Guide for Students
This guide is for students whose course uses Dantian Course Cadence. Your course team has written a short piece of guidance for every week of your course — what to focus on, what to read, what is due. This guide explains where that guidance reaches you, what to do with it each week, and what to do when something doesn’t look right.
You don’t need to set anything up. Your course team builds the schedule and the plugin delivers it. Everything you need is in your inbox and on one page of your course website.
Getting started
What you need
- A login for the course website. Guidance pages only show content to people who are logged in. The email address on your account is where your weekly emails go.
- An enrolment in the course. You receive guidance for every course you are currently enrolled in. When an enrolment ends or is cancelled, the guidance for that course stops.
- The address of your guidance page. Your course team will give you a link, put it in a menu, or you can follow the View this guidance online → link in a weekly email.
Your first week
- Check your inbox on the course’s email day. Your course team chooses one day and time for the whole site — for example Monday at 7:30 am. The email covers the week you have reached.
- If you joined after the course started, look for a catch-up email titled Welcome to {your course} – Your guidance catch-up. It arrives about five minutes after you are enrolled (sometimes a little later on a quiet website) and contains every week the rest of the group has already received, oldest first. If you were enrolled in several courses at once, you may get one combined email titled Welcome — Your guidance catch-up (3 courses) instead.
- Open your guidance page and log in. You should see this week’s guidance for each of your courses.
- Bookmark the page. Every week of guidance is always there, even if you delete an email.
First-time checklist
- [ ] The email address on your website profile is one you read.
- [ ] You can log in and see your courses on the guidance page.
- [ ] You know which day your weekly email arrives.
- [ ] You have added the sending address to your contacts, so emails don’t land in spam.
- [ ] (Optional) You have opened the email preferences page and checked which courses send you email.
What you see
Your weekly guidance email
On the course’s email day you receive guidance for the week each course has reached. What the email looks like depends on how many of your courses have guidance that week.
One course has guidance this week — you receive a single-course email:
- A subject line chosen by your course team, often something like Your Weekly Guidance for Anatomy & Physiology.
- A heading such as Week 4: Anatomy & Physiology and a greeting by name (your course team may have customised this part).
- The week’s guidance. Some items list Related Lessons underneath — links straight to the matching lessons in your course.
- View this guidance online → — opens your guidance page at exactly this week (if your site has set it up).
- Manage your email preferences — opens the page where you choose which courses email you (if your site has set it up).
Two or more courses have guidance this week — by default you receive one combined email titled Your Weekly Guidance (3 courses), with a section for each course headed Course name — Week N. Each item has its own heading. The combined email has no View this guidance online link, so use your bookmark to the guidance page. (Your site may instead be set to send one email per course.)
Files. Attached files are not included in emails. Resources are usually linked in the text of the guidance or under Related Lessons, and the guidance page lists any attached files with an icon for the file type.
More detail: Automated weekly emails.
Catch-up emails
You may receive guidance outside the weekly email in two cases:
| When | What it contains | |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome to {course} – Your guidance catch-up | About five minutes after you are enrolled in a course that has already started | Every week of guidance already sent to the group, oldest first, then: From now on, you’ll receive weekly guidance emails to keep you on track. |
| New guidance for {course} | When your course team sends you guidance you are missing — for example an item they added to an earlier week, or weeks you missed while you had emails turned off | Only the weeks you were missing. It opens with Welcome to {course}! You’re joining us in week {N}… even if you have been in the course from the start — that is the standard wording. |
Catch-up emails are simpler than the weekly email: they have no preferences link and no footer. You never receive a guidance item twice. See Catch-up emails.
Your guidance page
Your course team creates this page, so its name varies — “Weekly Guidance”, “Student Hub” or similar. Most sites use a page showing all your courses:
- A Your Learning Guidance heading (some sites hide it).
- A week bar labelled by date, for example This week (10 – 16 August 2026), with ← Previous Week and Next Week →.
- A search box: Search guidance across all courses…
- A card for each course showing the course name, its own week (Week 5 of 20, or just Week 5 for a self-paced course), a progress bar, and a Week 5 Guidance section.
Each course shows its own week. If one course started in February and another in July, they show different week numbers on the same page — that is expected.
Some sites use a separate page per course instead. That page shows the course name, ← Previous Week, Week 5 (Current) and Next Week →, a progress tracker, a search box (Search guidance across all weeks…), and sometimes a collapsed Show history section with a summary of each earlier week.
Messages you may see on a course card:
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Guidance for this course begins on {date}. | The course hasn’t started yet. |
| {Break name} — no guidance is scheduled this week. Week {N} resumes after the break. | A scheduled break. Nothing is emailed this week. |
| {Break name} — teaching is paused this week. | A break, but this week’s guidance is still shown for you to read. |
| No guidance is scheduled for Week {N} of this subject yet. | Your course team hasn’t added guidance for this week. Check back later. |
| Finished — This subject finished on {date} after {N} weeks. Use Previous Week to revisit its guidance. | The course has ended. Every week is still available. |
Full detail: On-page guidance and progress tracker.
Your email preferences page
A page with one tick box for each course you are enrolled in, each marked Subscribed or Unsubscribed. It also has a How we use this data note that tells you what is recorded about the emails sent to you and for how long. See Email preferences.
Your weekly routine
A realistic week for a student in two courses, with emails going out on Monday mornings:
Monday — read this week’s guidance (10 minutes).
- Open the weekly email. Read each course’s section and note anything due this week.
- Click any Related Lessons links to go straight to the lesson.
- If you prefer reading on the website, click View this guidance online → (single-course emails) or open your bookmarked guidance page.
During the week — use the page as your reference.
- Open the guidance page whenever you need to check what was asked. It always shows the current week first.
- To find something from an earlier week — “the part about the observation template” — type at least two letters in the search box. Results show the week, course, item heading and the first 30 words. Select a result to jump to that week. Select × to clear the search.
- To re-read a whole earlier week, use ← Previous Week. Use Return to Current Week to come back.
Before an assessment — review.
- Search for the assessment name or topic to collect every week that mentions it.
- If your course page has a Show history section, open it to skim a summary of every earlier week.
If you fall behind or join late.
- Read the catch-up email from top to bottom — it is in week order — then carry on with the regular weekly email.
Key features for students
Weekly guidance emails
One email per week on the day your course team has chosen, combined across your courses by default. See Automated weekly emails.
Catch-up emails
If you enrol after a course has started, you are sent the weeks you missed. Courses where everyone works at their own pace from their own start date (called Rolling courses) don’t send an enrolment catch-up, because you start at week 1. See Catch-up emails.
On-page guidance and progress tracker
Every week you have reached, any time, with a progress bar showing how far through the course you are. See On-page guidance and progress tracker.
Guidance search
Keyword search across every week up to the current one. Searches ignore capitals and match parts of words (“observ” finds “observation”), but look for your exact text — “observation template” only finds that phrase. See Guidance search.
Email preferences
Turn emails off or on for each course separately. Changes save automatically as you tick or untick. If a change doesn’t seem to stick, select Save preferences; the page then shows Your email preferences have been saved. See Email preferences.
What you can’t do
- Look ahead to future weeks. Next Week → stops at the current week, and search only covers weeks up to the current one. Guidance for later weeks appears when your course reaches them.
- Choose when emails arrive. One day and time is set for the whole site by your course team.
- Turn off every course in one click. Untick each course you don’t want emails for.
- See trainer notes. Guidance written for trainers is private, unless your course team has deliberately added a Trainer Notes section to your page.
- Change the guidance. If something looks wrong — a date, a broken link — tell your trainer.
Turning a course’s emails off stops its weekly and catch-up emails but never removes your access: every week is still on the guidance page. When you turn it back on, emails restart from the next weekly send. The weeks you missed are not sent automatically, but your course team can choose to send them to you, and you can always read them on the page.
Common problems and fixes
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| No weekly email | Check your spam or junk folder. Check the email address on your profile. Open the email preferences page — the course may be Unsubscribed. If it’s a break week, nothing is sent. Still nothing? Contact your course administrator. |
| Please log in to view your guidance. | Select Log in to view your guidance. You’ll come straight back to the same page — and the same week, if you came from an email link. |
| You are not enrolled in any courses. | The site has no current enrolment for your account. Contact your course administrator. |
| You are not enrolled in this course. | The page or link is for a course you’re not enrolled in. Use your main guidance page, or ask your course administrator to check your enrolment. |
| No guidance is scheduled for Week {N} of this subject yet. / Guidance for this week is not available yet. | Your course team hasn’t added guidance for this week yet. |
| A course is missing from your page | Courses only appear once they have a schedule set up and you have a current enrolment. Ask your course administrator. |
| Two courses show different week numbers | Expected — each course counts its own weeks. |
| No results found. | Check the spelling, try part of a word, or try the main (all courses) page. Weeks you haven’t reached yet aren’t searched. |
| Search failed. Please try again. | Your connection dropped, or the page has been open for a long time. Reload the page and search again. |
You can see text like {first_name} in an email or on the page |
A personalisation code wasn’t filled in. Let your course team know — it doesn’t affect the guidance itself. |
| A preferences change didn’t save (the tick box switched back) | Select Save preferences at the bottom of the page. |
| You also teach a course and get no student email for it | Trainers never receive student guidance for courses they teach. Use the guidance page, or ask for a separate student account. |
More fixes: Troubleshooting and the student questions in the FAQ.
Who to contact
- Questions about the guidance itself — what a task means, a date that looks wrong, a broken link: your trainer.
- Missing emails, enrolment problems, a course missing from your page, or catch-up emails: your course administrator.
- Can’t log in, or the website isn’t working: your organisation’s site administrator or help desk.
Replies to guidance emails go to whatever address your website sends from, which may not be monitored. Use the contacts above instead.
Where to go next
- On-page guidance and progress tracker — everything on the guidance page
- Guidance search — how search works and what it covers
- Email preferences — turning a course’s emails off and on
- Catch-up emails — joining a course late
- FAQ