Create and design a course

Create a draft, build it in Course design, then review it before opening enrolments. A course can deliver a qualification, a skill set, individual units or non-accredited training.

Access required

Choose the task you are doing. Each row is a separate action.

A course designer can reuse existing linked content when the course design flow permits it. Giving Courses and units: Manage does not grant the ability to author separate assessment or Form content.

Start a draft

Edit content beside the course sequence

Edit course opens the Content step. Select a lesson, assessment or question bank in the course sequence to open its editor on the course page, under the course header and steps. The sequence stays beside it. On a phone, select Sequence to switch between the outline and the selected item.

Save changes in each editor before selecting another item. Preview as learner shows the course delivery. A SCORM module in the preview has Play preview, which plays the package as the learner sees it without saving progress. See Online Lessons.

A new assessment opens in its editor and asks for the first activity the learner does. RTObase creates its first page for you. A question set offers Write questions, which creates a question bank, links it and opens it in one step.

Choose how the course gets its TAS

On Review and publish, the Training and Assessment Strategy card sets whether the course maps requirements:

• Provide our own TAS is the default for new courses. Existing courses that already mapped requirements keep mapping on. Course design only checks what the course needs to run: units, content, delivery and completion. Upload the TAS your RTO already uses and approve it.
• Generate the TAS from mapped requirements turns on requirement mapping. Map each unit requirement to the lessons, assessments and delivery arrangements that cover it, then generate and approve the TAS.

A non-accredited course chooses between No requirement mapping and Map outcomes to content. With mapping on, it uses Approve course design to record the design instead of a TAS.

You can change the choice later. Turning mapping off keeps existing mappings, and turning it back on shows them again. A new version of the course keeps the choice.

With mapping on, Generate TAS draft is available once the earlier steps are finished. Generating records the course design the TAS was built from, so there is no separate design review step. The TAS sections are listed beside the selected section. Check each one and select Confirm and next. Draft N empty sections with AI fills every empty section in one go. Regenerating keeps a confirmed section confirmed when its facts did not change. Select Approve as FINAL when every section is confirmed. Generating or approving a TAS does not publish the course. Old links to the course's TAS page open Review and publish.

Link requirements to the course content

These steps apply when the course maps requirements. With Provide our own TAS, the mapping controls are hidden.

The requirements dialog shows the parts of a lesson, assessment or arrangement beside the requirements they cover. Choose the relevant links and review them before accepting them. Accepted coverage uses the content version delivered by the course.

When a requirement does not apply, record the reason. When it belongs elsewhere in the course, update its expected coverage roles deliberately.

Importing an official source carries forward accepted work only when the requirement type, key and text match exactly. Requirements without a confirmed match remain available for review. A source with accepted mappings cannot be removed through the unreviewed-source purge.

Plan the learner sequence

Learning and assessment share one outline. Reorder activities to match the sequence learners should follow. Lessons can contain content, knowledge checks and forms; assessment tasks collect the evidence an assessor judges. Forms collect information, declarations or evidence that needs review rather than an assessment result.

Use a row's Requirements action to review coverage without leaving the course. Saving an activity and accepting its requirement mappings are separate actions. Unpublished or changed content may need publication or another mapping review before the course is ready.

Forms before or after each session

For a course delivered in booked sessions or scheduled classes, a Form can run for every session, such as a fitness-to-train or attendance declaration. Open Entry and completion, then Forms and evidence, and use Add Form in Forms and declarations. Under Assign this form, choose Before each session or After each session. A course can have one Form for each timing.

A session Form is completed by the learner, on their phone or on the trainer's. It needs no review, does not hold back completion and applies to new enrolments.

• Booked sessions: the trainer cannot record the session until its before-session Form is done. An after-session Form replaces the learner's signature.
• Class days: the trainer shows a check-in QR for the day. A learner scans it, picks their name, confirms their date of birth and is marked Present, or Late from ten minutes after the start. They then complete the before-class Form any time that day, or the after-class Form from 30 minutes before the end. The trainer can also hand a learner their phone for either Form. A missing Form never stops the trainer finishing the day.

For an Individual bookings course, Booked session sign-off in Setup → Delivery settings sets who signs each booked session entry: No sign-off, Trainer signs, or Trainer and learner sign. Class days always ask for the trainer's sign-off.

Publish and change a course

Publishing makes the course live. You keep editing a live course in Course design, and each change saves straight to it:

• Add units, lessons, assessment tasks, trainer-led activities, forms, session plans and delivery arrangements.
• Change entry checks, completion rules, the renewal period, price, GST treatment, public description and URL.
• Map requirements and approve mappings.

On the Startup plan, the Price field under Course details shows the RTObase fee, and Add RTObase fee adds it to the price. See Include the RTObase fee in your course price.

When a change reaches learners already on the course, you are asked first and told how many learners it affects. This applies to making a lesson required, adding a unit and turning on a stricter entry check. Learners who have finished stay finished. A new assessment task or form reaches only new enrolments unless you apply it to current learners.

Two kinds of change need a new version of the course:

• Removing a unit, lesson or assessment task that learners have already started.
• Changing what the course is: its qualification, accreditation, delivery structure, training environment or online runtime.

Start a new version from Versions on the course's Details tab. The new version opens as a draft. The live course keeps taking enrolments until you publish the new version, and learners already on it stay on it.

An archived course cannot change.

Deliver a qualification through unit courses

A qualification course can deliver its units through nested unit courses, one course per unit or cluster. Manage them on Setup → Units in the qualification's course design. Add unit course picks an existing course or creates a new one. See Qualifications and unit courses.

On a qualification, the Content step lists the unit courses beside the selected unit's outline. Edit each unit's lessons and assessments there without leaving the qualification. Units you have already opened keep their unsaved editor work while you switch between them.

The qualification course owns the training and assessment strategy. Its TAS on Review and publish reads the lessons, tasks, activities and SCORM packages of its unit courses. Each unit course keeps its own requirements and mappings. When the qualification generates its TAS from mapped requirements, Review and publish lists each unit course's design with Approve design once that unit course is finished. Traceability is met only while every unit course's design approval is current. A qualification that provides its own TAS asks for no unit design approval. An approved qualification TAS covers each unit course it links to, so Course Blueprint and the missing-TAS alert do not ask those courses for a TAS of their own. A unit course's Review and publish step approves its unit design instead of generating a TAS.

Keep everyday operations separate

Classes, enrolments, booking sessions and learner assessment work remain on their operational pages. Course Design defines what the course delivers and the rules for that delivery. It does not require you to create learner records while preparing a course.

Closing intake stops new enrolments. It does not remove the published storefront or stop existing learners from continuing.

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