Courses and learning material: versions, Markdown, video, PDF

The Courses tab of the Training module holds the learning material for your own employees. A course is made of versions: you edit the draft, and a published version never changes again — learners and auditors see exactly what was in that version. When the material changes, you start a new version and can mark that retraining is required.

Before you start

• The Training module must be switched on for your organisation (the provider does this). If it is off, the page says so.
• Permissions:
  • editing and publishing courses and material: training:manage (by default only the System administrator; you can grant it on the Permissions page);
  • viewing published material: training:view or training:take (every role has the latter by default — but a learner with only that sees ONLY courses assigned to them, see Assignments). Only editors see drafts.

Steps

1. Open Training, go to the Courses tab and choose New course. Give it a title, a description and, if there is one, the qualification type it fulfils. The course is created with a draft of version 1.
2. On the course page, add learning material:
   • Text (Markdown): headings, lists, tables, quotes, code, formulas ($…$ or $$…$$), warning boxes (:::danger … :::, :::warning, :::tip, :::info). The preview is rendered on the server while you type — exactly as it will look after saving. You can also load a ready .md file.
   • File: PDF (up to 50 MB), MP4 or WebM video (up to 500 MB), image (up to 8 MB; your phone scales it down before uploading). Large files upload in parts; the bar shows the progress.
   • Link: an external page (http:// or https:// only).
   • Reuse from another course: a copy of a published material goes into the draft and keeps the source’s name (“Source: …”); the source itself does not change.
3. You can embed an uploaded video, PDF or image in the text: Copy embed code in the file’s ⋮ menu puts the code (for example ::video{src=…}) on the clipboard — paste it into the Markdown text.
4. Use Move up / Move down in the ⋮ menu to set the order. When ready, choose Publish. From version 2 you can tick Retraining required — completions of earlier versions then no longer count as current.
5. To change something later, choose New version: the latest published version is copied into a new draft. Earlier versions stay available in the version picker.

A published version does not change

After publishing, the version and its materials cannot be changed or deleted — the database enforces this too. The version’s fingerprint (checksum) is recorded, and the page shows whether the stored content still matches it (“Fingerprint verified”). You can delete a draft with Discard draft.

What the text does not allow

You cannot write HTML or scripts into the Markdown text, and a formula cannot contain a link — these are left out of the display. Images, videos and PDFs can only be embedded from material uploaded to this same version (not from another course); an external image address is not shown.

If you did it right

The course list shows the Published: vN badge and, if the version asks for retraining, a Retraining required badge next to it. Formulas are typeset, the video plays and can be scrubbed, and the PDF opens in the built-in viewer.

Common problems

What you see	Why	What to do
“This version is published and cannot be changed”	You are editing a published version.	Choose New version.
“This course already has a draft”	Only one draft at a time.	Continue the existing one, or discard it.
The Publish button is disabled	There is no material, or an upload has not finished.	Add material, or delete the unfinished upload.
“The file content does not match its type”	The file is not a real PDF / MP4 / WebM.	Save the file again in the right format.
“Embedded material not available” in the text	The embed code does not point to a finished file of this version.	Upload the file into this version and copy the code again from its ⋮ menu.
“A text material embeds a file that is not part of this version” when publishing	The embedded file was deleted since, or belongs to another course.	Open the text material, fix the reference or save it again, then publish.

Related

Qualification registerQualification types, recording, expiries — what a course fulfils.