Publishing classes online

How and where the class is visible and/or available for online enrolment depends of the value of the course status and class status, and in some instances, what the course record is tagged with.

If you have multiple onCourse websites, you will also have a tag group that defines the courses that appear on each of your websites. Courses MUST be tagged with a tag from the website defining tag group (even if that tag is set not to show on the web) for these publishing rules to apply.

If you only have a single onCourse website, courses do not need to be tagged with any tag for these rules to apply, however for the course to be available in your site navigation, it should be tagged with at least one tag from your primary navigation group e.g. subjects.

The combination course and class rules which drive the website visibility are:

Web availability rules

Course Status	Course URL available	Class Status	Class URL available	Website value	Example use
Enabled and visible online	Yes	Enrolment disabled	No - 404 not found	Course is included in the search results but the class is not visible on the website	For courses where you want students to add themselves to wait lists before you choose to publish a class to enrol into.
Enabled and visible online	Yes	Enrolment allowed	Yes	Course is included in the search results, but the class is hidden from the list and results views. The class page can be accessed directly via the class URL but there is no option to enrol. Enrolments can be processed via admin Checkout only.	Once you have closed online enrolments for the class, the URL in the enrolment confirmation will still return the class details.
Enabled and visible online	Yes	Enrolment allowed and visible online	Yes	Course and class are included in the search results and online enrolments are available.	Normal class product available for sale.
Enabled and visible online	Yes	Cancelled	Either - use cog wheel to remove or show on web	Course is included in the search results. If the class is still shown on the web, the enrol now button will be replaced with the word 'Cancelled'. No enrolments can be taken.	Where classes have been published in other mediums like print, it is useful to keep the class on the web to prevent people from trying to enrol via phone when they can’t find the product they want online.
Enabled	No - 404 not found	Enrolment disabled	No - 404 not found	No information is available online for the course or class.	For products you are not currently selling or seeking expressions of interest for.
Enabled	No - 404 not found	Enrolment allowed	Yes	The course and class are hidden from search, but the class page can be accessed via the URL directly. There is no option to enrol online, enrolments can be processed from admin Checkout only.	Once you have closed online enrolments, the URL in the enrolment confirmation will still return the class details, even if you no longer display the course on the web.
Enabled	No - 404 not found	Enrolment allowed and visible online	Yes	The course and class are hidden from search, but the class page can be accessed via the URL directly. Online enrolment is available.	An option for semi-private classes - you can send the class URL directly to the people you want to offer enrolment to, but visitors to your website won’t find it via browse or search.
Enabled	No - 404 not found	Cancelled	Either - use cog wheel to remove or show on web	The course and class are hidden from search, but provided the class has not be removed from the website the class URL will still be available; The enrol now button will be replaced with the word 'cancelled' and no enrolments can be taken.	For students who enrolled prior to the class being cancelled, the URL in their enrolment confirmation will still return a valid web page, showing the class as cancelled.

For both courses and classes, it is advisable to ensure all the advertising details are correct prior to publishing. Until this is the case, the course status should be 'enabled' and the class status should be 'enrolment allowed'.

The marketing information for most of your programs will be located in the course web section. Only where there is information particular to this instance of the class would you need to add information to the class web section. For example, if each instance of the class required students to bring different materials because they worked on new projects each term, would you publish this information in the class section.

Classes can be published online by selecting the options on the general section 'enrolment allowed' and 'visible online'.

Only current and future classes will show online. Classes that are not self paced, but have no timetable set will not be published, and classes that are complete i.e. the end date has passed, will be automatically removed from your onCourse website. onCourse does not prevent students from enrolling once the class is commenced, but commenced classes are clearly marked on the website.

You can choose to change the class status from 'Enrolment allowed' and 'visible online' back to 'Enrolment allowed' for classes which have commenced, but you no longer wish to allow online enrolment for.

The minimum and maximum places you set in the class are also used on your onCourse website to show students if there are places still available. The website will not show students the maximum number of places, or how many students have already enrolled. This is what the website will display:

• if the class is full: it will read 'class full'
• If the class has been cancelled it will read 'Cancelled'.
  If you have published class information in a hard copy brochure, we recommend leaving cancelled classes on the website so perspective students can see that the class they are looking for is not available.
• if there are six or more places available, it will read 'places available'
• if there are between one and five places available, it will give a count of the places available, for example it may read '3 places available'.

Providing an enrolment count when their are less than five places available creates a sense of urgency: The student knows there are only a few places available, so they will hopefully be motivated to enrol as soon as possible, so they don’t miss out on joining the class.