6.8. Testing Your Course Content

The way your course looks in Studio is not the way that students will see and experience it when it is live.

It is recommended that you test your content continually as you build your course, so you can interact with your course from a student’s point of view.

To test your content, you can:

Note

If you use content groups in your course to designate content as visible only to particular students, see Preview Cohort-Specific Courseware.

For information about setting up a beta test for your course, see Beta Testing a Course.

6.8.1. Preview Course Content

You preview course content before you publish it to test how it will look to students.

When you preview course content, you see the latest course content as configured in Studio. You see content in units with the publishing status Draft (Never published), Draft (Unpublished changes), or Visible to Staff Only.

If you use content groups and have designated components in a unit as visible only to particular groups, the visibility status indicates that some content in the unit is visible only to particular groups. For information about previewing course content if you use content groups to designate content as visible only to particular groups, see Preview Cohort-Specific Courseware.

For example, you publish a unit with a video and discussion:

A unit in Studio with a video and discussion

Students see the same content in the LMS:

A unit in the LMS with a video and discussion

You later decide to add a multiple choice problem to the unit, before the discussion:

A unit in Studio with a video, problem, and discussion

Before you publish this change, you can see what the question will look to students.

When you click Preview Changes, you see the unit in the LMS with the multiple choice question:

A unit in the LMS with a video, problem, and discussion

This preview shows how students will experience the unit after you publish the change.

In the live course, students continue to see the same content, without the multiple choice question, until you publish the change.

Note

Preview Changes in not available when the unit’s state is Published and Live, because in this case the preview and live version are exactly the same. You can view the live course to see the published content.

6.8.2. View Your Live Course

When you are working in Studio, you can test your course by viewing it in the LMS. In the LMS, you can see your course as a student sees it. You can see your course in Staff View or Student View. If you are using content groups to designate specific content as visible only to particular content groups, you can see your course as a content group would see it.

While you work in Studio, you can switch to your live course to see how your course appears to students in two ways.

  • From the outline page, click View Live.

    View live button on the outline
  • In a unit page, click View Live Version.

    View Live Version button on the unit page

6.8.2.1. Staff View

You see the course in the Staff View.

Image of the Courseware page in a live course with Staff View indicated at top right and a View Unit in Studio button

In Staff View:

When you view your course in Staff View, you can execute tests to make sure that your course works the way you intend. For example, before the release date of a subsection, members of the course team can work through the problems to verify that the correct answer gets a green check for correct, and that any answer other than the correct one gets a red X for incorrect.

6.8.2.2. Student View

When viewing your course in the LMS, you can use the Student view to see the course with all course content that is intended for all students.

Note

If you have enabled your course for cohorts and have designated some content as visible only to certain content groups, you can select a content group from the View Course As drop down list to see the content exactly as a student in a cohort associated with that content group will see it. For details, see Preview Cohort-Specific Courseware.

To switch to the Student view, click View this course as and select Student from the drop down list.

Image of the View Course As drop down list with Staff, Student, and named content group options

In Student View:

  • You do not see sections or subsections that have not yet been released.
  • If the section and subsection are released, you see units that are Published and Live. For units that are Draft (Unpublished changes), you see the last published version of the unit.
  • You do not see units that are Draft (Never published) or Visible to Staff Only. To see these units, you must switch back to Instructor view or use Preview mode as described in Preview Course Content.
  • You can access the Instructor Dashboard, which has features and reports that help you run your course.

6.8.3. Open Studio from Your Live Course

When you are viewing your course in the LMS as Staff View, you can open Studio directly.

  • In a unit page, click View Unit in Studio.

    The View Unit in Studio button in an LMS unit

    The unit page opens in Studio.

  • In the Instructor Dashboard, click View Course in Studio to open the course outline.

    Image of the Instructor Dashboard in a live course with a View Course in Studio button

    For information about the tasks you can complete on the Instructor Dashboard, see Running Your Course.

  • In the Course Progress page, click View Grading in Studio to open the Grading page.

    Image of the Course Progress page for a student with a View  Grading in Studio button

    For information about checking a student’s progress, see Review How Grading Is Configured for Your Course.