# Sections and lessons

> Organize a course into sections and lessons, reorder them by drag and drop, and edit each lesson's notes, attachments and free-preview setting.

A course is made of sections, and each section holds lessons. A lesson is a video lesson, a text-only lesson, or a quiz. You build and arrange them on the course's **Outline** tab, under **Curriculum**.

![The lesson editor’s Content tab: title, section, short description and lesson notes, with an At a glance summary.](/docs/images/lesson-editor.webp)

## The curriculum

Each section shows its title and lesson count. Each lesson row shows its number, title, and a status line:

- the live video's version and length, for example "v1 · 12:04",
- **Text lesson** for a text-only lesson,
- the latest upload's state, for example "v1 processing", or "v2 ready — needs publishing",
- **No video yet**,
- for quizzes, **Quiz** with the live version and question count, or **not published**,
- **Free preview** when the lesson is open to everyone.

A badge on the right shows **Ready** when the lesson can be published, or **Needs video** / **Needs publishing** when it can't.

## Sections

Every course starts with one section called "Lessons". A course always has at least one section.

- **Add a section:** type a name in **New section** and click **Add section**. It is added at the end. If you leave the name blank, it is called "New section".
- **Rename a section:** click **Edit** next to its title, change the **Section title** and click **Save**. Titles can be up to 120 characters.
- **Delete a section:** the **Delete** button appears only when the section is empty and is not the course's only section. Move or delete its lessons first.

## Release a section over time (drip)

A section can open later instead of as soon as a student enrolls. Use it for a weekly course, or to pace a long one.

1. Click **Edit** next to the section's title.
2. Under **When students can watch it**, choose one:
   - **As soon as they enroll** (the default).
   - **_N_ days after they enroll:** each student gets the section that many days after they first enrolled (1 to 365).
   - **On** a date and time: the section opens for everyone at that moment. The time is in your time zone.
3. Click **Save**.

A scheduled section shows a badge in the outline: **Opens day 7**, or **Opens** with the date.

![A section opened for editing in the course outline, with When students can watch it set to a date, and an Opens badge next to its title.](/docs/images/drip-studio.webp)

What students see:

- On the course page and in the lesson sidebar, each lesson in a scheduled section shows **Opens** and the date and time, in the student's own time zone.
- Opening a lesson before then shows "This lesson opens on" the date, instead of the video.
- Until it opens, the lesson can't be played, its files can't be downloaded, its quiz can't be taken and its comments are hidden. This is checked on the server for every request, not just hidden in the page.

![A course page for an enrolled student: lessons in the second section show Opens and the date instead of a link.](/docs/images/drip-student.webp)

Good to know:

- **Free preview** lessons are never locked, even in a scheduled section.
- You and your team always see every lesson.
- "Days after they enroll" counts from the first time the student got access. Removing and restoring their access doesn't restart the clock.
- Scheduling a section that students have already watched locks it again for anyone who hasn't reached the opening time.
- Bitty Course doesn't email students when a section opens.
- Your AI assistant can schedule sections too, with `update_section` (see [MCP tool reference](/docs/mcp-tools)).

## Lessons

There are three ways to add a lesson:

- **Upload videos.** Under **Add lessons from videos**, drop files or click **Choose videos**. Each file becomes a new lesson at the end of the last section, titled from the file name. See [Uploading video](/docs/uploading-video).
- **Add a lesson without uploading.** Click this under any section, fill in the form and click **Create lesson**. Use it for a text-only lesson, or to upload the video afterwards.
- **Add a quiz.** Click this under any section. See [Quizzes](/docs/quizzes).

A lesson's type (lesson or quiz) is fixed once created.

## Reorder sections and lessons

**Drag and drop.** Hover over a section or lesson and drag it by its grip handle (**Drag to reorder**). You can drag a lesson into a different section of the same course. The new order is saved as soon as you drop.

**Arrows.** Each section and lesson also has up and down arrows. They move it one place within its own list. On a touch screen the arrows are always shown.

**From the lesson editor.** Change **Section** on the lesson's **Content** tab and save. The lesson moves to the end of that section.

Students see lessons in this order, numbered across the whole course ("Lesson 4 of 12").

You can't move a lesson to a different course.

## The lesson editor

Click a lesson's title to open its editor. The top shows the lesson title, a **Comments** button (when comments are on for the course or the lesson has comments), **Preview as student**, and the lesson's link. The link never changes when you replace the video.

