Course, library, client hub or handbook - which to choose
A bernard course is good at one thing that is not teaching: private delivery. The contents are never in the public page, access can be by invitation, it can expire, and you can see who has it. Owners can use that for things that are not lessons - a security pack for a buyer’s IT reviewer, a folder of templates for clients, a staff handbook. On those pages “lesson”, “enrol” and “Watch” read wrong.
The prompt
“I want to put [what: a set of policies / documents for a buyer / resources for my clients] behind an invitation on my site. Which kind should it be, and set it up as a draft.”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
So a course has a kind, chosen when you create it and changeable later.
The four kinds
| Kind | For | What a reader sees | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Course | Teaching, sold or free | lessons, a free preview, progress and certificates | /courses/… |
| Document library | Private documents for named readers: a security pack, a data room, board papers | documents, “Open to all” on the one open item, no progress | /library/… |
| Client hub | Templates, guides and recordings for current clients | resources, “For current clients” | /clients/… |
| Handbook | Policies and how-tos for staff or members | sections, “For our team”, a tick on a section with a film or a recording once it is watched | /handbook/… |
Every kind keeps the engine’s private delivery: item text is served only to people with access, invitations and expiry work the same way (Enrol a student myself - they paid elsewhere and A learner lost their way back in apply to a reader of a library exactly as to a student), and each kind has its own index page in its own words. The feature is still called courses in the app and when you ask Bernard; only the public address and the words follow the kind. The handle in the address never changes.
Choosing
- Teaching people something, in order, possibly for money: course (Understand how a course is put together, Sell a course from my own website).
- Giving named outsiders documents to read, often for a limited time: document library (Share private documents with a document library).
- Keeping your current clients supplied with the same files and recordings: client hub (Give clients a private hub of resources).
- Policies your own people must be able to find: handbook (Put your staff or member handbook in one private place).
Switching kind later
Ask Bernard to make a course a library (or pick the kind in the course
builder, under “This is a…”). On a course that is already published this
moves the web address, so Bernard tells you the old and new addresses and
asks before doing it. Every old address - the overview and each item - then
answers with a permanent redirect to the new one, and that redirect carries a
reader’s access key, so the links in emails you have already sent keep
working. If no course of the old kind is left, the old index page (for example
/courses/) is gone and does not redirect. The move lands in your draft;
approving it makes it real.
Two things to know: a knowledge check or a certificate on a course that becomes a library simply stops showing (the kind has them off), and nothing is sent to anyone.
Questions people ask
- Are these four different features?
- No. They are one engine with four sets of words and behaviour. A library, a hub and a handbook are courses underneath, so everything you know about inviting people, expiry and the preview still applies. Nothing goes live until you publish and approve the change.
- What changes when I switch the kind?
- The words on every page (lesson becomes document, resource or section; enrol becomes access), the switches (a library has no progress ticks or certificates; a handbook ticks a section with a film or a recording once it is watched, and a written section is read, not tracked), and the web address. Old links keep working through a permanent redirect, and that redirect carries a reader’s access key, so emails you already sent still open. The change lands in your draft for approval like any other.
- Can a video live in a library?
- Yes. The button follows the item, not the kind: a video says Watch, a recording says Listen, anything else says View. That is true in a teaching course too - a notes-only lesson now says View.