The Class content typeA collection of fields that describe a specific type of content, like a news article, a person, or an event. Site admins can add additional content types by enabling optional modules. WDS can also create custom content types for a site. is used to display basic information about a class you teach or previously taught at Princeton. It has fields for adding a course description, semester and year offered, and class materials (documents). The Class List block allows you to display a list of your classes.

Classes and Courses, What's the Difference?

Site Builder also has a Course content type. There are major differences between Class and Course.

The Courses module and content type are primarily meant for departments, programs, or centers that wish to showcase the list of their courses being offered each term. Term-based course data is imported from the Registrar and automatically managed. The imported data includes the course title, term, cross-listings, description, and instructors. This data cannot be modified, but imported courses can be edited to add an image, categories, and supplemental description. No data about specific classes (e.g. precepts, lectures, etc) is imported.

The Classes module and content type are meant for individual instructors to provide information about specific classes they're currently teaching or taught in the past. No data is imported from the Registrar. The site owner manually fills in information about each class to provide the name, semester offered, description, class materials, and reference to another website if needed. Note that Canvas should be used as the primary website for a particular course. This content type is not intended to support robust information sharing and management of classes.

Alternative Options

The main benefit of using this content type for inputting your class data is if you have many classes and want an organized way to display them on your site. Adding classes to this content type allows you to add the Classes List block to pages, which has options for displaying the semester, offered year, summary. Importantly, if gives you structured sorting and filtering options.

None of that is necessary if you have only a few classes to display. In that case, it's easier to enter and maintain simply by adding a Page for each class and manually writing out the basic information you want to display in the body text editor.

Instructors are also encouraged to use Canvas as the primary resource for your class. This content type is not intended to support robust information sharing and management of classes.

Adding a Class

Visit the class entry form by clicking Manage » Content » Add Content » Class.

In the main area of the form on the left, you'll find some important fields to fill out:

• Title: The title of the class.
• Summary: This field is hidden by default (click "Edit summary" to reveal). The summary is used to provide a brief overview of the class. It will be displayed in Class List blocks that are displayed on landing pages.
• Body: The description of the class that's displayed on the class detail page. If the summary field is left empty, the Class List will automatically generate a summary from the contents of the body field.
• Semester: Select the appropriate semester for this class (optional).
• Offered: The year the class is or was offered (optional).
• Link: If there is some other website for this class, provide a link to it here.
• Class Materials: Optionally attach one or more documents, along with titles and descriptions.

On the right sidebar, you'll find additional fields:

• Categorization: Use to categorize your classes. These can be used to filter Class List blocks. Your site may not have any categorization options available. See Content Categorization for more information on categorization.
• URL AliasThe user-friendly path for a content item or taxonomy term that replaces the system path. For example, /my-page can be an alias for /node/123. : This allows you to control the URL of the class detail page. An automatic alias is generated by default. It will be based on the title of the class. However, there are times when you want to override this and provide a custom path. You can uncheck the Generate automatic URL alias box and enter your own custom URL alias. Keep custom URL aliases short but descriptive and use hyphens to separate words.
• Promotion options: This is used if displaying a Class List block to stick the class at the top of the list (overriding the configured sort options for this one class).

Use the Save button at the bottom of the form to save the class. The Published checkbox can also be used to control public visibility. If unchecked, visitors to your site will not be able to view the contents.