Quick start guide for authors

An overview of some of the tools and features that are available to authors.

Christine Nicholls avatar
Written by Christine Nicholls
Updated over a week ago

This article is a quick look at what you can see and do when you're learning with iQualify. We've tried to keep this as a one-page overview, so we've included links out to more information throughout if you need it.

iQualify sites can have their own specific setups

Remember each course can be set up a little differently by the organisation and/or facilitator you're learning with, so you might not see exactly everything we've listed here.

The experience for a learner and facilitator

To get a feel for iQualify, it's a good idea to understand first what it's like for learners and facilitators. Read Learning with iQualify and Facilitating with iQualify to see an overview of what their experience is like.

What you'll see as an author is different because where learners and facilitators are added to an activation of a course, you edit the actual content.

Tip: If you ever want to see a learner or facilitator view, just ask someone with a manage role in your organisation to set you up with your own activation (added as either a learner or facilitator).

What content can I add to a page?

A course is essentially a collection of pages with content. A page can contain all sorts of things!

Just play around with what you can add using that + on any page in editing mode.
โ€‹

We think one of the best ways to learn to build in iQualify is just to try everything out. Make a course on anything. You don't have to publish it and it's very hard to break stuff. Make a "sandpit" course and just try things out. If you're after a few more pointers check out these Formatting tips for new builders.

Once you've had a bit of practice, you might be interested in using one of our templates or making your own. Read What should go in a template or our list of templates to see if they might be able to save you time.

How courses are structured

Above we described what can go within a page of a course. But we need a bit more structure than a whole heap of pages. So, as an author, you can group your pages into sections and subsections to help learners navigate through the content and make connections between topics.

You can change the order of your content quickly and easily by dragging and dropping.

What else do courses have?

As well as pages of content, courses also have other associated values or data.

  • The overview, the first page learners will land on which briefly explains the course.

  • Cover photo and course trailers.

  • Glossaries that automatically show the definition you set when learners hover over it.

  • Study plans where you can set when sections open or assessed tasks are due.

The process of planning, drafting and reviewing

We find people want to use iQualify in all different stages, some do every step in iQualify from plan through to publish. Others prefer to plan with post-its, draft in a word or google doc, then build the final in iQualify. There is no right way to do it.

But if you're looking for some guidance, we've put together some ideas on a series of planning stages/tools and we've got advice about writing, using grammarly as a spell check and adding "reviewers" for that final sign off before you publish.

Publishing and republishing

When you finish building a course you can publish it. When you publish, it becomes available to a "manager" to create an activation from it (setting dates, adding learners and facilitators etc.). If you need to make changes you can pop in to the course content, edit, and republish. Watch the video below to see an explanation of this process.

Other help

When logged into iQualify you can access tours and our knowledge base from the Help menu. Our tours will guide you step by step and show you around. See our In-app tours available by role article to find out more. You can also talk to our helpful support team via in-app chat or you can email support@iqualify.com.

Want to see what other articles we have for creating with iQualify? Check out our collections on Planning, Creating content, Tasks, Assessment, and Templates and reuse.

Want to know about other areas of iQualify? See Learning with iQualify and Facilitating with iQualify.

Need some help with technology bits and bobs? Technology troubleshooting - Frequently asked questions has answers to common questions relating to logging in, using your browser and recording from your webcam.

Did this answer your question?