Citations link specific text in a course back to the source that supports it, so regulated or compliance-sensitive content stays traceable all the way to review. This guide is for anyone adding source-backed citations to a course, from getting the feature switched on through exporting a course with its citations intact.

Citations is off until Arist switches it on for your organization, so reach out to your Arist Customer Success contact if you want it and don't have it yet. It applies to courses only, not to nudges or surveys.

Once it's on, a Citations tab appears next to Sources in the course editor's References section, and an Add citation link appears beside the text you can cite.

Your organization's citation style decides how Arist writes the source entries a reviewer or an auditor ends up reading, and one style covers every course. It is an organization-wide setting, so an Org Admin picks it once under Organization settings rather than course by course.

See Managing Organization Settings for the styles you can choose between and how an Org Admin sets one.

Sources are the documents or references your citations point back to, and a course needs at least one before you can cite anything. Open the course in the editor and select References, which splits into two tabs.

If you built the course with Creator and uploaded reference material, or let Creator bring in outside research, that material already appears here as numbered Sources; see Building a Course with Creator for how that upload step works. Otherwise, select Add source and enter it yourself.

Select Add citation, at the top right of the lesson body, the welcome message, or the question you want to support with a source.

Fill in the three fields on the Add a citation panel.

Select Save, and the citation appears in a Citations list under the body's character counter, tagged with its status, like [1a] Needs review.

Open the Citations tab, where every citation for the course is listed with its status.

A dropdown above the list filters to one status at a time (All citations, Approved, At risk, or Needs review), so reviewers can find what still needs a look. Select Show details on any citation to see its source text, its linked text, and exactly which lesson and field it's attached to, then select Approve once you've checked it.

A citation flips to at risk the moment its exact linked text is no longer found in the content it's attached to, even for a small rewrite or a fixed typo.

Editing the citation itself doesn't cause this, only editing the body, welcome message, or question text it's linked to.

To clear the at-risk marker, click on the at risk citation and edit the citation to reflect the exact text from the body that aligns with the source reference.

Download the course as usual from the Content page (see Finding and Managing Your Content for where that menu lives), choosing either As Word document (.docx) or As PDF. Both formats carry your citations, with one difference between them.

At-risk citations are left out of both formats entirely, so approve or fix them first if you need them in the export.