Courses have been part of Invision Community since 2023, giving communities a way to run structured learning with sequential modules and lessons, quizzes, required courses for specific groups, and paid courses through Commerce.

In Invision Community 5.1, Courses get many new features and improvements that turn it into a proper learning space.

Courses can now be organised into categories and run entirely from the front end; each course can have its own discussion forum and files; members can leave reviews and ratings; and anyone who finishes earns a badge and a printable certificate.

If you run staff onboarding, paid training, product education or a volunteer programme, this is the release where Courses really come into its own.

Organise Courses into categories

Courses now live in categories, each with its own name, description, cover photo and permissions. You can keep staff-only onboarding separate from public training, or put free introductory courses in one place and paid advanced tracks in another, without piling everything onto a single page.

The Courses home page lists your categories first, and members with permission can add a course straight from there.

Build and run Courses from the front end

Creating, editing and publishing courses, along with managing modules and lessons, all happens on the community itself now. Instructors don't need AdminCP access to build and maintain a course, while admins keep control of settings, categories and enrolment tools in the ACP.

You can assign instructors to each course, the same way you assign organisers to an event. Instructors manage the content and enrolments, and everyone enrolled appears on a Members tab.

Keep course materials with the course

Each course can now have its own files library. Instructors upload worksheets, slides, templates or whatever else the lessons need, and enrolled members can download them. If someone withdraws from the course, they lose access to the files too.

Everything stays in one place, rather than sending learners off to a separate Downloads category and hoping they find the right thing.

A discussion forum for every course

Each course can have its own dedicated forum, open to enrolled members and instructors. It's a full forum with topics, replies and all the usual tools, so questions and conversation stay right next to the lessons instead of getting lost in your main forums.

This makes a big difference for courses that run over weeks or months, where a group of learners is working through the material together.

If you switch on files or discussions for a category that already has courses in it, you'll be asked whether to add them to existing courses or only to new ones.

Reviews and star ratings

Members can now rate and review courses. The average rating shows on course listings and in the course header, and a reviews tab lets people sort by newest or most helpful.

For someone deciding whether to enrol, social proof is useful. For instructors, it's honest feedback from people who've actually taken the course.

You decide whether reviews are allowed in each category, whether they need approval before going live, and which groups can leave them.

A Course page that feels alive

The course overview can now show a recent activity sidebar with the latest reviews and discussion. It appears only when there’s something to show, so a brand-new course won't look empty. New learners can see that people are engaged, and returning learners can catch up on what they've missed.

Celebrate completion with badges

Instructors can upload a badge image on the course form, and anyone who completes the course automatically receives it. Badges appear on the member's profile.

Certificates members can print

Once a member has completed at least one course, a Courses tab appears on their profile. It shows the badges they've earned, a list of completed courses, and a certificate of completion for each one, including the course name, badge, number of modules, lessons and quizzes, and the completion date.

Members can print any certificate, complete with your community name, their name, the course title and the completion date.

A finished course becomes something people can point to, which demonstrates trust and ability.

Learning where your members already are

Put together, these updates take Courses from a place to work through lessons to a complete learning experience, from browsing a category to printing a certificate.

Your members learn alongside the people they already know, and your instructors run everything without needing administrative access.

Courses is available from Creator Plus

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Great stuff.

Something I’ve missed since the early Courses days is the way post progress works. At the moment, posting in a forum works, but if we ask someone to make, say, 5 posts in a forum or topic, it doesn’t count them up individually. As far as I know, that was never possible.

Is that something that will be possible now, something you haven’t thought about yet, or is it still coming? 😇

On 9/25/2026 at 10:14 AM, Cedric V said:

Something I’ve missed since the early Courses days is the way post progress works. At the moment, posting in a forum works, but if we ask someone to make, say, 5 posts in a forum or topic, it doesn’t count them up individually. As far as I know, that was never possible.

Can you elaborate, please? It sounds like you're talking about Achievements, but I'm not entirely understanding how this connects to courses.

14 hours ago, Esther E. said:

Can you elaborate, please? It sounds like you're talking about Achievements, but I'm not entirely understanding how this connects to courses.

When adding an item in courses like "post in introductions", this works as intended. However, you cannot have an item that says "post 5 times in introductions".

21 hours ago, Cedric V said:

When adding an item in courses like "post in introductions", this works as intended. However, you cannot have an item that says "post 5 times in introductions".

That doesn't sound like courses at all. Course Items don't have anything like "post in introductions", they are literally just content. We're definitely not talking about the same thing. Screenshot?

@Esther E. I don’t know why I had quests in mind while reading courses. My mistake. 😇

I can’t quote, since it’s broken.

32 minutes ago, Cedric V said:

@Esther E. I don’t know why I had quests in mind while reading courses. My mistake. 😇

I can’t quote, since it’s broken.

Looks like it's just an issue with the Multiquote button. I have created an issue for it.