How to Create an Online Course with Tutor LMS in WordPress

Do you want to learn how to create an online course with Tutor LMS? That’s great, because in this post we’re going to do just that. Online course creation can be challenging but with the right tools, it becomes a lot easier. Luckily, Tutor LMS is here to simplify online course creation for us.

Tutor LMS is one of the most popular WordPress LMS plugins. With it you can easily create and monetize online courses. Tutor LMS allows you to utilize its advanced features and interactive learning tools to create amazing eLearning platforms. Whether you want to create a single course or a multi-course eLearning platform, with Tutor LMS, everything is possible.

In this post, we’re mainly discussing how to create your first online course using Tutor LMS. We will see how you can create the course curriculum, add quizzes and assignments to make the course more interesting, and much more.

So if you have your WordPress website ready, buckle up, crack your knuckles, and let’s dive right into it. Let’s create your first ever online course with Tutor LMS.

What do you need?

Before we get started let’s talk about the prerequisites or things that you need. Since Tutor LMS is a WordPress LMS plugin, there are some things you need to take care of before you start building your next monumental eLearning platform.

Here are a few things that you need before you get started:

• WordPress installation: Tutor LMS is a WordPress LMS plugin. So make sure you have your WordPress website ready and you’re logged into your WordPress admin dashboard.
• Tutor LMS plugin: You also have to install and activate the Tutor LMS plugin. There is a free and a pro version of the plugin. Using the free version is ok, but you won’t have access to many of the premium features of the plugin. In this post, we’re using the pro version of the plugin so it would be best if you get the pro version.
• Theme (optional): Since we’re creating an online course, it might be a good idea to get a theme which is best for online teaching platforms. There are several LMS themes for Tutor LMS that you can check out to make your eLearning platform stand out.

We also have a video tutorial on how to create a course with Tutor LMS. If you are interested in the video, you can check it out.

If you prefer the text version, then keep on reading.

Now if you have your WordPress site ready, Tutor LMS installed, and a theme to go with it, we are now ready to move on to the next step.

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Setting up Tutor LMS

Tutor LMS doesn’t only allow you to create courses, it allows you to create E-learning platforms with ease. So if you’re planning on creating an eLearning platform and monetizing your courses, then it’s also important to go through the Tutor LMS settings. Again, there are some important course general settings we need to go through.

From Tutor LMS > Settings click on the Course tab. From here there are some settings to look at. You can enable the Content Summary option. This will show the content summary on the course details page. You can also enable Spotlight Mode which will give students a better learning experience.

The next section is Course Completion Process. From here you can choose either flexible or strict. Normally the Strict method is chosen as students will have to pass lessons and quizzes in order to complete the course. But if you’re just creating a course, you can choose the Flexible option as this might be important to test the course.

The next options are Lesson and Quiz. Go through these and enable the options that suit your desire. The final option is Video. From here you can choose your preferred video source. You can select all the options here if you want.

With that, we’re done with the Course settings. Now click on the Monetization tab and choose your preferred eCommerce engine. Tutor LMS has a native eCommerce engine and it will be selected by default. If you’re fine with it, you can keep it selected.

After you choose your eCommerce engine you will find relevant options. For example, if you use the native eCommerce engine, you can choose the cart page, checkout page, currency settings, etc.

Then click on the Payment Methods section within the Monetization tab. From this section you can add payment gateways. By default PayPal will be available. You can add your PayPal information to connect your PayPal account with your Tutor LMS site.

With that taken care of there’s nothing more to do with the settings. You can still poke around the settings if you want. You can also come back here if there’s something more you want. Now let’s start creating your course.

How to create a course in Tutor LMS

Tutor LMS lets you create as many courses as you want. It has an intuitive course builder that you can use to create your course. First let’s see how your Courses section will look like in the backend.

All the courses you create will show up here. You can visit this section by going to Tutor LMS > Courses from your WordPress admin dashboard. To add a new course click on the “Add New” button on top.

This will open up the course builder. We are going to use one of our own courses to show you the course creation process. The course is created in three steps, Basics, Curriculum, and Additional.

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Course basics

The first step is the Basics. This is where you can add your course title, description, featured image, categories, etc. You can also select some general options as well. From this section you can add the following:

• Course title: This will be the name of your course.
• Course description: This is the course description that students read to understand what your course is all about. You can add texts and media files here too.
• Course options: You can specify the course difficulty, make the course public, and enable the Q&A section for your course. If you have enabled the Content Drip addon, then you can find the content drip options here as well.
• Visibility: You can choose your course visibility from here. You can make this course public, password protect it, or make it a private course.
• Schedule: If you enable this option, “Coming Soon” will be displayed in the course list and details page. You can choose a time and date when the course will become available.
• Featured Image: This is where you can add a featured image for your course.
• Intro Video: You can also add intro video to your course. This is where you can upload the video you made. You can upload the video or add the URL of your video.
• Categories: You can select the course category from this section. You can also create categories from here.
• Tags: Want to add tags? This is where you can add your course tags.
• Author: Select course authors from here.
• Pricing Model: If you use the native eCommerce engine, you can choose the price model. You can either choose free or paid. If you choose paid, you will have access to purchase options and the option to set regular price and sale price. 

That’s (basically) all you can do in the basics section.

Creating course curriculum

Now comes the main part. In the Curriculum tab of the course builder, you can add topics, lessons, quizzes, etc. and finally build your course. The way you create the curriculum in Tutor LMS is by adding topics. Then you populate your topics with lessons and quizzes. That is how you can build your course.

