How are the different course access types different?

In this article, you’ll learn about the different content access options for your courses.

What you'll need:

• A SystemeScale account
• A course (How to create a course)

The 4 Course Access Types

There are four ways you can provide registered students access to your course content:

• Full access: With this option, students will have instant access to all modules and lectures. Any delays set between lectures are ignored.
• Drip content: With this option, students will progressively have access to modules and lectures, according to the specific delays you have set.
• Partial access: With this option, students only have access to specific parts of the course (i.e., specific modules selected by the instructor).
• Partial access with drip: With this option, students only have access to specific parts of the course, and the lectures within those specific modules are released gradually according to the delays you have set.

Setting up a delay for courses and lectures

Here is an example of how to set up a delay. In this scenario, we will configure a course to provide access to a new lecture every day.

Modifying access delays: what you need to know

When the access type is set to Drip content, if you modify the delay of a lecture before it is unlocked, the system automatically recalculates the remaining waiting time based on the new delay.

Example Scenario:
A module contains 3 lectures, all initially configured with a delay of 1 day.

• Lecture 1: Delay of 1 day
• Lecture 2: Delay of 1 day
• Lecture 3: Delay of 1 day

Let's assume it has been 2 days since the student enrolled. The status would be:

• Lecture 1: Unlocked
• Lecture 2: Unlocked
• Lecture 3: Not yet accessible (only 2 days have passed). It is necessary to wait another 1 day for lecture 3 to be unlocked.

At this exact point, the instructor modifies the delay of Lecture 3 from 1 to 5 days.

Result:

• Lecture 1: Still accessible
• Lecture 2: Still accessible
• Lecture 3: Since the delay was increased, this lecture will now unlock exactly 5 days after Lecture 2 became available.

Partial access with drip: what you need to know

When combining partial access with drip content, the selected modules follow the same pacing rules already configured in your course. Instead of unlocking everything at once, students progress only through the modules included in their access while lectures continue to drip over time.

Example 1: Selling tiered access from a single course

Imagine you have a course with 10 modules and a 7-day drip schedule. Instead of duplicating the course to sell different versions, you can use the same course to sell multiple tiered offers:

• Half Course Offer: Grants "partial access with drip" to the first 5 modules. The student gets a new lecture every 7 days.
• Full Course Offer: Grants standard "drip content" access to all 10 modules.
• Upgrade Offer: Unlocks the remaining 5 modules for students who originally bought the Half Course. The system will smoothly continue the same 7-day drip schedule for the newly added modules.

Example 2: Dripping non-consecutive modules

If your course drips one module every 7 days, and you grant a student partial access to only modules 1, 3, and 5:

• Module 1: Unlocks immediately upon enrollment
• Module 3: Unlocks 7 days later
• Module 5: Unlocks 7 days after Module 3

Example 3: Upgrading during an active drip schedule

If a student purchases an upgrade to unlock more modules before their earlier modules have finished dripping, the newly unlocked modules will only begin releasing after the existing drip sequence completes, maintaining your exact delay intervals flawlessly.