Taking a Course

Taking a course is easy, but these tips may help you with the process.

Overview

In order to benefit most from your study of the course material, you should plan to work through the lessons in the order they are presented.
You will need the foundational information given in Lesson 1 before beginning Lesson 2, and so on.
Courses are broken down into units. The lessons in each unit include questions to help you understand and apply the various biblical truths.
You should allow yourself a minimum of three hours of study time to complete each lesson (about 30 minutes a day). This would include doing the required reading, answering the questions, and preparing to participate in your weekly group session if you're enrolled in a facilitated class.

Technical Requirements to Run a Course

To use a course it will be necessary to meet certain hardware and software requirements. Please refer to the Technical Requirements page for the hardware and software necessary to take a course.

The Course Window

Course arrangement.

Within the top title bar (1), the course window displays details of your class/course selection. Top navigation buttons (2) span below the title bar, and two large panels reside at the bottom for content. The lower left* panel (3) displays course-related information; the right*, larger panel (4) displays the course content pages. Familiarize yourself with the layout and top navigation options before beginning your study.

Page Advance

Where previous and next page buttons are locateted.

Select "Next Page" or "Previous Page" to advance forward or backward one page at a time within the course content. These page advance arrow icons can be found from among the top navigation buttons, or at the bottom of each page containing course content. Use the right* scroll bar to advance through the entire text of a page.

Course Outline

How to navigate through the course.

Select the "Course Outline" button from the top navigation to display an overview of the course’s unit, lesson, and topic titles in the left* panel (3). To fully expand a portion of the outline, click on the small square box (containing a plus sign) to the left* of a title. The plus sign indicates additional lesson or topic titles to view; if the small square box displays a minus sign or a dash, supporting page titles are already shown. Clicking on the small square box which displays a minus sign or dash will collapse and temporarily remove the related lesson and topic titles from view.

To jump directly to a particular unit lesson or topic, expand the course outline to the lesson or topic title, and click on the title to open the desired page. The page will display in the right-hand* panel (4) of the course window.

Bible Passage Context

NetBible will pop up when you click on Bible passages.

Bible passages referenced throughout the courses are linked to the corresponding text from the NetBible. Click on the linked Bible reference in the course content to read the Scripture after it displays in the left* panel (3). Scrolling up or down, and using the "previous" or "next" arrows previous and next arrows from within the Scripture panel, provides you with the ability to read surrounding Scriptures and understand the context of a passage.

While studying a particular lesson you may wish to look up a different passage than mentioned; you can do this by clicking on "The Bible" icon from the course's top navigation (2). After clicking, a new window will display the entire NetBible. You can read from any book and Scripture reference of your choice. To close the NetBible, simply select the "Close" box (containing an "X") of that window.

More Help

need help?

Select the "Help" button (question mark icon) from the top navigation (2) options for more help using the course.

* Note: For Arabic and other right-to-left oriented languages, the left/right instructions will be the opposite of what is indicated.

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Internet Biblical Seminary

Getting Started