Add a new post-type and admin menu/page

I would like to add a new post-type called “course” to the WP DB. This type of post would be edited through a corresponding new section in the WP Dashboard, appearing in the navigation just under Links. I am looking for an elegant way to do this.

I’ll need several things to happen. From the beginning, I’ll need a way to change the post_type of a new post to “course,” the new post_type I’ve created. Is there a plugin for this?

Once that’s saved into the database, I need to be able to pull out and list all of the courses (post_type = “course”) from the DB and display them exactly the same as Pages and Posts, but in their own Courses page in the admin panel.

Then, it’s a fairly easy step to the edit screen; just pass the (course) post ID to post.php.

Anyone wanna offer some pointers on how to make this work, hopefully within the scope of a plugin?