Audience

Faculty and Teaching Assistants who need to create or modify course content in PrairieLearn.

Editing Course Content in PrairieLearn

PrairieLearn allows you to create and edit questions, assessments, and other course materials in two main ways: using the web interface or a local development environment. Each approach has distinct advantages, depending on your needs.

Using the Web Interface

The PrairieLearn web interface is the quickest way to get started.

• Ideal if you want to quickly prototype questions without setting up a local environment.
• Collaboration is easy since multiple instructors or TAs can access the same interface.
• You can preview how questions will appear to students in real-time.

Getting Started

• Log in to PrairieLearn and select your course.
• From the course dashboard, create or edit questions, assessments, and other materials.
• Preview your changes to confirm that autograding, hints, and solutions work correctly.

Best Practices

• Use clear naming conventions for questions and assessments (e.g., lesson1-quiz1, lesson1-quiz2).
• Test frequently by previewing your questions.
• Leverage permissions to manage collaboration among TAs and co-instructors.

Using a Code Editor and Local Development Environment

A local setup is especially useful if your course has many questions, you need version control, or you want to automate aspects of content creation.

• Allows you to use Git for version control and collaboration.
• You can run custom scripts or manage larger course structures more easily.
• Ideal for complex or highly customized courses.

Getting Started

• Install PrairieLearn locally by following the official installation guide.
• Clone or create a repository for your course materials.
• Organize questions and assessments in logical folders (e.g., questions/lesson1/).
• Run PrairieLearn locally and visit http://localhost:3000 (or your configured port) to view and test your course content.

Best Practices

• Maintain version control with Git (e.g., create branches, merge changes after review).
• Use PrairieLearn’s test tools to catch errors early.
• Write descriptive commit messages and keep a clean folder structure.

Additional Resources

• Consult the PrairieLearn documentation for detailed guides on question creation, assessment configuration, grading, and more.
• Look at example question templates in the documentation for a quick start.

Support

• If you need help or encounter issues, contact Engineering Digital Service (EDS) at eds@umd.edu.