For Learners

Finding a course

Browse all available courses and modules from the learning home (/learn), or search and filter from the courses and modules listings. Each course page shows the instructor, a description, and the materials it contains. You can also visit an instructor's public profile page to see everything they've published.

If you're not sure which course covers what you're looking for, Smart Search (/smartsearch) lets you ask a question in plain language instead of browsing manually. It searches across course content and links you directly to the matching course or module. No account is required. Results are AI-generated from course text, so treat them as a starting point and use your judgment — always confirm what you find against the actual course page.

Taking a course

Open a course to see its materials, which can include video, text, markdown, PDF, audio, image, quiz, downloadable files, and — for technical courses — notebook-launch materials. Work through materials in order; quiz materials are scored automatically as you complete them.

Once you've finished a course (or a module within it), you can leave a review to help other learners decide whether to take it.

Each course and module has its own discussion thread where learners can ask questions and talk with each other. Reading discussions doesn't require an account, but you must be logged in to post.

Your dashboard

Your personal dashboard (/learn/dashboard) is your home base for learning: it shows what's pending, what's in progress, and what you've completed, along with your achievements and the reviews you've left. If you're also an instructor, the dashboard includes an "instructing" view of the courses you've built — see the Instructor Guide.

Achievements, badges & certificates

Courses can define achievements — badges or certificates that unlock automatically when you meet a course's criteria (for example, completing a course, completing a module, or leaving a review).

  • Badges are lightweight recognitions you collect as you go.
  • Certificates are formal documents generated with your name, the instructor's name, and the completion date, suitable for sharing or printing.

Each achievement you earn gets its own shareable page, and there's a public gallery of achievements (badges and certificates) if you want to browse what others have earned or show off your own.

Joining a community

Communities are public or invite-based group spaces, each with their own courses, announcements, and discussions. You can browse all communities and open any community's page — including its courses, announcements, and discussions — without logging in.

To participate, log in and use the join button on a community's page. This adds you as a member. If you'd previously left (or been suspended from) a community, rejoining reactivates your existing membership rather than creating a duplicate one. Community actions are only available while a community is active.

Community roles you might encounter:

Role What they can do
Member Participate in the community's courses, announcements, and discussions.
Moderator Everything a member can do, plus help manage discussions and members.
Admin Full control of the community — see the Community Leader Guide.

Want to run your own community instead of joining one? See Becoming an instructor or community leader.

Forum

The Forum (/forum) is a general discussion space with categories, threads, replies, likes, and the ability to follow threads or mention other users. Communities also get their own forum category automatically, so community discussions and general forum discussions work the same way.

Publications

The Publications library (/publications) is a searchable collection of research publications and citations, open to everyone. Filter by title, author, type, year, or tag, and export a citation in BibTeX or EndNote format from any entry.

If you have publication-authoring permission, an "Add Publication" option appears on the page, letting you submit a new entry (bibliographic details plus an optional PDF or document upload). If you don't see it but think you should, check with a site administrator.