A video or text lesson has four tabs:

| Tab | What's there |
| --- | --- |
| **Content** | Title, section, short description, lesson notes, options, and an **At a glance** summary (video, captions, chapters, audio tracks, attachments). **Delete lesson** is here. |
| **Video** | Upload and publish video versions, captions and chapters. A badge shows how many new versions are waiting to be published. See [Uploading video](/docs/uploading-video), [Video versions](/docs/video-versions), [Captions and translations](/docs/captions-and-translations) and [Chapters](/docs/chapters). |
| **AI tools** | Draft with AI and AI dubbing. See [Draft with AI](/docs/draft-with-ai) and [AI dubbing](/docs/ai-dubbing). |
| **Attachments** | Downloadable files for the lesson. A badge shows how many there are. |

The editor remembers the tab you last used. Quizzes have their own editor; see [Quizzes](/docs/quizzes).

### Content tab

| Field | What it does | Limit |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Title** | Required. | 160 characters |
| **Section** | The section the lesson belongs to. | |
| **Short description** | Shown under the lesson title in the course outline, and at the top of the lesson's **Overview**. | 2,000 characters |
| **Lesson notes** | Rich text shown on the lesson's **Overview** tab. | |

Under **Options**:

- **Free preview.** Anyone with the course link can watch this lesson without enrolling.
- **Text-only lesson.** No video is needed to publish the course. Students see the notes in place of a video.

Click **Save lesson**.

### Lesson notes

**Lesson notes** use a rich-text editor. Use it for formatted notes, links, code snippets or a transcript. Students read the notes on the lesson's **Overview** tab, below any [chapters](/docs/chapters).

You can't embed images or files in the notes; saving notes with an embedded file is refused. Add files as attachments instead. Notes are cleaned of unsafe markup when shown to students.

## Attachments

Attachments are files students can download from the lesson's **Resources** tab: worksheets, slides, source code, and so on.

To add one:

1. Open the lesson's **Attachments** tab.
2. Under **Add a file**, choose the file.
3. Optionally enter a **Title**. Without one, the title is made from the file name.
4. Click **Upload file**.

Rules:

- Allowed types: PDF, ZIP, TXT, MD, CSV, PNG, JPG and JPEG.
- Up to 25 MB per file, and up to 10 files per lesson.
- The file's contents must match its extension. For example, a web page renamed to `.pdf` is refused.
- Attachments count against your plan's storage for lesson files, shown on **Usage**. An upload that would go over it is refused (see [Plans and usage](/docs/plans-and-usage)).

Students can download a file only after it passes a malware scan. Until then its badge shows **Awaiting scan**; afterwards it shows **Scanned**. A file the scan flags is never served to anyone, including you.

Enrolled students, and anyone on a free-preview lesson, can download attachments. Every download checks access again, so a copied download link doesn't work for someone who isn't entitled to the lesson, and a student whose access you revoke loses it right away. You can download your own files by clicking their titles.

To remove a file, click **Remove** and confirm.

## Free preview lessons

Tick **Free preview** on a lesson to open it to anyone with the course link, without buying or enrolling. This works for video lessons, text lessons and quizzes.

On a published course:

- The course page marks free-preview lessons with **Preview** in the outline, and the cover shows **Preview this course**.
- Visitors can watch the video, read the notes and download the attachments.
- Visitors can take a free-preview quiz without signing in. Their answers are graded but not saved.
- Comments stay closed to non-enrolled visitors. A free preview never opens the discussion.

Free previews work only once the course is published.

## Delete a lesson

1. Open the lesson's editor (**Content** tab for a lesson; the quiz editor for a quiz).
2. Click **Delete lesson** (or **Delete quiz**) and confirm.

This removes the lesson's videos, attachments, comments, quiz attempts and student progress. It can't be undone.

## Who can do what

- Owners and editors can add, edit, reorder and delete sections and lessons (see [Team](/docs/team)).
- In a read-only workspace (after a canceled subscription), you can open lessons but not change them.

## Limits

| Item | Limit |
| --- | --- |
| Section title | 120 characters |
| Lesson title | 160 characters |
| Short description | 2,000 characters |
| Attachments | 10 per lesson, 25 MB each |
| Video file | 10 GB, MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV |