Help with drip content for online course

Looking for some help using Discourse for an online course (LMS) platform. Below is a diagram of what we would like to achieve.

We want to host asynchronous courses and allow private groups of users to access the course content. We would start by assigning users to a private group and then providing this private group access to a private subcategory. (Steps 1-4 above.)

Step 5 is where I am confused and could use some advice and/or consulting support. The course content would be contained within a separate category. We would need Topics from the Course Content category to be pushed into the Private Subcategory, which is where groups will be discussing the course content and responding to prompts within the pushed topics.

Specifically, my questions are:

  • Is there a way to retain topics within a category and push duplicate copies into a private subcategory?
  • Is there a way to automate the release of these pushed topics from the date of Step 4?

Thanks in advance for any support.

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Sounds like a bespoke plugin to me because of the duplication? We could definitely help you build it marketplace

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Rather than duplicate the context, I would recommend just linking to the first copy.

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Thanks, Jay. Since the original content would be private, I think the linking method wouldn’t let the private content through. Just tried it and confirmed the limitation. Let me know if I am missing your suggestion.

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If you only want to copy the OP you could open the wrench icon for the topic you want to copy, Select Posts, select the OP, and then ‘Move To’ a staging category. You can then Schedule Publishing from the Topic Timers menu (admin wrench again) into a fresh category of your choosing.

(Though you may need an extra ‘buffer’ reply in the original topic to leave in there and stop it trying to auto-close every time)

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Just add the group that you want to be able to see the stuff to a group that can see it (or add that group to the permissions for that category).

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I am refloating this topic since I find myself in a similar situation.

We want to launch a new course inside our community, and am looking for a system (as automated as possible) for dripping the content.

I know the easiest way is to move the students throught different groups, so then giving to each group access to a new module could solve this. But my question is if there is some kind of automated (not manual) way to make these movements…

For example:

  • A new student arrives and enters group 1 (with access to category 1, first module)
  • After a week, this member enters group 2 (with access to category 2, being able to see first and second module
  • And so on…

For me the most logic way to achieve this would be to automate each step counting since the day the member entered the community (or even better, since entering the first group), so that each week they unlock a new module.

Is this possible with built in? Or will I need third parties to manage it?


@esugalski how did you manage at the end with this :backhand_index_pointing_down:

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