How to create an online training platform and sell courses on the internet easily and quickly on WordPress.

On WordPress, there are several plugins suitable for this. And in this list of plugins, I have selected one called " CoursePress And I will show you how to create an online training center.

How to install the CoursePress plugin

It's a plugin Available on WordPress.org, that you can Install directly from your dashboard. After installing it, you will normally be redirected to the welcome page.

Page that will present details on the process of creating a learning center. Now in 5 steps, we will step by step create our training center with CoursePress.

welcome message

1ère Step: Choose a suitable theme

CoursePress comes with a default theme, but it may not be right for you. In return, you can choose a theme designed for blogs (or for writers) with a clean style. You can search in the large catalog of themes that we recommend.

In addition, you can choose a premium theme with a clean design directly on Themeforest. Remember, we showed you in a previous tutorial how to research this market.

Please note: for this tutorial, I will use the theme available by default with CoursePress, because that way you can easily find your way.

2e Step: Configure the plugin

The first thing to do is to know whether or not users will be able to register for the training center (which seems to me rather obvious). In this case, therefore, do not forget to make sure that the Registrations are open.
Now it's time to configure the plugin. I therefore invite you to access the location " CoursePress >> Settings ».

The "General" tab

On this page there is a list of slugs used for the different features offered by CoursePress. It is important to understand how all these work, otherwise you will have a lot of worries:

  • Slug race : this is the address of the reception of the training center. On this page, all new courses are displayed. You can therefore modify the value of this field by " our-course " for example.
  • Units Slug : the slug of the different chapters of a course. Assuming that a course has the slug " how-create-a-blog-wordpress Then the chapter slug will be added just after the course slug to produce an address similar to this one:
    http://exemple.com/cours/comment-creer-un-blog-wordpress/chapitre/installation-avec-filezilla.
    You can replace the value of this field with " chapter"
  • Course Notification Slug : slug of the notification page, you can change this value by "notifications".
  • Racing Discussions Slug : Slug of the page discussion of a topic.
  • Race New Discussions Slug : slug of the discussion creation page
  • Race Grade Slug : slug of the page of different grades of users
  • Course WorkBook Slug : slug of each user's workbook page
  • Enrollment process page : slug of the registration page
  • Login Page : Slug of the login page (if you do not want to use the default WordPress login page).
  • Sign Up Page : Slug from the registration page to the training center. Make sure you have opened registration.
  • Student Dashboard Page : Slug from the users dashboard page
  • Instructor Page slug : Slug from the teachers page.

Control-of-slugs

Please note: The slugs are not composed of spaces, nor of characters with accents. You should not create pages for these different slugs the plugin will take care of these different slugs.

On the section Theme Menu Items ", We will uncheck the option" Display Menu Items », Because these are the ubiquitous menus displayed with the default theme. However, this menu is completely in English so is not of much use.

In the section " Login Form ", We will make sure that the option" Use Custom login page Is checked, in order to use the personalized connection system offered by the plugin.

options-the-menu-and-the-page-of-connection

In the section " Race Image », We are going to determine the dimensions of the images, if at home the default dimensions do not display the images correctly, you can adjust the parameters on this field.

change-of-size-of-image

3e Step: Create menus

Regarding theOrganisation from the menu. We are going to add 4 links on the menu:

  • A link to the page of the different courses.
  • A link to the faculty page (Or authors)
  • A link to the dashboard
  • A link to the settings (submenu of the "dashboard" link)
  • A link to the login page
  • A link to the registration page

To build these different links, you will need to get inspired by the different slugs saved instead.

4e Step: Create complete courses

Creating a course involves configuring course details, chapters and finally students.

Setting up a course

To create a new course, we will go to the page " CoursePress >> New Course ».

how-create-a-new-course menu

This new page presents a form divided into several sections.

Section: "Course Overview"

We will define:

  • A title for our course Course Name »
  • A summary for our course « Course Excerpt »
  • An image for our course « Listing Image »
  • The language of the course Course Language »

race-overview

To continue, we must click on the button " Next Situated lower down.

Section: "Race Description"

On this tab:

  • We can fill the field Featured Video To give a Youtube link (Or a link to a .mp4, .flv, .webm file) to view an introductory video for the course.
  • Add a description to the course (highly recommended)
  • Show some options on visibility of course details including " Show the Course Overview structure and Preview Options To display a detailed structure of the course and Display Time Estimates for Units and Lessons »To display the estimated learning time to complete the course.

Click on " Next To configure the section of the teacher or author of the course.

details-dun-course

Section: "Instructors"

The 3e section concerns instructors (or teachers). By default, the author (Or the teacher) who will deliver the course and whoever creates it. But you can choose a teacher from the list of users.

If a teacher is not one of the registered users, you can invite him / her by email using the form below " Invite New Instructor ". All you need to do is enter its details and email address, then click on " Send Invite ».

Once done, click on " Next To configure the dates.

Section: "Race Dates"

This section concerns registration and the duration of the course. To define that a course has no duration, the option " This race has no end date Must be checked. Otherwise, you must define a departure date " Start Date And an end date End Date ».

Regarding registrations, it is possible to open registration for a course at any time by checking the option " Users can enroll at Any Time ". If not, it is necessary to set a date from which the registrations are opened and a date from which they end.

