Courses & curriculum

This page walks you through every screen and field for building a Sikshya course. If you just want to ship something fast, follow the Quick start first, then come back here when you need to fine-tune.

The Courses list

Open Sikshya → Course → Courses.

You'll see a table of every course on your site with:

• A Search box (search by title).
• Status pills at the top: All, Published, Draft, Pending, Scheduled, Private, Trash.
• Course type dropdown: All types, Regular, Subscription PRO, Bundle PRO.
• Sort by: Title, Published, Last modified, ID, Author.
• A + Add new course button in the top right.

Each row shows: ID, image, title (with a Bundle / Subscription chip if applicable), categories, price, level, published / updated dates, and status.

Click any row to Edit in builder. Tick rows for Bulk actions: Move to trash, Publish, Move to draft, Mark pending review, Move to private. (In the Trash tab the bulk options become Restore to draft or Delete permanently.)

PROManage course staff (multi-instructor)

When the Multi-instructor add-on is on, each row gets a Manage staff action so you can add co-instructors, set roles (Owner / Editor / Grader), and split revenue.

Unlock multi-instructor →

The Course Builder — 4 tabs

Click + Add new course (or click any course title) to open the Course Builder. It has four tabs at the top:

1. Course details — what the course is.
2. Pricing & access — how learners get in.
3. Curriculum — the actual lessons, quizzes, and assignments.
4. Course options — visibility, completion rules, certificates, reviews.

Top-right buttons stay sticky while you work: Preview, Save draft, Publish.

Tab 1 — Course details

This is everything visible on the public course page. Sections in order:

Basic information

Field	What it does
Course title	The headline learners see.
URL slug (permalink)	Auto-generated from the title; click to edit.
Short teaser	One-line subtitle on the catalog card.
Full description	The long pitch, rendered in the WordPress editor.
Primary category	Pick from your course categories (manage them under Course → Categories).
Difficulty level	Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced. Used in catalog filters.
Estimated length	In hours. Shows on the catalog card.
Instruction language	English, Spanish, etc. Useful for multilingual catalogs.
Target audience	Who this course is for, in plain language.

Images & video

• Featured image — the big image at the top of the course page and in catalog cards.
• Course trailer video (URL) — paste a YouTube or Vimeo link. Plays inline on the course page.

What students will learn

• Learning outcomes — a bulleted list. Click + Add outcome to append more.
• Course highlights — 4–6 short brag points (e.g. "30+ lessons", "Lifetime access").
• FAQ — Question + Answer pairs. Click + Add FAQ item for more.
• Downloadable resources — files learners can download. Each has a Title, a media file, or a direct URL.
• Announcements — pinned notes for enrolled learners (Title, Message, Date).

Instructor

• Who teaches this course? — pick a user with the Sikshya Instructor role.

Search engine listing (SEO)

• SEO title — overrides the page title for search engines.
• Meta description — the snippet under your link in search results.
• Focus keywords — for tracking with Yoast / Rank Math / SEOPress.

Tab 2 — Pricing & access

How learners pay and who can join.

How people pay

Option	What it means
Free Course	Learners enroll with one click. No checkout step.
Paid Course	Standard one-time purchase via your active gateway.
Subscription only PRO	Course is part of a subscription plan (membership).

Pricing fields

• Regular price — the normal price.
• Sale price — optional. When set, this is the price learners pay.
• Membership plan PRO — if you picked Subscription Only, choose the plan.

PROCourse bundles & subscriptions

Sell several courses for one bundled price (Course Bundles add-on), or charge monthly / yearly recurring fees for member-only access (Subscriptions add-on).

Unlock pricing options →

Who can sign up?

• Open — anyone can buy / enroll.
• Closed — disabled for now.
• Invite only — admin enrollment only.

Other access fields

• Maximum students — optional cap.
• Course start / end — optional schedule.
• Enrollment opens / closes — optional date range.

Prerequisites & requirements

• Prerequisites PRO — courses or lessons that must be completed before enrolling.
• Course requirements — text-only "you need a Mac and Photoshop" style notes (free).

Tab 3 — Curriculum

This is where you build the actual learning experience. Curriculum is organized as:

Course
└── Chapter
    ├── Lesson
    ├── Quiz
    └── Assignment

You'll see an outline down the left and a builder on the right.

1. Click + Add chapter at the top. Type a chapter name like "Module 1 — Foundations" and click Save.
2. Inside the chapter, click + Add lesson. A modal opens with lesson types: Text, Video, plus Live class PRO, SCORM PRO, H5P PRO.
3. Pick Text, type a lesson title, click Create. The lesson opens in the editor — write the body, attach downloadable files, save.
4. Back in the curriculum, drag chapters and lessons to reorder. Click any lesson to re-edit it.
5. Repeat: + Add quiz, + Add assignment. Quizzes have their own editor — see below.

