Admin Help

✅ Best Practice for Creating a New Course in LearnDash

The easiest and most reliable way to create a new course is to clone an existing one—either a previous course or a template course designed to be duplicated.

Cloning ensures that:

• All quizzes, lessons, and course settings are copied over.
• You avoid the hassle of recreating everything from scratch.

🔁 Why Include the Year in the Course Title

Each time you offer a course again (e.g., in a new year), you should clone the previous version and include the year in the course title.

This is important because:

• You should not delete old courses—removing them deletes student data and grades.
• Keeping the year in the title helps distinguish between multiple versions of the same course.

🛠 Steps to Clone a Course

1. Navigate to “Courses” under the LearnDash section in the WordPress dashboard.
2. Find the course you want to clone.
3. Hover over the course title and click “Clone”.
4. Wait a minute for the clone to finish. Then refresh the page.
5. Click on the newly cloned course and make the necessary updates:
   • Update the course title and include the year.
   • Select the appropriate categories.
   • Update the course start date and any relevant details.
   • Review and adjust the course content as needed.
   • Update the course URL:
     • In the right-hand sidebar, find the “Permalink” or “URL” field.
     • Clear the current value and click outside the box.
     • A new URL will be automatically generated based on the updated title.
   • Assign the instructor for the course.

🧾 Final Steps

Click “Publish” or “Update” to save your changes.

After the course is ready, create a product for it and link the course to the product so students can enroll and purchase.

Every course also needs a gradebook created for and linked to the course.

Gradebooks are essential for any course that is part of a for-credit program, such as the BA degree. Courses must be connected to a Gradebook so that student progress and grading can be properly tracked.

⚠️ Note: Enrichment or non-credit courses do not require Gradebooks.

✅ Step-by-Step: Setting Up a Gradebook

1. Go to the Gradebook Section

• In the WordPress dashboard, navigate to:
  LearnDash LMS → Gradebook

2. Create a New Gradebook

• Click Manage Gradebooks
• Then click Add New

3. Name the Gradebook

• Use the exact course title as the Gradebook title.
• Example: If the course is called Leadership 305: Change Management, use that full name.

4. Attach the Gradebook to the Course

• In the Gradebook editor, look for the “Courses” section.
• Find and select the appropriate course (e.g., Leadership 305).
• This links the Gradebook to the course.

🧩 Add a Gradebook Component

Every Gradebook requires at least one grading component to function. Here’s how to set it up:

5. Click “Add Component”

• Use “Assignments” as the title.
• Under Component Type, enable:
  • ✅ Quizzes (since our assignments are structured as quizzes)
  • ❌ Lessons – leave this unchecked
  • ❌ Topics – leave this unchecked

6. Leave Other Settings As-Is

• You don’t need to change any other options unless a specific course has a different grading method.
• You can always reference a previous Gradebook for consistency.

7. Click “Publish”

• Once everything is filled in, click Publish to finalize the Gradebook.

🔁 When to Do This

You should set up the Gradebook at the end of the course creation process, but before students begin work.

If instructors can’t see student progress or quiz data, it’s often because the Gradebook hasn’t been set up or linked properly.

Navigate to the Users page

• In the WordPress admin dashboard, click “Users” in the left-hand sidebar.

• Click “Add New User”
• Fill in the required fields:
  • Username:
    Use all lowercase letters with a period between the first and last name.
    Example: Kenny Scott → kenny.scott
  • Email
  • First Name
  • Last Name
• Skip the Website field.
• Ignore the Password section.
• Ensure “Send User Notification” is checked so the user receives their account info.
• Set the Role to Instructor
• Skip the remaining fields — those are for students.
• At the bottom, under Other Roles, select Author
• Click “Add New User” to save.
• An email will be sent to the new user, directing them to the login page where they can create their own password.
  I typically send them am direct email telling them to click on the “Forgot Password?” link on the login page to complete the process.

• Navigate to the relevant course in the WordPress admin.
• Click on “Course Page” in the upper navigation menu.
• In the right-hand sidebar, find the “Author” field.
• Click on the dropdown and select the relevant instructor from the list.
• Click “Publish”, “Update” or “Save” to apply the changes.

Sometimes you can change grades directly in the gradebook, but other times you can’t. It’s inconsistent, and I’m not sure why—it seems to be a glitch.

The best way to handle this is to override the grade by having the student resubmit the assignment. For example, if the issue is with Lesson Two, the student should go into the course and resubmit the essay or assignment in the Lesson Two section. This will override the old grade and place the assignment back into pending status.

Once the student has done this, you’ll be able to regrade the assignment, and the new grade will replace the previous one.

If the student is unable to resubmit for any reason, you’ll need to contact the admin team so they can make the change from their end.