Course Reviews

Reviews let enrolled students rate a course from 1 to 5 stars and leave a short written review. Approved reviews feed the course’s average rating and review count, which show on the course page and catalog cards.

What you can do

• Let enrolled students leave a star rating (1-5) with a title and a written review.
• Require a student to have completed at least one lesson before they can review, so reviews come from people who actually started the course.
• Allow only one review per student per course.
• Moderate reviews: approve, reject, or mark as spam from the admin Reviews screen, or auto-approve them site-wide.
• Let an instructor reply to a review.
• Keep the course’s average rating and review count accurate automatically, recomputed whenever a review’s status changes.

How to use it

Step 1 – turn reviews on

Reviews show on a course page only when both gates pass: the Reviews module is on at LMS Settings > Modules, and the course’s own reviews toggle is not switched off. This lets you disable reviews everywhere at once while each course keeps its own preference for later.

Step 2 – a student leaves a review

A signed-in student can submit a review only when all of these are true:

1. They are enrolled in the course.
2. They have completed at least one lesson in it.
3. They have not already reviewed it.

They pick a star rating (1-5), add a title, and write the review. If any condition fails, the form is not offered and the submission is refused with a clear message.

Step 3 – the review is moderated

New reviews are held as pending by default, so nothing publishes without your say-so. Approve, reject, or mark reviews as spam from the admin Reviews screen. Turn on Auto-approve reviews in settings to publish new reviews immediately instead.

Step 4 – ratings update automatically

Only approved reviews count toward the average. Whenever a review is submitted, approved, rejected, marked spam, or deleted, Learnomy recomputes the course’s average rating and review count, so the catalog and course page stay in sync without a cron pass.

Settings and options

• Two-gate visibility. The site-wide Reviews module plus a per-course toggle. Both must allow it for the reviews surface to render.
• Auto-approve. Off by default – fresh sites moderate reviews until you opt into auto-publish. When on, new reviews are approved on submission.
• One review per student. Enforced per (student, course); a student cannot stack multiple reviews on one course.
• Rating is clamped. The star rating is always stored within 1-5.
• Instructor reply. An instructor can attach a single reply to a review.
• Denormalized totals. Each course stores its own avg_rating and review_count; these are the numbers shown on cards and the course page, and only approved reviews move them.

For developers

Service (Learnomy\Services\Review_Service):

• submit( $user_id, $course_id, $rating, $title, $content ) – enforces enrolled + one-lesson-done + not-already-reviewed, clamps the rating to 1-5, sets status to approved or pending from the auto-approve setting, and recomputes the rating.
• approve() / reject() / spam() – status flips from the moderation screen; each recomputes the course rating and fires its hook.
• reply( $review_id, $reply ) – store an instructor reply.
• recalculate_rating( $course_id ) – recompute avg_rating and review_count from approved rows.
• Review_Service::auto_approve_enabled() – reads the auto_approve_reviews setting (default off).

Model gate: Course::reviews_enabled_for( $course_id ) – the two-gate render check (site setting + per-course flag).

Hooks: learnomy_review_submitted, learnomy_review_approved, learnomy_review_rejected, learnomy_review_marked_spam.

REST (reviews controller): GET /learnomy/v1/courses/{course_id}/reviews (public list), POST /learnomy/v1/courses/{course_id}/reviews (submit, eligibility-gated), PATCH /learnomy/v1/reviews/{id}, plus admin status and bulk endpoints under /admin/reviews.

Related

• Creating a Course
• Course Catalog