Introduction

Building and Running an edX Course helps course authors create course content quickly and easily. The documentation team updates this guide as new features are released.

The process for creating or updating documentation in this guide is the process outlined on the Creating and Updating Documentation - RTD page.

Different Platform Versions

The feature sets for edX partners and Open edX users are slightly different. Additionally, some Open edX sites use the most recent named release, while others keep up with the edX master version. We use shared files and conditional text to produce three different versions of Building and Running an edX Course.

Building and Running an edX Course, for partner course authors
Building and Running an edX Course: Eucalyptus Release, for course authors who use the latest release of Open edX
Building and Running an Open edX Course, for course authors who use the latest version of master

Files for these guides are located in the following folders.

Guide Name	Source Files
Building and Running an edX Course	edx-documentation/en-us/course_authors
Building and Running an Open edX Course	edx-documentation/en-us/open_edx_course_authors
Building and Running an Open edX Course: Eucalyptus Release	edx-documentation/en-us/

As of November 2016, any partner course author information that also pertains to the Open edX course authors guide will be included in the Open edX guide, but any information that pertains exclusively to the Open edX course authors guide will not be included unless the doc team receives a request to include it and has the time to create documentation.

Draft Versions

Some features are identified as requiring complete documentation well before release, either for a contractual obligation or to assure support of a pilot. The doc team prepares documentation in these cases to as high a standard of quality as possible. The resulting documentation is published privately, meaning that an edX employee must send the URL to those that need it, and labeled "DRAFT". This type of documentation is expensive to produce and maintain, and delivery in this way should be a very infrequent exception made only when there is high value to the edX organization.

For more information about creating draft projects, see Publish Documentation on Read the Docs.