Tutor LMS Course Structure Explained: Courses, Topics, Lessons and Quizzes
How a Tutor LMS course is put together: courses, topics, lessons, quizzes, assignments and live classes, how they are stored, and how to plan a curriculum that works.
Checked against the plugin source: Tutor LMS 4.1.3, Tutor LMS Pro 4.1.3
Every Tutor LMS course follows the same structure: a course contains topics, and each topic contains the learning items: lessons, quizzes and, with Tutor LMS Pro, assignments, live classes and interactive content. Understanding this structure helps you plan better courses and explains much of how Tutor LMS behaves.
The building blocks
Course
The course is what students enroll in and what you sell. It has a title, description, featured image, an optional intro video, pricing, categories and tags, a difficulty level, one or more instructors and settings such as a maximum number of students or an enrollment period. In the course builder these live under the Basic tab. The Additional tab holds the overview fields (what students will learn, target audience, total duration, materials included, requirements and instructions), certificates, prerequisites and attachments.
Topic
Topics are the chapters or modules of your course. They group related items and appear as collapsible sections in the curriculum. A topic has a title and an optional summary. Topics are created in the Curriculum tab with Add Topic.
Lesson
A lesson is a page of learning content: text, a video, attachments or a mix. Lessons can be marked complete by the student, which updates course progress.
Quiz
Quizzes test understanding. The free plugin includes five question types and Pro adds ten more. Quizzes have settings for time limits, attempts and the passing grade. See the complete quiz guide.
Assignment (Pro)
Assignments ask students to submit work, often a file, which an instructor grades. They need the Assignments add-on in Tutor LMS Pro.
Live classes and interactive content (Pro)
With the Zoom or Google Meet add-on you can schedule live classes inside a topic. The H5P add-on lets you add interactive H5P content. The Content Bank add-on lets you reuse lessons, assignments and questions across courses.
How the structure is stored
Under the hood each building block is a WordPress post of its own type, connected by the post parent field:
| Item | Post type | Parent |
|---|---|---|
| Course | courses | None |
| Topic | topics | The course |
| Lesson | lesson | The topic |
| Quiz | tutor_quiz | The topic |
| Assignment (Pro) | tutor_assignments | The topic |
| Zoom meeting (Pro) | tutor_zoom_meeting | The topic |
| Google Meet event (Pro) | tutor-google-meet | The topic |
The course and lesson post type names are filterable (tutor_course_post_type and tutor_lesson_post_type), so a heavily customized site might use different names, but the defaults above apply to almost every installation. Quiz questions and answers are not posts; they live in the custom tables tutor_quiz_questions and tutor_quiz_question_answers.
Two practical consequences follow. First, the order of items in your curriculum is stored on the posts themselves, so moving items in the builder updates them. Second, because lessons belong to topics and topics to a course, deleting a topic affects everything inside it. Always use the course builder rather than editing these posts directly.
Planning a course structure that works
One outcome per topic
Name each topic after what students can do when they finish it, not after a vague theme. "Set up your first campaign" is clearer than "Campaigns".
Short lessons
Lessons of five to fifteen minutes are easier to complete, especially on mobile, and every completed lesson moves the progress bar. Progress is a strong motivator.
A quiz at the end of each topic
A short quiz after each topic checks understanding before students move on. Keep the final exam for the end of the course.
Use free previews
With the Course Preview add-on (Pro) you can make individual lessons viewable before enrollment. A strong first lesson sells the course.
Control the pace when it matters
Content Drip (Pro) can unlock lessons on a schedule, a number of days after enrollment, in sequence, or after prerequisites are finished. See how to drip course content.
Course completion
How a course counts as complete depends on your settings. Under Settings > Course you can choose a Course Completion Process of Flexible or Strict, and enable Auto Complete Course on All Lesson Completion. When a course is completed, Tutor LMS records it and fires the tutor_course_complete_after action, which certificates and integrations use. Developers can change the rules with the tutor_user_can_complete_course filter.
Frequently asked questions
Can a lesson belong to more than one course?
Not directly, because each lesson has one parent topic. With the Content Bank add-on in Tutor LMS Pro you can store content once and add it to several courses.
How many topics or lessons can a course have?
There is no fixed limit. Very large courses are easier for students when split into several courses or a bundle.
Can I reorder topics and lessons later?
Yes. Drag and drop them in the Curriculum tab of the course builder. Student progress on existing lessons is kept.
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I’m Vishavjeet Choubey, an Enterprise LMS Architect with 10+ years of experience helping businesses, coaches, universities, and online academies build and scale powerful digital learning platforms. I specialize in enterprise LMS architecture, WordPress, WooCommerce, LifterLMS, LearnDash, Moodle, custom plugin development, and AI-driven automation. I build scalable LMS platforms, high-converting eCommerce solutions, and custom WordPress applications designed to improve user experiences, streamline operations, and drive measurable business growth. My approach combines deep WordPress and LMS engineering expertise with modern AI automation to reduce manual work, improve efficiency, and help organizations launch, scale, and grow faster.
