-
Course Builder 1.10
- Meet Course Builder
- Set Up Course Builder
-
Create a Course
- Course Outline
- Course Settings
- Add Elements
- Add Content
- Organize Elements
- Customize Course Style
- Debug Course
- Prepare for Students
- Publish a Course
- Analyze Data
- Administer Site
- Upgrade Course Builder
- For Course Builder Developers
- Feature List
- Release Notes
Course Settings
Course settings are available at Settings > Course.
You can get to advanced course settings by going to Settings > Advanced course settings.
this page groups the (non-advanced) course settings into categories rather than presenting them in the order in which they appear on the course settings page.
- view-only settings - cloud settings that cannot be modified directly
- course page settings - settings for the course page header and footer
- course homepage settings - settings controlling what appears on the course’s homepage to introduce the course
- course data settings - settings for setting up data analytics and for handling student data
- Google API settings - settings that enable the course to work with Google APIs
- other administrative settings
If you are looking for a setting by name, search this page using Ctrl+F (for Windows) or Command+F (for Mac).
View-only Settings
URL Component
The course URL component tells you the URL for the course. For example, if the course
URL component is /better_readings
and your site is at
poetry.appspot.com
, then the course would be available at
poetry.appspot.com/better_readings
You cannot adjust the URL for a course here, but you can make changes by going to Settings > Advanced Site Settings and editing the Course URLs setting.
Namespace
The namespace identifies where the data for a course is kept. Typically, the namespace
is the course URL component prefixed with ns_
. For example,
ns_better_readings
The namespace is useful when working with your course’s data. For example, you need it to specify which course you are interested in when working with the Cloud Datastore to track student data.
Course Page Settings
The following settings let you add items to the header or footer of every course page. By including your organization’s name and even a logo, you can make the course match your organization’s brand and link directly to it.
Organization Name
This name will appear in the footer of every page. If an Organization URL is provided, then the name will linked to that URL.
Organization URL
Provide a URL that you want the Organization Name to link to.
Privacy & Terms URL
If your organization has a stock privacy and terms page, you can link to it here. This link will also appear in the footer.
Site Name
This name will appear on the header of every page. If you offer a single course, then you can re-use your organization name or the course title. If you are offering multiple courses, go with something more inclusive.
Site Logo
This logo appears next to the site name in the top-left corner of the header of every page.
Site Logo Alt Text
Include text to be read in place of the logo image.
Show G+ Button
Checking this setting puts a G+ button next to your site name to allow students to recommend your site to others in their Google+ circles.
Extra Tabs
By default, a registered student sees three tabs : Announcements, Course, and Progress. (If you have configured a discussion forum, then there will also be a Forum tab.)
You can add and configure a custom tab in the course navigation bar to display other information students.
For the tab’s content, either provide a link to uploaded HTML or to an external site. Or add the content for the tab in the content editor provided.
Like default tabs, a custom tab will be available in the navigation bar of every course page.
Learn more about tabs on the navigation bar.
Course Homepage Settings
These options appear on the course homepage to introduce the course.
Title
This is the title of your course. Changing the title here will not change the course URL or namespace, but it will change what students see on the course homepage and in the Course Explorer. It will also change the course’s title in the dashboard.
Abstract
Add a summary or teaser for your course. The abstract appears below the course title and above the syllabus.
You can use any of the components in the rich text editor. Learn more about using the content editor.
Instructor Details
Add information about the course instructor. These details appear to the left of the course title.
Image or Video
Add an image or a YouTube video to the course homepage. Provide a link (including the
http://
or https://
) to the image or video.
If you are linking to a video, the link must be the YouTube embed URL. To find the
embed URL, go to the video at YouTube.com. Under
the video’s frame, click Share and then the Embed
tab. In the text box, find the src
attribute and the web address that is
its value. This address will begin
https://www.youtube.com/embed/...
Copy that web address (without the quotes) and paste it into the Image or Video setting.
Image Description
Include text to be read in place of the image or video.
Course Data Settings
The following settings enable data collection and analysis.
Google Analytics ID
This ID is required to work with Google Analytics to perform custom analytics on student data.
Google Tag Manager ID
This ID required to work with Google Tag Manager examining data on how users interact with tags.
Enable Student Analytics
This setting controls whether to record student events as students work through the course. Recording student events enables analytics about your course, but it comes with a price. Recording student events takes App Engine resources, will count against your App Engine quota, and may incur costs. This setting is on by default.
Removal Policy
This setting specifies whether you will keep student event data after a student has unenrolled from the course.
Keeping event data for unenrolled students may improve the quality your dataset. Or it may simply be take up space.
Personal student data (like name and email address) are always removed immediately by Course Builder.
Google API Settings
These settings are required credentials for your course to work with Google APIs. For example, your course must call the Google Drive API to import a Google Doc from Google Drive. You can get this information from the Google Developers Console’s API Manager.
Google API Key
Learn more about this setting.
Google Client ID
Learn more about this setting.
Other Admin Settings
The following settings are concerned with other course administration tasks.
Course Admin Emails
Add an email or multiple emails to this field to grant the account holders course-wide admin access. The email must be associated with a Google account, and course admins have complete access to a course.
If you’d like to offer a limited set of permissions, Course Builder also lets you define roles with a subset of admin permissions.
Auto-Index Course
This setting causes your course to be indexed daily so that a student’s search results will always be up to date.
Keep in mind that indexing is resource-intensive and will count against your quota and may incur costs. This setting is off by default.
Advanced Course Settings
All of the course settings in Settings > Course are also specified in
-
course.yaml
- the course’s current settings -
course-template.yaml
- the default values for course settings
Edit course.yaml in advanced editor
To edit course.yaml
directly, go to Settings > Advanced course
settings and click on Advanced Edit.
Changes made to course.yaml
on this page will be saved directly to the
course’s datastore and will be available immediately - just like changing the settings
in other dashboard pages.
The course-template.yaml
file cannot be edited in the dashboard. It is
shown on this page so that you can refer to the default values for course settings.
If you want to edit course-template.yaml
, you can do so in your local copy
(but not using Notepad!) and then redeploy to App Engine.
Warning: If you are using Windows and editing locally, do not use
Notepad. Use another text editor such as WordPad or Notepad++. Notepad will not respect
the formatting of .yaml
files, and the files will be unusable.