Control-of-date

Once done, click on " Next To configure discussions, class sessions and the student notebook.

Section: "Classes, Discussion & Workbook"

A course is usually taught for a defined period. To activate this option, click on the option " Limit Class Size And define below the number of class sessions during which the course will be delivered.

During the course, it is possible to activate discussions, in order to allow students to debate with the teacher (or between) on certain points related to the course. To do this, click on the box " Allow Race Discussion ».

For students, it may be necessary to display their workbook, so that they can see how they are progressing. To activate this option, click on " Show student Workbook ».

Control-of-class-and-book-of-year

Click on " Next To go to the next step.

Section: "Enrollment & Course Cost"

It is possible to add students manually, when registration on the training center is not open. Otherwise, registration may be automatic.

Registration-coursepress

The course can be free (default option), or paid. To make a course payable, you must click on the option " This is a Paid Course ". You will be asked to activate the plugin " MarketPress You can then set the price.

Middle-of-payment coursepress

After setting up your payment methods, click on " Done To switch to chapter configuration.

Chapter Configurations

This section is only accessible after configuring or creating a course. It is possible from this location to add a new chapter by clicking on " Add New Unit ».

add-a-new-chapter

On the new add chapter page, you will be asked to add:

  • A title (Unit Title)
  • The date on which the chapter will be available (Unit Availability). It is possible to submit access to the chapter to the resolution of an exercise (All rights reserved. All rights reserved.) normally (i.e. with or without errors) Or completely error-free (User also needs to pass all mandatory assessments).
  • The number of pages in a chapter (Unit page)
  • The label of the chapter that will be visible in the overview of a course (Page Label).

CoursePress offers a ' Visual composer To give the desired form to the different chapters.

It is therefore possible to display a text, an image, a video, make use of an audio file, add a file for download, add a separator line, a multiple choice box, a field of sending a file, a single-choice box, and of course a text field for answering questions.

Presentation-of-options-and-a-course

All added elements can be reordered.

reorder-of-elements

All the chapters during creation are in draft mode. You can publish these by toggling the option " Draft " towards " Life ».

how publish-a-chapter

Don't forget to save your chapter by clicking on " Save ". You can also see how the chapter is presented by clicking on " Preview ».

All new chapters will be added above the " Add New Unit ". So you can make changes to these chapters at any time.

Student Management

From the tab Students You can add and remove students. Select a student in the users field and click on " Add Student ».

how search-and-add-a-student

To remove a student from a course, click on " Withdraw ”On the board of students registered for a course. And to see the profile of each student, click on the icon in the shape of a man on the same line.

profile-and-withdrawal

It is also possible to invite a student by e-mail, via the fields located further down on the same page.

invite-a-student

Now that we know how to create a course, it's time to run our training center.

5e Step: Training Center Management

Course management

The good management of the training center passes through the management of the courses. At this level nothing too complicated, just click on the menu « CoursePress >> Courses To access your different courses. From this location, you can publish a lesson or delete it.

By hovering over each course, new links will appear. These links provide quick access to certain sections in the course.

Management-of-courses-and-menu

Instructor Management

The management of instructors (or teachers) is quite simple. This page displays the instructors who are responsible for the various courses available on the training center. Just like adding students to a course, it is possible to access instructor profiles or simply remove them from a course.

profile-and-withdrawal instructors

CoursePress also gives the possibility to create new instructors. Of course, this is the core functionality of WordPress (Creating a user).

Student Management

Managing students is the same as managing instructors with a few differences. On this page, it is possible to directly access the workbooks of each student, to see how many courses he is enrolled in, his last activity, etc.

Management-of-students

Managing discussions

Discussions may be questions asked by students enrolled in a course. They can be created by them or manually (by you).

To manage the various discussions, you must access the location " CoursePress >> Discussions ».

Management des discussions

As mentioned above, you can create discussions, and assign them to an existing course, by clicking on the button " Add new Just after the text Discussions ».

add-a-talk button

On this new page, you can save a title, a description and attach this discussion to an existing course.

add-a-chat

Evaluation Management

You can only add questions in the chapter configuration. However, from this interface, you will have an overview of the different questions in the different chapters of a course and the users' answers.

Management-of-assessments

Managing notifications and reports

Notifications are used to transmit information to different students, or to those specially registered for a course. To manage notifications, you need to access the location " CoursePress >> notifications ". You will see a table with the different active notifications.

You can create a new notification by clicking on the link " Add New Just after the text Notification ».

Management des notifications

The reports allow you to have a follow-up on the course of each student. In particular, you can see everyone's progress percentage on specific courses, and download the report as a PDF file.

consult-the-reports

With a few hours of practice, you will arrive at a fairly complete training center.

Before we leave

You should know that CoursePress is a semi-premium plugin. To take advantage of all these features, I invite you to get the final version on publisher website. But, before you can download the free version and use it.

Building a newsletter is important, whether for blogs or online training centers. We wrote two tutorials AWeber et MailChimp , which are among the best services of Marketing by email, I hope they will help you put together a newsletter.

You can also simplify your life with the plugin Optin Monster, which adapts perfectly to campaigns created with Aweber and MailChimp.

Do not hesitate to leave a comment for the slightest concern.