Timed lessons

A lesson or a whole section can open at a date you choose, or a number of days after each student enrolls, and can close the same way. Use it for a weekly cohort, or to release a course a little at a time. Timed lessons are on the plans that include them; the Plans page shows which.

Set a schedule

On a lesson's editor, find the Schedule group. For a section, use the section's Schedule button on the Content tab. Under Opens choose:

• Always open: no limit. This is the default.
• On a date: opens for every student at the date and time you pick.
• Days after enrollment: opens at midnight, this many days after the student enrolled. 0 opens the day they enroll.

Under Closes you can likewise pick a date, or a number of days after enrollment (1 or more). A close has to come after the open.

A lesson inside a section follows both schedules. It opens once both it and its section have opened, and closes as soon as either one closes.

Time zone

Dates are in your account's time zone, set under Settings, Account Details. "Midnight" for days after enrollment is midnight in that zone too. A student's enrollment date is the day, in that zone, that Cedarras first enrolled them. If a student is removed and later enrolled again, that's a new enrollment with a new date, unless they had already started the course.

What students see

• Not open yet: the student sees only "Opens Nov 3" in the contents, with no title, and the same on the lesson's page. Nothing else about it is shown.
• Closed: the student still sees its title, marked Closed, and the page says it closed. They can't open the content, even if they finished it. Their completion is kept.
• A lesson you've left hidden stays hidden, whatever its schedule.

Progress

A lesson that hasn't opened yet still counts in a student's total, so a student in week one sees a low percent and the course can't finish early. A lesson that closed counts only for a student who finished it before it closed. For everyone else it drops out of their total, so someone who joins late can still finish. Cedarras recalculates this every hour.

Previewing

Preview as student shows every lesson open, so you can read it all. Scheduled ones carry a badge saying when they open or close.

Using an AI assistant

A connected assistant can set these as well: opens_at, opens_after_days, closes_at and closes_after_days on sections and lessons, in add_content and update_content.