Course Management Service

A powerful microservice for creating, organizing, and managing courses with hierarchical content structure, prerequisites, learning paths, and multi-tenant support.

Requirements Document

1. Functional Requirements

1.1 Course Creation & Management

REQ-COURSE-001: Course Creation

Instructors must be able to create courses with title, description, thumbnail, category, level (beginner, intermediate, advanced), and language

REQ-COURSE-002: Multi-Tenant Isolation

Courses must be isolated per organization, with each course belonging to exactly one organization

REQ-COURSE-003: Course Status

Support course lifecycle states: draft, published, archived, under review

REQ-COURSE-004: Course Metadata

Track estimated duration, difficulty level, tags, instructor assignment, and custom JSONB fields for extensibility

REQ-COURSE-005: Course Slug

Auto-generate unique, SEO-friendly slugs for courses (unique per organization)

REQ-COURSE-006: Course Updates

Track creation and last update timestamps with audit trail support

REQ-COURSE-007: Course Search & Filtering

Support filtering courses by category, level, language, instructor, and search by title/description

1.2 Module (Section) Management

REQ-MODULE-001: Module Creation

Courses must support hierarchical organization into modules/sections with title, description, and order

REQ-MODULE-002: Module Ordering

Modules must have explicit ordering (order_index) to define sequence within a course

REQ-MODULE-003: Module Reordering

Instructors must be able to drag-and-drop or manually reorder modules

REQ-MODULE-004: Module Duration

Auto-calculate total module duration based on sum of lesson durations

1.3 Lesson (Content) Management

REQ-LESSON-001: Lesson Creation

Modules must contain multiple lessons with title, content type, content URL, duration, and description

REQ-LESSON-002: Content Types

Support multiple content types: video, text, quiz, assignment, live_session, scorm, pdf, interactive

REQ-LESSON-003: Lesson Ordering

Lessons must have explicit ordering within each module to define learning sequence

REQ-LESSON-004: Free Preview

Instructors must be able to mark lessons as "free preview" for non-enrolled students

REQ-LESSON-005: Lesson Content Storage

Support both external URLs (YouTube, Vimeo) and internal content references (blob storage)

REQ-LESSON-006: Lesson Metadata

Store additional lesson metadata in JSONB fields (transcripts, resources, attachments)

1.4 Prerequisites & Dependencies

REQ-PREREQ-001: Course Prerequisites

Courses must support prerequisite relationships (Course A requires completion of Course B first)

REQ-PREREQ-002: Multiple Prerequisites

A course can have multiple prerequisite courses that must all be completed

REQ-PREREQ-003: Circular Dependency Prevention

System must prevent circular prerequisite relationships (A → B → A)

REQ-PREREQ-004: Prerequisite Checking

System must validate prerequisite completion before allowing course enrollment

1.5 Learning Paths & Programs

REQ-PATH-001: Learning Path Creation

Instructors must be able to create learning paths that group multiple courses into guided curricula

REQ-PATH-002: Course Ordering in Paths

Courses within a learning path must have explicit ordering to define progression

REQ-PATH-003: Path Metadata

Learning paths must have title, description, estimated duration, and level

REQ-PATH-004: Path Completion

Track learner progress through learning paths and issue certificates upon completion

1.6 Course Enrollment

REQ-ENROLL-001: Self Enrollment

Learners must be able to self-enroll in published courses if prerequisites are met

REQ-ENROLL-002: Bulk Enrollment

Admins must be able to bulk enroll users into courses via CSV or API

REQ-ENROLL-003: Enrollment Status

Track enrollment status: active, completed, dropped, expired

REQ-ENROLL-004: Progress Tracking

Track learner progress: enrollment date, last access, completion date, progress percentage

2. Non-Functional Requirements

2.1 Performance Requirements

REQ-PERF-001: Course Listing Response Time

Course catalog pages must load within 500ms for paginated results (50 courses)

REQ-PERF-002: Content Delivery

Course content (lessons) must be retrievable within 200ms with proper caching

REQ-PERF-003: Concurrent Learners

System must support 50,000+ concurrent learners accessing course content

REQ-PERF-004: Search Performance

Full-text search across courses must return results within 300ms

2.2 Scalability Requirements

REQ-SCALE-001: Course Volume

System must support at least 10,000 courses per organization without performance degradation

REQ-SCALE-002: Hierarchical Content

Support courses with up to 50 modules and 500 lessons without query performance issues

REQ-SCALE-003: Multi-Tenant Scaling

System must efficiently handle 1,000+ organizations with isolated data

2.3 Data Integrity Requirements

REQ-DATA-001: Referential Integrity

All foreign key relationships must be enforced with proper cascade rules

REQ-DATA-002: Data Isolation

Multi-tenant data must be completely isolated with organization_id in all queries

REQ-DATA-003: Audit Trail

Track all course, module, and lesson changes with timestamps and user attribution

2.4 Usability Requirements

REQ-UX-001: API Design

Provide RESTful APIs with consistent naming, proper HTTP methods, and comprehensive documentation

REQ-UX-002: Error Handling

Return meaningful error messages with proper HTTP status codes and validation details

REQ-UX-003: Pagination

All list endpoints must support pagination with configurable page size

3. Integration Requirements

REQ-INT-001: User Service Integration

Validate instructor and learner IDs against User Management Service

REQ-INT-002: Content Delivery Integration

Integrate with Content Delivery Service for video streaming and file storage

REQ-INT-003: Assessment Integration

Link lessons of type "quiz" to Assessment Engine Service

REQ-INT-004: Analytics Integration

Send course interaction events to Analytics Service for reporting

REQ-INT-005: Notification Integration

Trigger notifications on course enrollment, new content, and completion

Requirements Validation

Use the Database Design page to validate that all requirements are properly implemented in the data model. Cross-reference each requirement ID with corresponding database tables, columns, and constraints.

Review Database Design