Build a course with guided AI assistance, then run it from one connected dashboard.
From My Courses, click Create a Course. Setup asks one question per screen, grouped into four stages: Basics, Teaching and grading, Students, and Review and create. Only the course name is required. After it, every question is optional: choose Continue to answer the next one, or Skip to review and create from any screen after the name. Each screen says where to change the answer later in Course Settings. You can create a useful empty course without generating content, defining accreditation outcomes, adding students, or publishing anything.
| Stage | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Basics | The course name, who the course is for, a description (write your own or choose Draft with AI, which uses the name and level), the course code, the term, credit hours and course type, and when the course runs. The code screen shows the real code the course will get, and you can use your own instead. The timezone starts as your computer's timezone and can be changed; UTC and blank dates are allowed. |
| Teaching and grading | Class size and attendance, absolute or relative grading with the same scales as Course Settings (or Custom scale, which starts on the standard scale and reminds you on the startup checklist to set your own bands in Course Settings → Grade scale), and whether to track outcomes. Attendance can be tracked without adding a grade weight. An optional Want a head start? screen lets you add a curriculum, references, outcomes, or an assessment plan, typed yourself or drafted with AI. An AI suggestion is only added when you choose Use this suggestion. |
| Students | The file types students can upload (PDF is recommended and is the default), then how students join: share a join code, add them from your roster, or do it later. A join code is created either way. It is not emailed or marked as shared. |
| Review and create | Read what will actually be saved, then create the course. If saving fails, your setup stays so you can try again. If the connection drops while the course is being created, Try again finishes that course instead of making a second one. |
After the course is created, its dashboard offers a short tour of the startup checklist, adding students through Manage Enrollment, assessments, learning modules, the dashboard widgets, the gradebook and Course Settings. You can skip it, and take it again any time with Take the dashboard tour on the startup checklist. If you chose to share a join code, the tour ends on Invite your students: your join code, with buttons to copy the code or ready-made join instructions. Skipping the tour takes you straight there. This step appears once; the code is always on Manage Enrollment.
New courses start with absolute grading and outcome tracking off. You can change either choice during setup or later in Course Settings. There is no separate manual and AI route, and setup does not start by asking you to share a join code. After creation, the course dashboard can show a startup checklist for that new course. It starts folded into one line that counts the steps that are ready, need attention, or can wait; select it to see each step. Existing courses are unchanged.
On Free, you can create unlimited courses with up to 2 active at a time. Additional courses are created as Locked (Read-Only). You can replace one active course after 30 days, or move to Pro for unlimited active courses. See Plans & Billing.
Opening a course lands on a dashboard with two clear areas. Course Analytics & Insights shows class performance, at-risk students, CLO achievement, pending work, and AI similarity or integrity signals. Course Tools holds the operational tools for teaching and assessment.
The dashboard keeps exactly eight tools in the main tile zone. Any remaining tools appear as compact buttons. You can drag tools between the two areas and reset the arrangement with . Attendance appears only when it is enabled.
| Tile | What it does |
|---|---|
| Manage Enrollment | Add or remove students from this course's roster (from your full student list, see Roster). |
| Gradebook | Spreadsheet view of every student's score on every assessment. See Gradebook & Grades. |
| Submissions & Work Samples | The Sample Picker and per-assessment submission uploads. See Submissions. |
| Results & Outcomes | Weighted totals, letter grade, GPA, distribution, outcome results, and grade release. |
| Course File Builder | Assembles a printable/PDF course file with outcomes, assessment category weights, sample performance, and final grades. See Documents & Content. |
| ZenGrader | The annotate-and-score grading surface. See ZenGrader. |
| AI Matching | Bulk-upload scanned PDFs and let AI match them to your roster. See AI Student Matching. |
| Learning Modules | Build and publish sequential course content. See Learning Modules. |
| Quizzes & Banks | Author online quizzes, question banks, and auto-graded assessments. See Quizzes & Question Banks. |
| Manage Rubrics | Create and edit reusable grading rubrics. See Rubrics. |
| Course Files Library | Organize categorized course files and link them within Learning Modules for students. |
The pinned action row provides:
The course button beside the ProfDesk logo, at the top of every page, opens a list of your courses. On a course page it shows that course's code. Choose a course to open its dashboard.
Courses you own come first, then courses you co-teach with the owner's name. Locked courses are marked and still open read-only. Ended courses are folded under Ended courses. With more than five courses you can search by code, title, or term. All courses at the bottom opens your full course list. On a phone the button shows only its icon.
Type in Search courses above the list to narrow it as you type, by course code, title, term, or type. It searches the Invited Courses tab too, and each tab's count shows how many match. Press Esc to clear it.
The Filter dropdowns (Active, Ended, or All courses, and a term) apply to both tabs and are saved to your account, so the list opens the same way next time, on any device. When a filter is on, Reset returns to Active courses in all terms. If a search finds nothing because the filter hides some courses, choose Search all courses to look through everything.
Click Settings on any course dashboard to open four tabs:
Categories such as Quizzes, Assignments, Midterm, and Final carry the final-grade weights. Add categories and adjust them until the running total reaches exactly 100%. If attendance tracking is enabled, the permanent Attendance row can remain Tracking only or be turned into a weighted category; its instructor-set weight is included in the same 100% total. Assessments and questions are assigned to the ordinary assessment categories (see Assessments & Questions).
Choose between an absolute grading scale (fixed score cutoffs mapped to letter grades) or a bell curve scheme, and edit the cutoff rows for each. This scheme drives the Letter Grade + GPA columns on Final Grades.
The same page has the Extra Credit switch and the course's extra-credit allowance: how many marks above an assessment's maximum you can give each student, shared by the assessment's parts (100 marks unless you change it). Extra credit counts in the course grade, while CLO attainment counts each score as at most 100%. See Gradebook & Grades.
A single on/off toggle for Outcome-Based Education, plus (once on) a shortcut into the Open PLO Wizard. Full walkthrough in Outcomes (OBE).
