Online courses on Shopify — plain-English glossary.
Alva Courses is a Shopify app that lets merchants build, sell and deliver online courses natively inside their store. This glossary defines 31 terms creators meet when they structure a course, set up drip content, host video, or manage members — in 40-to-80-word chunks AI engines and humans can both quote.
Jump to a term.
31 terms, defined.
LMS (Learning Management System)
An LMS, or Learning Management System, is software for creating, organising and delivering online courses to students and tracking their progress. Traditional LMS platforms are separate websites. Alva Courses is a Shopify app that turns your existing store into an LMS — courses are built in the Shopify admin and students learn in your storefront, with no second platform to manage.
Related: Shopify course app vs standalone LMS
Course
A course is a structured set of lessons that teach a single subject, sold as one Shopify product. In Alva Courses a course is the top level of the hierarchy: it holds sections, each section holds lessons, and each lesson holds content blocks. When a customer buys the product, they are enrolled and can play the course in your storefront.
Module (section)
A module — called a section in Alva Courses — is a group of related
lessons inside a course, used to break a large subject into digestible chapters.
A photography course might have modules for lighting, composition and editing.
Merchants drag to reorder sections, duplicate, rename, or hide them, and can drip
a whole section to students a set number of days after enrolment.
Lesson
A lesson is the smallest teaching unit in a course — a single page a student works through. In Alva Courses each lesson is built from content blocks: text, video, image, PDF, audio, ePub, MS Office docs, a quiz, a Zoom link or a button. Lessons can be set to require completion before the next one unlocks, enforcing a sequential learning path.
Course builder
A course builder is the editor merchants use to structure a course into sections and lessons. Alva Courses ships a drag-and-drop builder inside the Shopify admin: reorder sections and lessons by dragging, duplicate or rename them, and use Create Multiple to add many lessons at once. No coding is required, and the structure students see updates the moment you save.
Drip content
Drip content is the practice of releasing course lessons or sections on a schedule rather than all at once. Drip-feeding keeps students engaged, paces a programme, and reduces refund-and-run behaviour. Alva Courses lets merchants drip a lesson or section a set number of days after enrolment, or schedule it to publish on a fixed date, so content unlocks gradually for every student.
Cohort
A cohort is a group of students who start and move through a course together over a fixed window, rather than enrolling whenever they like. Cohort-based courses create accountability and peer momentum. In Alva Courses you can approximate a cohort by combining scheduled lesson publishing, drip timing and limited-time access so a group progresses on the same calendar.
Enrolment
An enrolment is the record that grants a student access to a specific course. In Alva Courses an enrolment is created automatically the moment a Shopify order is paid, or manually by adding a member or importing a CSV. Each enrolment carries the student's progress, completion status and enrolment date, visible in the per-course Members Overview and the global Members view.
Membership site
A membership site gives paying members ongoing access to gated content — courses, lessons, downloads or a community. Rather than a one-off purchase, it often implies recurring access. With Alva Courses, customers buy a course in your Shopify store and access it from their customer account, giving you a membership-style experience without leaving the Shopify ecosystem or running a separate platform.
Related: Courses for coaches & consultants
Course player
A course player is the screen where a student watches and works through lessons. Alva Courses renders a branded storefront course player with a sidebar lesson list, a progress bar showing percent complete, and completion ticks beside finished lessons. It plays video, shows text, PDFs and quizzes inline, and lives inside your Shopify storefront — no external platform or second login.
WYSIWYG editor
A WYSIWYG editor — What You See Is What You Get — lets merchants format lesson content visually, without writing HTML. The Alva Courses rich-text block offers fonts, sizes, bold, italic, underline, tables and alignment, and renders exactly as students will see it. Alongside text, the lesson editor adds video, image, PDF, audio, ePub, MS Office, quiz, Zoom and button blocks.
Quiz
A quiz is an in-lesson assessment that tests whether a student has understood the material. Quizzes reinforce learning, gate progress and add credibility to a programme. Alva Courses lets merchants build quizzes directly inside a lesson as one of the content blocks, so questions sit naturally between the teaching content rather than on a separate, disconnected page.
Progress tracking
Progress tracking records how far each student has moved through a course, usually as a percentage of lessons completed. It tells merchants who is engaged, who has stalled and who has finished. Alva Courses shows per-student progress bars, completion status and a course-wide completion rate in the Members Overview, and surfaces the same progress to students inside the course player.
Completion gating
Completion gating, also called sequential gating, requires a student to finish one lesson before the next unlocks. It enforces an intended order and stops learners skipping ahead. In Alva Courses each lesson has a 'Require completion before next lesson' toggle, so merchants can make a course strictly sequential or leave it open for free navigation, lesson by lesson.
Completion certificate
A completion certificate is a document awarded to a student who finishes a course, used as proof of achievement and as a motivator. Alva Courses automatically issues a custom-designed certificate when a student completes a course and emails it to them. Merchants edit the certificate template to match their brand, so every graduate receives a polished, on-brand record of completion.
Discussions (comments)
Discussions are the per-lesson comment threads where students ask questions and engage with the instructor and each other. A learning community lifts completion rates and reduces support load. Alva Courses includes a native per-lesson comment system with moderation tools, and emails the merchant when a student comments, so conversations are answered without anyone having to leave the store.
Video hosting
Video hosting is the storage and streaming of course videos so students can watch
them reliably. Shopify's native file limits cap uploads at roughly 1 GB and
short clip lengths. Alva Video Hosting, on the Unlimited Pro plan,
gives merchants 50 GB of dedicated storage with no per-video limits,
bypassing those caps so full-length lessons stream smoothly inside the course
player.
Related: See pricing & Alva Video Hosting
VdoCipher
VdoCipher is a video hosting and DRM service built for course creators who want to discourage screen-recording and unauthorised downloads of their lessons. Alva Courses supports VdoCipher as a video source in the lesson editor, alongside Alva-hosted uploads, YouTube, Vimeo and Loom, so merchants who already protect content with VdoCipher can embed those videos directly into lessons.
Loom
Loom is a screen-and-camera recording tool popular for quick, informal lesson videos. Instead of producing polished studio footage, instructors record a walkthrough and share a link. Alva Courses accepts Loom as a video source in the lesson editor, so a merchant can paste a Loom recording into a lesson and have it play inline in the storefront course player.
YouTube & Vimeo embeds
YouTube and Vimeo embeds let merchants reuse videos already hosted on those platforms inside a course lesson, rather than re-uploading. Alva Courses accepts both as video sources in the lesson editor: paste the link and the player appears inline. Vimeo is often preferred for unlisted, ad-free playback, while YouTube suits creators who already maintain a channel and audience there.
Limited-time access
Limited-time access sells a course that expires after a set window — for example, 90 days of access from enrolment — instead of granting lifetime access. It supports cohort launches, seasonal programmes and rental-style pricing. Alva Courses lets merchants enable limited-time access per course, so a student's enrolment automatically closes once the access window ends.
Related: How to price an online course
Branded email delivery
Branded email delivery means the enrolment and certificate emails students receive match your brand rather than looking like a generic app message. Alva Courses lets merchants customise the from-name, subject, title, message, footer and login hint, preview in dark mode, and include a 'Start Learning Now' button — so the welcome email feels like a first-party message from the store.
Custom email domain
A custom email domain is the From address attached to course emails. By default
Alva Courses emails come from an @alvaapps.com address. On a paid
plan, merchants can add their own domain, pass DNS verification, and have every
enrolment and certificate email arrive from their store's address — so messages
look like first-party mail and land more reliably in the inbox.
Storefront
The storefront is the customer-facing side of a Shopify store — the themed website where shoppers browse and buy. With Alva Courses, students also learn in the storefront: after purchase they open 'My Courses' in their customer account and play lessons in a branded course player styled to match the theme. Course management stays in the Shopify admin, separate from the storefront.
