LearnDash 2.0 is Officially Released!

By: Justin Ferriman • July 8, 2014
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LearnDash Updates latestToday we are very excited to announce a major development in LearnDash, the direct result of which based on feedback and conversations that we have had with you in our forums and the help desk.

Before getting into the extent of the changes, we would like to take a moment to thank you all for your kind feedback and overall enthusiasm for the direction of LearnDash.

This particular update marks the beginning of some pretty exciting enhancements in both LearnDash the product and our direction as a company.

Without further ado…

Introducing LearnDash 2.0

Some of you may recall that in January we gave a complete overhaul to the course and progress display on the front-end. LearnDash 2.0 brings the redesign component full-circle, with the main focus being on a redesign of the back-end.

But it really is more than that.

This update will decrease the amount of time it takes to create a course, and edit a course – making the entire process quite a bit more intuitive.

One Menu … for Everything!

Consolidated menu makes life easy!

Once activated, LearnDash will now take up minimum real-estate in your admin menu. No need to jump between various menu items, everything is centrally located.

When you click on one of these menu items, all associated features are included as tabs at the top, making it easy for you to find what you need without digging around through various pages.

Enhanced Assignment Module

Speaking of the menu, you will notice a new “Assignments” menu item. The LearnDash assignment feature has been significantly enhanced. Specifically, you can:

  • Require an assignment upload for a lesson or topic: Users cannot move on until it is submitted.
  • Require manual approval for assignments: Prevent course progression until you manually review and approve the submission.
  • Set assignments to auto-approve upon submission: Instantly mark the uploaded assignment as approved.
  • Provide feedback to users on their submitted assignment(s): Make suggestions or comments on assignments, only the user who submitted the assignment will be able to see them and respond.

Associated Content Navigation Editor

Creating an online course can be time consuming, especially as you add more and more content – constantly requiring navigation between courses, lessons, topics, and quizzes.

With this in mind, we have created the Associated Content Navigation Editor.

Let’s say that you are editing a lesson in one of your courses and remember that you need to change something on the course page. Well, all you need to do is click the course name and you are taken to the course editor, effectively eliminating three to four extra clicks!

Here’s a quick demonstration:

Consolidated Quizzing

To make the quizzing process more intuitive, we have centralized all quizzing functionality to one quiz engine (instead of two separate quizzes, formerly labeled as “Simple” and “Advanced”). Nothing to do on your end, this will all happen in the background when you update!

Keeping with the tabular design, we have now consolidated the quiz settings and question creation process. Everything you need to leverage from the powerful quizzing functionality is now all on one screen!

New Certificate Shortcodes

While we were busy reconfiguring the LearnDash layout, we also threw in a couple new shortcodes for your certificates. You can now dynamically include the course name and the quiz name on any certificate.

With this in place, you now have the option to create just one certificate and it will be applicable for all of your quizzes and courses!

Simply Put, It’s Just Better!

Countless of hours were put into improving the user experience of LearnDash. These updates are the result of your feedback, pain-points we had identified, and overall elearning best practices. The end result is an extremely powerful, yet intuitive experience.

As always, thank you for your support. We are excited to continue driving innovation in the WordPress LMS industry.

One more thing…

As you can tell, this is a major release. We recommend you make the appropriate back-ups to your site prior to updating.

You can update automatically from your Admin dashboard, or by downloading the latest version from the support site.

Until next time!

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter