Course Modes
All courses on Educative can be viewed through different modes.
The modes
All courses on Educative can be viewed through 3 modes: Edit, Preview, and Published.
Edit mode
Once you create the course by clicking on the create button, the course opens up in edit mode. The url would be in the following format https://www.educative.io/collectioneditor/..., i.e. you would be on the collection editor page.
If you edit the metadata fields of your course from the collection editor page, you need to save it. Simply click on the Save button.
You will stay on the same page which means you can continue to edit/add metadata. Therefore, we call this the Edit mode.
To go into Edit mode from any other mode, you can simply click on the Edit button:
Preview/Draft Mode
This mode behaves differently on the collection editor page and lesson page. Let’s see these differences.
Collection editor page
On the collection editor page, click on the Preview button, and you will be taken to a different page with a URL with the following format: https://www.educative.io/collection/6630002/5684049913839616/draft.
Notice that it has draft appended at the end of it. This page displays what your course will look like to users. Notice that these URLs are just to give you an example and will not necessarily work for you.
Note: This mode will also save all the changes you made when you click the preview button.
To switch into Edit mode from the collection editor, simply click the Edit button as shown above.
Lesson page
On the lesson page, clicking the Preview button will display how the lesson will appear for a user. No URL changes will be made when the preview button is clicked on the lesson page.
Note: No changes will be saved when the Preview button is clicked on a lesson page. The Save button must be explicitly clicked to save any changes.
Published Mode
The changes made in the above modes are not final and the users will not be able to see them yet. For that to happen, click on the Edit button again on the collection editor page and then the Update button (or Create if it’s the first time).
This will finalize the changes you have made and takes you to Published mode.
Keep in mind that the course isn’t actually published, it just shows how the course will look when published. Remember that you will have to click the update button to make your changes viewable for us. It’s advised to regularly update your course during the creation process, especially before sending it for review.
Notice the URL now, it is the same as the one in the preview mode of the collection editor page but without the ‘/draft’ at the end: https://www.educative.io/collection/6630002/5684049913839616.
To go back to preview mode, append /draft to this URL and hit enter. Appending /draft will not work for lessons.
Note: If the course is launched, it will be assigned a more human-readable URL. For example, the URL for this guide is:
https://www.educative.io/courses/author-guide/m2q8RqrmKO3. Appending ‘/draft’ with this kind of URL will not take you back to the preview mode. However, you can open your course in Preview/Draft mode by going to the Teach menu and searching for the course.
Now, let’s start creating lessons.