There are various elements you can add to your course to build the curriculum. Let’s go through these elements one by one.

Add Topic: To have lessons, quizzes or any other elements, you need to have topics. Click on the “Add Topic” button to add a topic, then give a name to your topic. You can also add descriptions to your topics. Then click on the “OK” button and you’re on your way to creating one of the best online learning platforms! In this way you can add as many topics as you want.

Add Lessons: If you’ve created a topic, you’ll see that it’s empty. But you can add more elements such as Lessons, Quizzes, Assignments, etc. The next thing that we have to do is add some lessons to your topic. So, click on the “+ Lesson” button. This will open up the lesson builder.

From here you can add your lesson name, content, featured image, etc. The content is the important thing here. If you’re going to a text based lesson, this is where you can add your lesson content. You can add media files as well. But if you want to add a video lesson, then on the right side you can find the video option. From here you can upload your videos or add your lesson URL. These URLs can be external, YouTube, Vimeo, Embedded, and Shortcodes. 

You can also add the video playback time so students will have a clear idea on how long the video is. If you have Tutor LMS Pro, then you can enable some addons to get more options here. For example, we have enabled the Course Attachment and Course Preview addons and we can see these options in the lesson builder.

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Adding quizzes

You can have a course with only topics and lessons but what’s the point of having such an advanced educational technology if you’re not going to use it? Tutor LMS gives you the ability to create quizzes for your courses. Not only that, you can choose from several quiz categories to make the assessments a lot more interesting.

To add a quiz, you can click on the “+ Quiz” button under a Topic just like adding lessons. This will open up the quiz builder. The next thing that you should do is give a name and summary to your quiz. Click on the “+” button and choose a quiz category. Tutor LMS gives you the following quiz categories:

• True/False
• Multiple Choice
• Open Ended/Essay
• Fill in the Blanks
• Short Answer
• Matching
• Image Answering
• Ordering

What makes Tutor LMS an amazing course builder plugin is that it gives you so many choices to create a great course. Take these quiz categories for example. If you have the free version of the plugin, you’ll have access to the first four of these quiz categories. Which is enough for a normal online course.

Depending on what quiz category you choose, you’ll have an interface that helps you create that question. In the screenshot above you can see that we’ve created a True/False question. Here you add the question on top, add a description if you want, then select which is the correct answer to your question. You can also add an answer explanation but that is also optional.

On the right side you’ll find some more options and conditions. Here you can enable “Answer Required” to ensure that students will have to answer this question. You can also award points for answering this question and whether you want to display the point or not.

In this way you can add as many questions to your quiz as you want. After you have added the questions, click on the Settings tab. Here you’ll have options to add a time limit to your quiz, feedback mode, passing grade, maximum question students are allowed to answer, quiz auto start, and more.

We have a post explaining how to create a Tutor LMS Quiz. You can check that out for more details. We also have a detailed video tutorial explaining how each of the questions work on our YouTube channel. You can also watch that if you prefer watching tutorials.

And that is how you can add quizzes to your topics. If you want to add Assignments, you need Tutor LMS Pro as this is only available through the addons.

Course additional data

On the third tab of the course builder, you’ll be able to add additional course data. Here you can add the following additional data:

• What will I learn?
• Target Audience
• Total course Duration
• Materials Included
• Requirements
• Add Certificate

If you’re using Tutor LMS Pro, you can add certificates to your course. Tutor LMS gives you a bunch of certificate templates to use for your course.

Publish your course!

Once you’ve created your course curriculum and gone through all the necessary settings, it’s now time to make your course live. Click on the “Publish” button on the top right corner of the screen. Now your course will be published. You can click on the “Preview” button to see how your course looks from the frontend.

Create a page for your course

If you don’t have a dedicated page for your courses, then you have to create one. From your WordPress dashboard go to Pages > Add New. Normally a Course List page should be created automatically, but in any case if you don’t find it, then you can create a new page by clicking on the “Add New Page” button. Then add the shortcode block and add the following shortcode:

[tutor_course orderby=”ID” order=”desc” count=”9″ column_per_row=’3′ course_filter=’on’]

If you see the Course List page on your Pages section you can add it to your main menu. Or if you want to add your own course list page you can do that as well. To add the Course List page to your main menu, go to Appearance > Menus. Now select your main menu from the dropdown bar from top. Now find the course list page from the Pages section and click on “Add to Menu” button.

If you can’t find the course list page, then click on the “View All” tab. This should reveal all your site pages. After you’re done, click on the “Save Menu” button to save your changes.

Congratulations, you have just created your first course with Tutor LMS. You’re on your way to creating one of the best online learning platforms.

👉 Get Tutor LMS Pro NOW ✅
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Conclusion

Tutor LMS is a very powerful learning management system. Even if you’re using the free version of the plugin, you’ll understand how powerful this educational technology is. It is one of the few free WordPress LMS plugins that allows you to monetize your courses. Yes, you can sell your Tutor LMS courses with the free version of the plugin but you will have limited options. Once you upgrade to Tutor LMS Pro you’ll have access to more advanced features and options. This allows you to take your E-learning platforms to the next level.

Well, that brings our post to an end. We hope you found it useful and managed to create your online course using Tutor LMS. You can check out our YouTube channel for more detailed tutorials on Tutor LMS and other LMS platforms.