Managing Courses

The Courses tab is your central hub for creating and managing LearnDash courses from the frontend dashboard. Admins and instructors can create, edit, clone, and delete courses without going into the WordPress admin area.

Who Can Do What

Action	Admin	Instructor	Group Leader
View courses	All courses	Own courses only	Assigned courses (read-only)
Create course	Yes	Yes	No
Edit course	Yes	Own courses only	No
Delete course	Yes	Own courses only	No
Clone course	Yes	Own courses only	No

Each course card shows an access badge: Your Content (you created it), Shared (you’re a co-instructor), or View Only (read access).

Screenshots

Admin View

Instructor View

Course Creation Form

Viewing Your Courses

Go to My Dashboard > Courses. Each course shows:

• Course title
• Publication status: Published, Draft, or Pending
• Categories and tags
• Action buttons: View, Edit, Delete, and Edit with Elementor (if your site uses Elementor)

Use the search bar or status filter above the list to find specific courses. The list shows 7 courses per page.

Creating a Course

1. Go to My Dashboard > Courses.

2. Click Add New Course.

3. Fill in the Post Data tab:

   Field	Required	Description
   Course Title	Yes	The name of your course
   Status	No	Published, Pending, or Draft
   Featured Image	No	The course thumbnail
   Course Content	No	The main course description
   Course Categories	No	Organize courses by category
   Course Tags	No	Add searchable tags

4. Switch to the Settings tab and configure:

   Field	Description
   Course Materials	Add downloadable resources for students
   Course Certificate	Choose a certificate students earn on completion
   Challenge Exam	Set a quiz students can take to skip the course
   Course Content Visibility	Show content to everyone or enrolled students only
   Access Mode	Open, Free, Buy Now, Recurring, or Closed
   Course Price	Price (shown when Buy Now or Recurring is selected)
   Billing Cycle	How often a recurring payment is charged
   Prerequisites	Require students to complete other courses first
   Course Points	Points awarded when a student completes the course
   Access Expiration	Number of days until a student’s access expires
   Student Limit	Maximum number of students (0 means unlimited)
   Course Start Date	The date the course becomes available
   Lesson Pagination	Number of lessons shown per page

5. Click Save Course.

Note for instructors: If your site administrator has restricted instructor publishing rights, your new course saves as Pending and waits for admin approval before going live.

Editing a Course

1. Find the course in your listing.
2. Click the Edit icon on the course card.
3. Make your changes across the Post Data and Settings tabs.
4. Click Save Course.

Deleting a Course

1. Click the Delete icon on the course card.
2. Confirm the deletion.

The course moves to the trash and disappears from your listing immediately. Student progress records are kept — they are not deleted when you remove a course.

Arranging Course Content with the Course Builder

The Course Builder lets you set the order of lessons and topics within a course.

1. Open a course edit form.
2. Scroll to the Course Builder section.
3. Drag and drop lessons and topics to rearrange them.
4. Click Save to apply the new order.

Courses contain lessons, and lessons can contain topics and quizzes. The Course Builder reflects this structure.

Cloning a Course

Cloning creates an exact copy of a course — including all its lessons, topics, and quizzes — as a new draft.

1. Find the course in your listing.
2. Click the Clone button on the course card.
3. Wait for the confirmation message.

The cloned course appears as a Draft with “(Clone)” added to the title. Edit and publish it when you’re ready.

Related

• Managing Lessons
• Managing Topics
• Managing Quizzes