Lesson types

• Text — paragraphs, headings, images, embedded media. The standard WordPress editor.
• Video — paste a YouTube, Vimeo, or any embeddable video URL.

PROLive classes, SCORM, and H5P

Pin a Zoom or Google Meet URL to a lesson so learners always click the right link (Live classes add-on). Or embed a packaged SCORM / H5P interactive (SCORM/H5P add-on).

Unlock these lesson types →

Quizzes

Click any quiz to open the quiz editor. It has three sub-tabs:

• Content — title, description, intro text.
• Settings — passing score (%), attempts allowed, time limit (minutes).
• Questions — pick from your Question library or click + New question to write one.

Free question types:

• Multiple choice (single or multi-correct answers).
• True / false.
• Short answer (one line of text).
• Fill in the blank.

PROAdvanced quiz types & question banks

Reuse questions across many quizzes from a central Question bank. Add advanced question types, randomize order, draw a random pool of questions per learner, or shuffle answers each attempt — all in the Advanced quiz types add-on.

Unlock advanced quizzes →

Assignments

Each assignment has a title, description, due date, and a file-upload field for learner submissions. After submission, you grade pass / fail with a free-text note.

PROAdvanced assignments & gradebook

Score against a rubric, restrict the file types learners can upload, allow resubmissions, and see a per-learner / per-course grade view with the Advanced assignments + Gradebook add-ons.

Unlock grading workflows →

Tab 4 — Course options

Final settings: visibility, completion rules, reviews, certificates.

Visibility & catalog

• Who can see this course? — Draft, Published, Private, Password protected.
• Course password — if Password protected.
• Featured course — show with a badge in the catalog.
• Featured badge text — the badge label (e.g. "Editor's pick").
• Hide from catalog — useful for invite-only or bundled-only courses.
• Require prerequisites before enrollment PRO.
• Disable email marketing sync for this course PRO — when integrated with Mailchimp / MailerLite, exclude this course from list syncs.

Completion & progress

• When is the course finished? — All lessons complete / All lessons + quizzes + assignments / Pass all quizzes / Manual.
• Minimum quiz score (%) — only relevant for the "Pass all quizzes" rule.
• Require a final quiz — last quiz must be passed for completion.
• Track student progress — leave on. Powers the progress bar and certificate.

Reviews PRO

• Allow course reviews — when Course reviews & ratings add-on is on, this section shows up. Toggle reviews on / off per course.

Certificates

• Enable completion certificate — toggle on to issue a certificate when the course is complete.
• Certificate requires course completion — vs. "issue at progress threshold."
• Certificate template — pick from your installed templates (free presets: Regalia, Vertex).
• Progress threshold for certificate (%) — issue early at e.g. 80% if you'd rather not require 100%.

PROAdvanced certificates with verification

Build certificates with a drag-and-drop designer, more merge fields (instructor, score, serial), and add a QR code that links to a public verify page so anyone can confirm authenticity.

Unlock advanced certificates →

Categories

Open Sikshya → Course → Categories to manage course categories. Each category has:

• Name — visible in catalogs and on the card.
• Description — long form, rich text. Shows on the category archive.
• Slug — auto-generated; edit if you want a specific URL.
• Parent — categories are hierarchical. "Web development → Frontend → CSS" is fine.
• Image — optional category image used on archive headers.

You can search, sort, and bulk-delete categories from this screen.

Other content libraries

Open Sikshya → Course → Content library for direct access to your stand-alone content:

• Lessons — all lessons across all courses.
• Quizzes — all quizzes.
• Assignments — all assignments.
• Questions — your question library (reusable across quizzes).
• Chapters — chapters across courses.
• Question banks PRO — only visible when Advanced quiz types is on.

These tabs use the same WordPress list pattern (search, status pills, sort, bulk actions). Use them when you want to clean up unused lessons or move a question between quizzes.

Tips & best practices

• Keep chapter titles short (under 60 characters). They show in the curriculum sidebar.
• Use preview lessons. Tag the first lesson of each chapter as a preview lesson so anonymous visitors can sample before they buy.
• Aim for short lessons (5–10 minutes). Completion rates go up dramatically.
• Use categories for level, tags for topics. Both feed your catalog filters.
• One course, one outcome. "Master Excel pivot tables" beats "Become a spreadsheet wizard" because it's specific.

Where to go next

• Learners & roles — manage students, instructors, and enrollments.
• Enrollment & access — drip, prerequisites, manual enroll.
• Payments — gateways and refunds.
• Pro add-ons — every Pro feature listed.