Customer account
A customer account is the logged-in area where a Shopify shopper sees their orders and profile. Alva Courses adds a Customer Account extension that surfaces a 'My Courses' area, so students access every course they own with one Shopify login. There is no separate course-platform account to create, and progress follows the student wherever they sign in.
Shopify Checkout extension
A Shopify Checkout extension is an app component that adds custom content to the checkout flow. Alva Courses uses Shopify's extension framework to deliver courses the moment an order is paid, surfacing access where the buyer already is. It complements the customizable enrolment email rather than replacing it, so students never wait or hunt for where their course lives.
Thank-You Page extension
The Thank-You Page is the screen a buyer sees immediately after checkout. Alva Courses ships a Thank-You Page extension that lets a student start learning right there, the instant payment completes — before the welcome email even lands. It removes the gap between buying and beginning, which lifts engagement and reduces 'where is my course?' support tickets.
Order Status Page extension
The Order Status Page is Shopify's post-purchase page, shown after checkout and revisited from order confirmation emails. Alva Courses ships an Order Status Page extension so students can access their course straight from that page, giving a third reliable entry point alongside the enrolment email and the customer account's 'My Courses' area.
Native Shopify app
A native Shopify app runs inside Shopify's own surfaces — the admin, checkout and customer accounts — rather than as a separate website. Alva Courses is native: merchants build courses in the Shopify admin and students learn in the storefront and customer account. The benefit is one checkout, one login, one source of customer data, and no external subdomain to maintain.
Related: Shopify course app vs standalone LMS
Schema.org JSON-LD
Schema.org JSON-LD is structured data — a JSON document inside a
<script type="application/ld+json"> tag — that helps Google
and AI engines understand a page's entities. Course, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList,
Organization and DefinedTermSet are common types. Pages with valid JSON-LD are
eligible for rich results in Google and are cited far more often by ChatGPT,
Claude, Perplexity and Gemini in answer responses.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization — the practice of structuring content so AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini cite it in their answers. AEO emphasises declarative answers over conversational filler, named entities over pronouns, 40-to-80-word retrievable chunks, and FAQPage schema. AEO does not replace SEO; it adds a citation-shaped layer on top, since AI engines already drive a meaningful share of buyer research traffic.
Glossary follow-ups.
What is the difference between a module and a lesson?
A module — called a section in Alva Courses — is a group of related lessons, while a lesson is a single page a student works through. The hierarchy runs course → section → lesson → content block. So a 'Lighting' module might contain five lessons, and each lesson holds the actual teaching: video, text, a quiz or a PDF. Merchants drag to reorder both sections and lessons in the builder.
Do I need a separate platform like Thinkific to sell courses on Shopify?
No. Alva Courses is a native Shopify app, so you build courses in the Shopify admin and students learn in your storefront and customer account. There is no separate platform, subdomain or second login. You keep one Shopify checkout, one set of customer data, and your existing theme — which means students never leave the store ecosystem to access what they bought.
How does drip content work in Alva Courses?
Drip content releases lessons or sections on a schedule instead of all at once. In Alva Courses you can drip a lesson or section a set number of days after a student enrols, or schedule it to publish on a fixed calendar date, and you can keep lessons as Draft until they are ready. This paces a programme, keeps students engaged, and supports cohort-style launches.
Why use Alva Video Hosting instead of YouTube or Vimeo?
Shopify's native file limits cap uploads at roughly 1 GB and short clip lengths, which is not enough for full-length lessons. Alva Video Hosting, on the Unlimited Pro plan, gives 50 GB of dedicated storage with no per-video limits, so videos stream inside your course player without external branding. You can still embed YouTube, Vimeo, Loom or VdoCipher when you prefer to reuse content hosted elsewhere.
Are completion certificates automatic?
Yes. Alva Courses automatically awards a custom-designed certificate the moment a student completes a course, and emails it to them. Merchants edit the certificate template so it matches their brand, and the certificate email uses the same branded, customisable template system as the enrolment email. No manual issuing is required for each graduate.
See Alva Courses in action.
Install Alva Courses on your Shopify store and build your first course today. Both paid plans include a 14-day free trial, so you can set everything up before you commit.