after the unit is published. For information about viewing the actual content that has been assigned to a particular learner from a randomized content block in a live course, see Specific Learner View.