The Courses tool brings together your resources on a topic so you can access the information you need in a structured sequence curated by instructional designers at Faithlife. Course plans guide you, step by step, through a topic to make sure you don’t miss any key information in your study.
Note: Available in packages Starter and above.
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Open the Tool
Access the Courses tool by clicking the Tools icon > Reference > Courses.
The Courses tool consists of two panels:
- The Course Browser lists all started, completed, and available plans.
- The Course Content panel shows the content of a selected plan.
Note: The Courses tool will open to the Browser panel and change to the Content panel once you select a plan.
Find Your Course
The Browser panel displays all the learning plans currently available. The screen has a sidebar for filtering plans, a toolbar with a Find box, and a list of plans, broken into the following categories:
- Started — shows any learning plans you are currently learning from.
- Completed — shows all learning plans you’ve completed.
- Recommended for You — shows default recommended learning plans.
- Partially Unavailable — shows all of the learning plans available to you, though you lack some of the resources required to complete the course, either because you do not own them or you own them but have not downloaded them.
- Unavailable — shows all of the learning plans which you either have not purchased (such as Logos Mobile Ed courses), or those for which you have none of the required resources (because you do not own them or you own them but have not downloaded them).
Note: You can still browse the course outline for these learning plans. You can’t start a plan until you own and have downloaded all the required resources. Purchase required resources to start the plan by clicking the title of resources you don’t own and click Quick Buy or Learn more in the newly opened panel.
Course Options
There are two ways to find the best course for you. Use the Find box at the top of the panel to search for specific topics, or use the sidebar to filter the plans by their properties. The Courses tool lets you filter plans based on category, level, author/instructor, topic, passage and more to find the course that best fits your needs!
Engage Your Course
Evaluate a Learning Plan
Once you find your plan, click its title to open the Contents panel. The plan will not be “Started” until you click Start to show the first reading. Until started, you can view the outline for the plan (but not its content) and read the plan description to decide whether you want to start the plan.
Note: If you do not own all required resources, or you own them but have not downloaded them, you won’t see the Start option. Purchase the required resources to start the plan by clicking the title of resources you don’t own and click Quick Buy or Learn more in the newly opened panel.
Start a Learning Plan
After picking a plan, schedule the plan by clicking at my own pace to reveal a list of pacing options.
Learning plans are divided into a set number of sessions, which consist of one or more content screens for you to interact with. A session refers to the amount of content meant for one sitting.
Begin the learning plan by clicking Start.
Notice that the first item in the table of contents is called Start the plan before you’ve started it, and Plan Details after. The last page of a started plan is called End/Stats, which displays progress statistics.
Learning Plan Sidebar
The left sidebar of a learning plan shows all the content covered by the learning plan. If you set a schedule for the plan, this pane will display dates corresponding to the schedule you chose.
The first reading will be colored orange and indicated with an orange dot in the right margin of the outline. The orange dot indicates your current position within the plan’s schedule. It is the "You are here" indicator for the plan.
The right margin of the learning plan outline indicates your progress in the course by marking each item in the outline with an icon:
- An orange dot signals your current location.
- A progress ring will be displayed if a section is partially complete.
- A green checkmark shows which items have been completed.
- A grey lock icon represents content from resources you don’t yet have a license to.
- If you open a learning plan and most of the items in the outline have a lock icon, you won’t be able to view all the lesson content until you purchase the required resources.
You can use the table of contents to access plan content out of order. Items that you skip won’t be marked as done until you go back and complete them.
Learning Plan Content
The main content of a learning plan is shown on the right of the panel. A content screen is marked as done when you click Continue to leave the view and load the next one.
Learning plans may consist of excerpts from multiple resources. The top of the content screen shows the title of the resource the content comes from. Hover over the resource title to its information. Click the link to the left of this title to open the resource in a new panel if you want more context than the presented excerpt in the learning plan.
Learning plans in the Courses tool may show several kinds of content excerpts:
- Resource excerpts — portions of books in your Library. You can right-click within these resources to get information, highlight, and take notes.
Note: Highlights and notes made within the Courses tool will show in the actual resource from which the excerpt originates.
- Video and text — certain courses have paired text and video lectures, the video lecture appears in the top pane and the text appears in the bottom pane.
- Previews of locked resources — if the excerpt in a learning plan comes from a resource you don’t own, you’ll see a preview screen (usually with a link to buy the resource) instead.
- Links to tools — some learning plans have links to Self Tests or Guides. Click the link to open that tool.
Use the back and forward arrow buttons on the right of the panel toolbar to navigate in the panel history.
Note: These buttons don’t advance to the next reading or session.
Access Courses Anywhere
Courses tool is available on Desktop, Mobile, and Web. To access Courses on Mobile, tap the navigation button followed by Courses. The Web App experience is identical to Desktop and you can follow the instructions above. With this ease of access, you can complete your courses at your own pace whether you're at your desk or on the go!