Let learners in without accounts or passwords
Every account you make a learner create is a small tax on their enthusiasm - a password invented at checkout, forgotten by the weekend, reset by the time lesson two comes around. A bernard course charges no such tax.
How it works
- They enrol and pay on your course page, through Stripe's secure checkout.
- The welcome email arrives - a receipt and a way in, in one. Its personal link opens the course with every lesson unlocked.
- They come back the same way. The link keeps working - forever on a pay-once course, until the end date on a fixed term (Charge once, or sell a year of access). Lost the email? The course page has a "get my way back in" form that re-sends it (A learner lost their way back in).
One page for everything they own
A student with more than one course doesn't juggle emails. Your site has a My-courses page - everything that student owns, in one place: each course with its status (ready to continue, completed, access ended), their purchase history, and a way back into any of it. It works the same passwordless way: if they've lost every email, they type their address into the one field on that page and their way in arrives by email - provided that address actually owns something, and only they can know that from the outside.
Once they're in, the page stays signed in for months, and it can be added to a phone or tablet home screen so it opens with one tap, like an app. Their welcome emails link to it, so most students find it without ever being told.
There is no profile to fill in, no progress dashboard demanding attention - and that's the point. Your learner clicks an email, watches your teaching - captions if they want them, at their own speed, picking up where they left off, with the next lesson offered when one ends (Captions and transcripts, written for me) - and gets on with their day. You see who's enrolled, on which course, and until when, on your Courses page.
The prompt
“How do my learners get into the course after they pay? Explain what the welcome email contains and what to tell a learner who asks.”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first - a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- Do my learners need to create an account to take the course?
- No. When someone enrols, their welcome email contains a personal link - clicking it unlocks the lessons on that device. No username, no password, nothing to forget.
- Is a link secure enough for a paid course?
- The link contains a long random key that exists only in that learner's email - it can't be guessed. It's the same pattern banks and booking systems use for secure email links. If a learner ever forwards theirs, it's like lending a book: possible, visible to you in spirit, and not worth an account system that punishes everyone else.
- What does the learner see if their access has ended?
- For a fixed-term course, the lesson page says plainly that the term has ended and offers enrolment again. Nothing errors, nothing strands them - and as the owner you approve every change to how that page reads.
- My student has several courses - do they need a link for each one?
- No. Every course site has a My-courses page where a student sees everything they own in one place - each course, its status, their purchases - and gets back into any of it. One email field sends them their way in if they've lost everything; once they're in, the page stays signed in for months. They can even add it to their phone's home screen so it opens with one tap, like an app.