Create a video course

Before you start

• You need an institute that you own. A draft institute is fine for building the course, but the course can only be published after the institute is published.
• Get ready: a course picture, a short description, the syllabus, and your videos as MP4 or WebM files, each under 2 GB.
• If your lectures are already in a public YouTube playlist, you can bring them all in at once. See Import a YouTube playlist.
• If you teach in a classroom instead, see Classroom (face-to-face) courses.

Step 1: Create the course

1. 1Open the Learning studio, go to My courses and click New course. You can also choose Course in the Create menu, or Create at the top of the Courses page.
2. 2Under Institute, choose the institute this course belongs to. If you have only one, it is already chosen.
3. 3Under What kind of course is it?, choose Video course.
4. 4Type the Course name (at least 3 characters).
5. 5Under What does this course teach?, choose up to 10 topics. This is optional now, but you need it before you publish.
6. 6Under Where do the videos come from?, choose Upload videos.
7. 7Click Create course. The Manage course page opens.

If the page says Courses live under an institute. Create your institute first., you do not own an institute yet. Click Create an institute.

The Manage course page

At the top you see the course picture, name, type and institute, a Published or Draft tag, the number of students and views, and the Publish button. View page opens the course page the way students see it.

Below that, a Finish course info box lists everything still missing. Click an item to jump to the place where you fill it in. The box goes away when nothing is missing.

Step 2: Fill in the Edit tab

Each field saves on its own. When you change a field, a Save button appears under it. Click Save to keep the change, or Cancel to put back the saved value.

• Course picture: click Choose. Use a JPG or PNG image up to 10 MB.
• Course name: 3 to 100 characters.
• Description: who the course is for and what students get (up to 2,000 characters).
• Course contents: the syllabus, chapters or topics (up to 4,000 characters).
• What does this course teach?: up to 10 topics. Learners browse and search by these, and the course category is set from them.
• Language: the language you teach in.
• Discovery: Level (the classes or stages the course is for), Skill level, Age group, How it is taught, What learners get, When and Certificate on completion. These help students find the course in search. The level is filled in from your topics; change it if it is wrong.
• Fee and Access period: see Step 4.
• Dates: Valid till and Recorded on. Both are optional.
• Lectures: the number of lectures and their total length. This comes from the Curriculum tab; you do not type it.
• Demo video link and Study material provided: optional.

Step 3: Build the curriculum

Open the Curriculum tab. Every change on this tab is saved straight away. The line at the top shows how many lectures you have and their total length.

Add sections

1. 1Under New section, type a name such as "Introduction" (2 to 80 characters).
2. 2Click Add section.
3. 3Use the buttons on a section to Rename section, Move up, Move down or Delete section.

Deleting a section also deletes all its lectures and their videos, for everyone. You are asked to confirm first.

Upload a video lecture

1. 1In a section, click Upload video and choose the file.
2. 2In the Upload lecture window, check the Title (it starts as the file name) and add a Description if you like.
3. 3Tick Free preview if anyone should be able to watch this lecture without enrolling.
4. 4Click Start upload. A bar shows Uploading and the percentage. When it finishes, the lecture appears in the section.

Keep the browser tab open until the upload finishes. If you close it, the lecture is not added. Use MP4 or WebM, under 2 GB per video. An MP4 with H.264 video and AAC sound plays on every device. The length is read from the file.

Add a YouTube video as a lecture

1. 1In a section, click YouTube link.
2. 2Paste the YouTube link. Normal watch links, youtu.be links, Shorts and live links all work. Unlisted videos work too.
3. 3Type a Title. A Description and Length in minutes are optional.
4. 4Tick Free preview if you want, then click Add lecture.

Uploaded videos play only for enrolled students, except free previews. A YouTube video plays inside Sikhami, but anyone who finds it on YouTube can also watch it there.

Change, move or delete a lecture

• The eye button turns the free preview on or off (Make free preview or Turn free preview off).
• The pencil, Edit lecture, changes the title, description, free preview and Opens after (days). For a YouTube lecture you can also change the length.
• Move up and Move down change the order inside the section. A lecture cannot be moved to another section.
• Delete lecture removes the lecture and its video for everyone.

Open lectures step by step

To release a lecture later, open Edit lecture and set Opens after (days): the number of days after a student enrols before the lecture opens for them. Leave it empty to open it straight away. You can set this only after the lecture has been added.

You can also add a test to any section with Add test. See Course tests and certificates.

Step 4: Set the price and access period

In the Edit tab, under Fee, the Price box shows Free or your prices. Click Set prices (or Change if you already have prices).

1. 1In the Course prices window, type a price for each period you want to sell: 6 months, 1 year, 2 years or Lifetime. Leave a period blank if you do not want to sell it.
2. 2Prices come in fixed steps. If you type a price between two steps, the window shows Saved as and the price that will be used. The lowest price is ₹25.
3. 3Under each price you see what you receive per sale on sikhami.com and in the Android app. Click How to see the full sum.
4. 4Click Save.

To make the course free, open Set prices, leave every box blank and click Save. The box shows Free even before you do this, but the fee stays on the Finish course info list until you save once.

A student who buys keeps the course for the period they paid for. The Access period setting (Lifetime access, 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, 1 year or 2 years) sets how long a student keeps a free course after joining. A change applies only to people who join after it.

For fees, payouts and the full earnings maths, see Sell on Sikhami and What you earn on Sikhami.

Step 5: Publish

Before a video course can be published, it needs: a course picture, course name, description, course contents, topics, language, a fee (or a saved free price) and at least one lecture. Your institute must also be published.

When the Finish course info box is gone, click Publish. For details, see Publish a course.

Saving your work and coming back later

• A new course is a draft. Leave whenever you like and come back from My courses in the Learning studio.
• Fields on the Edit tab save when you click their Save button. The curriculum saves every change at once.
• To check your lectures as a student sees them, open the course page and click Watch as a student.
• To offer a discount on a paid course, open Coupons: type a Code, choose % off or ₹ off, set Max uses (0 means no limit) and Valid until, then click Create coupon. You can Pause or Resume a coupon later.

Questions