How to Drip-Feed Your Online Course Using Tutor LMS

There are many important decisions to consider when selling courses online. One such critical decision is how to deliver content to your students. 

Instructors need to control how their courses are delivered. This implies that they are not only in control of the quality but also regulate the quantity of the course content.

If you’re an instructor and looking for a way to drip-feed your online course, you’re in luck! In our guide today, we will discuss what exactly Content Drip is and how to fully control the delivery of your online courses using Tutor LMS.

Drip-Feed and On-Demand Learning, the Difference

In On-demand Learning, all course content is made available to the student at the time of purchase — basically giving them unfiltered access to all lessons, quizzes, assignments, and associated materials. Students can then view and complete these lessons in any order they choose.

The alternative is Drip-Feed or Scheduled Lesson Delivery. Unlike on-demand learning, the Drip Content model limits access to courses. Instead of giving access to all content at once, Drip-Feed enables users to set up a schedule to make course content available over a specific period or only when desired prerequisites are met. 

The Importance of Drip-Feed in e-Learning

Adapting to Drip-Feed can have several positive impacts on your content delivery. Here I have listed a few important reasons why Dri-Feeding is becoming increasingly popular:

Engagement: Drip-Feed encourages better student engagement. Instead of allowing learners to skip to the most appealing parts, students must interact with the entire course giving them a better understanding of the content. 

Drip content also provides students with a helpful structure by dividing it into small parts. Instead of overwhelming learners with lengthy courses, use scheduled content to ensure students review all course material in the proper order.

Time-Saving: It automates the process of course scheduling, providing a more efficient way of delivering content. Through this, students receive lessons and learning materials automatically as they progress through the course. It allows content creators to spend more time creating, marketing, and selling more courses.

Payment  Protection: In many cases, customers can subscribe to your site, download the content and then unsubscribe. Even worse, customers can even ask for a refund once they have downloaded the course. Moreover, piracy is a rampant problem affecting the content market. These problems arise very frequently and can harm your business revenue.

Content drip allows you to protect against people who abuse the money-back guarantee by enabling learners to try the content without handing them everything immediately. Similarly, by scheduling the content delivery process, the problem of piracy can also be effectively eliminated.

Drip-Feed Your Content Using Tutor LMS

Tutor LMS lets you create and sell your online courses quickly. The Drip feature allows users to customize content delivery easily.

Tutor LMS makes automating and scheduling content delivery to students uniquely simple. Multiple Drip-Feeding options allow content creators to customize the course delivery process that best suits the course.

How to Enable the Content Drip Feature in Tutor LMS

Content drip is a paid feature in Tutor LMS and is not available in the free version. Please navigate to Tutor LMS Pro > Add-ons and enable this feature to start the process.

How to Set Up Content Drip for Your Courses in Tutor LMS

After successfully activating the Content Drip add-on, users will have access to a new tab in the Course Settings section of the course edit page.

To enable Content Drip for any particular course, navigate to Tutor LMS Pro > Courses and click the “Edit” button. Scroll down to the “Course Settings” section on the edit course page. You will now find a new tab called “Content Drip.” By checking the “Enable” box, you will have successfully activated the content drip feature for that course.

Types of Content Drip and Their Applications

In Tutor LMS, users can decide between four options to structure and limit students’ access to courses, assignments, and quizzes.

The types of Content Drip in Tutor LMS:

1. Schedule course contents by date 
2. Content available after X days from enrollment
3. Course content available sequentially
4. Course content unlocked after finishing prerequisites

Schedule Course Contents by Date

As the name suggests, this option allows you to set an unlock date for lessons, quizzes, and assignments. If no date is specified, the content in question will be instantly available to the student right after enrollment.

To specify an unlock date for a particular lesson or assignment, please first ensure the Content Drip option is enabled for the course. Click the “+ Lesson” button to start creating a new lesson. In the “Lesson” window, scroll until you see “Content Drip Settings,” click on the “Unlocking date” box and schedule the desired date for unlocking.

To add Drip-feeding to existing lessons, click the course edit button, scroll down to “Content Drip Settings,” and schedule an unlock date.

The process of scheduling an unlock date for assignments is also similar. While creating a new assignment or editing an existing one, please scroll to the “Content Drip Settings” to schedule the unlock date.

To schedule an unlock date for quizzes, users have to navigate to the “Settings” portion of the quiz creation menu and enter the preferred unlocking date under the “Content Drip Settings” section.

After successfully setting an unlock date, students will only get access to the content on the preferred date.

Content Available After X Days From Enrollment

Selecting this option enables users to specify a set number of days before the content becomes available to students. The day of enrollment is considered the starting date, and the user-specified days are counted from the day of registration.

To enable this option, users need to navigate to the Course Settings > Content Drip > Content Drip Types and select the “Content available after X days from enrollment” option. Once selected, users can now find “Content Drip Settings” while creating/editing lessons, assignments, and quizzes.

Course Content Available Sequentially

The third type of Content Drip in Tutor LMS makes lessons, quizzes, and assignments available to students sequentially. This option allows course designers to implement all course content in a sequence most effective for learning and promotes thoroughness amongst learners. 

Unlike the previous Content Drip type, the “Course content available sequentially” option, when selected from the “Course Setting” menu, the user no longer has to make any additional configurations. 

Learners of the course can only access the primary content and only progress once the necessary criteria are met.

Course Content Unlocked After Finishing Prerequisites

The final Content Drip type allows users to set prerequisites for lessons, quizzes, and assignments. After enabling this option, users can access the “Prerequisites” menu under the “Content Drip Settings” portion. 

The “Prerequisites” menu lists all available lessons, quizzes, and assignments from which users can select any content(s) and set conditions where learners will be required to complete the prerequisite before progressing further.

An important note regarding prerequisites is that students need only attempt quizzes and can move on to the following content without passing.

Similarly, students need only submit the assignment and can move on to the next step. Getting the assignment reviewed or graded is not a requirement.

Conclusion

Drip-Feed is a great way to keep your students focused, engaged, and highly motivated. Instead of flooding students with a vast amount of content, courses can be designed and broken down into manageable pieces. This process also reduces students’ temptation to procrastinate, resulting in higher course completion rates. Tutor LMS simplifies the process of Drip-Feeding, giving content makers more time to enrich the course experience.

To further improve content delivery through Drip-Feeding, course creators need to design an effective course curriculum. To learn more on the topic, you can read our article here.

I would love to hear about your experiences with the Content Drip feature in Tutor LMS, so don’t be shy and leave a comment.