Open edX Learner’s Guide: Juniper Release¶

Learning in a MOOC¶

A massive, open, online course (MOOC) typically uses videos and text to present course content, although you might also encounter other types of reading assignments, such as textbooks and online articles. A MOOC also includes assessments, in the form of practice questions, homework assignments, and exams. To help you share information, ask questions, and collaborate with other learners and the course team, course discussions are available.

Videos and other types of course content, assessments, and discussions are used in virtually every MOOC on the edx.org website. These course components are also used to create the courses on websites that use the Open edX online learning platform. Everyone is welcome to review examples of these components, and practice using them, by enrolling in the edX Demo course.

In some courses, enhanced components might also be included, from team problem-solving exercises and lab work to live demonstrations and ask me anything (AMA) sessions. Every course has a unique design, and course teams are continuously looking for new ways to engage learners and teach more effectively. Course teams typically include instructions for how to use any enhanced components right in the course.

MOOCs bring learners from all over the world together. The people who you take a course with have a wide variety of educational backgrounds and educational goals. One part of the MOOC experience that everyone shares is encountering new ways of learning. As a result, most learners occasionally have questions about what is expected, how to complete an assignment, or what a word, phrase, or abbreviation means.

If You Have Questions As You Take a Course¶

If you have a question about something you encounter in an edX course, try these options for getting an answer.

• Check the Course page in the course. Course teams use this page to post updates about the course, which can include explanations about course content, reminders about when graded assignments are due, or announcements for upcoming events or milestones.
• Look for an “Introduction”, “Overview”, or “Welcome” section in the course content. In the first section in the course, course teams often include general information about how the course works and what you can expect, and also what they expect from you, in the first section in the course.
• Participate in the course discussions. Other learners might be able to answer your question, or might have the same question themselves. If you encounter an unfamiliar word, phrase, or abbreviation, such as “finger exercise” or “board work”, search for it on the Discussion page, or post a question about it yourself. Your comments and questions give the course team useful feedback for improving the course.
• Investigate other resources. Some courses have a wiki, which can be a good source of information. Outside of the course, a course-specific Facebook page or Twitter feed might be available for learners to share information.

Accessing Your Courses from the Dashboard¶

Your dashboard lists all of the courses that you are enrolled in. When you create an account or enroll in a course, you automatically go to your dashboard. You can also access your dashboard by selecting the dropdown menu icon next to your username at the top of any page.

You can find information about your courses and change course-specific email subscription settings on your dashboard. For more information, see Updating Course-Specific Settings.

Adding Profile Information¶

Your personal profile allows you to optionally share information about yourself with other participants in the courses that you take. If you choose to add profile information, course teams and other learners in your courses can view the information that you share.

You can share either a limited profile or a full profile.

Note

If you are under 13 years of age, your limited profile only includes your username. You cannot add a profile picture.

• A limited profile shares only your username. You can also add a profile picture, if you are over 13 years of age.

  

• A full profile includes the following details.

  • Your full name
  • Your username
  • Your profile image (optional)
  • The date that you joined edX
  • Your language (optional)
  • Your location (optional)
  • Information about you (optional)
  • Links to any course certificates that you have earned
  • Links to your social media accounts (optional)
  

Updating Course-Specific Settings¶

From the dashboard, access the courses that you are enrolled in and change course-specific settings. You can also unenroll from a course from the dashboard.

Enroll in a Course¶

To start taking an online course, you enroll in that course. After you enroll, you have access to the course content.

To enroll in a course, follow these steps.

1. In the course catalog on the main website, select the course that you want to take.

2. On the About page for the course, select Enroll Now.

   For some courses, different enrollment options might be available, such as a free audit track or a paid certificate track. If the course offers different enrollment options, select an option.

If you are using a web browser, your dashboard opens to the Courses page, with the new course added to the list of courses you are enrolled in.

Open and Start a Course¶

As soon as you enroll in a course, it is added to the list of courses on the Courses page of your dashboard. You can start working in the course if the course start date has passed.

To open the course, locate the course listing on your dashboard and select View Course.

For more information, see Starting a Course and Completing Course Prerequisites.

Overview of Prerequisites¶

Some courses require that you have a particular set of skills or knowledge before you begin the course. Many courses include information about these general requirements on their About pages.

In addition to requiring general skills and knowledge, some courses require learners to pass a specific prerequisite course or pass an entrance exam.

Prerequisite Course¶

When a course has a prerequisite course, you can see information about the prerequisite course on the About page for the course that you want to take.

It is possible to enroll in the course even if you have not taken the prerequisite course. When you enroll in the course, the course appears on your Student Dashboard. However, you cannot select the course to access the course content. Below the name of the course, you can see the name of the prerequisite course, as well as a link to that course.

When you select the link, the About page for the prerequisite course opens. You can then enroll in the prerequisite course.

After you successfully complete the prerequisite course, the other course becomes available on your dashboard. You can then select the course to access any available materials.

Entrance Exam¶

If you enroll in a course that requires an entrance exam, the course appears on your dashboard. However, you cannot access all released course content before passing the entrance exam.

If you are required to take the entrance exam, the first time that you access the course, the course opens to the Entrance Exam page. At the top of the page, you can see a message that lists your current score and the minimum score that is required to pass the entrance exam. You can begin the exam immediately.

To take the exam, answer all the available questions, and then select Submit to submit your answers.

To see your score on the exam, refresh the page after you submit your answers. The message at the top of the page tells you if you have passed the exam. If you refresh the page before you answer all the questions in the exam, the message tells you your current score.

After you pass the entrance exam, in addition to the message at the top of the page, you can see all of the currently available course sections in the course navigation pane, and you can access all available course materials.

Troubleshoot Accessing Course Content¶

In many courses, all course content is available in the course outline on the Course page as soon as the course starts. However, in some courses, content becomes available at different times.

Course content might be unavailable for the following reasons.

• The course team has scheduled specific content for release on specific dates. That content becomes visible on the course outline only on the date that the course team chooses. For more information, see Course Content with Release Dates.
• Parts of the course have prerequisite content that you must complete. For more information, see Course Content with Prerequisites.
• The course team has made specific course content unavailable after certain points in the course, such as after an assignment’s due date has passed or after the course end date.

Course Content with Prerequisites¶

Some courses have content that only becomes available after you achieve a minimum score in another section. In the course outline, this content appears with a lock icon and the name of the section that you must complete, or prerequisite.

Note

In the edX mobile app, sections that have prerequisites are not visible in the course outline until after you complete the prerequisite.

When you try to open a section before you complete the prerequisite for that section, the section page shows a message such as the following message, along with a link to the prerequisite section.

You must earn a passing score for 'Section N' to access this content.

After you complete a section’s prerequisite, the section is visible in the course outline with an unlocked icon, and you can open and complete that section.

Access an Archived Course¶

You can enroll or continue to work in some courses even after the course end date. These courses are archived, which means that while you can access the course content, you cannot submit answers for graded problems or participate in course discussions.

To view the content of an archived course, follow these steps.

1. On your dashboard, locate the course.
2. Select View Archived Course.

View a Final Course Grade¶

To view your current grade in a course that has not yet ended, see Checking Your Progress in a Course.

To view your final grade in a course that you have completed, follow these steps.

1. On your dashboard, locate the course. Your final grade appears under the course name.
2. Optionally, print your dashboard to obtain a record of your achievement in the course.

You can also view the course and open its Progress page to view your final grade, as well as your grades on all course assignments.

View Certificate Status¶

If you are enrolled in a certificate track for your course, updates on the status of your certificate, and options for accessing earned certificates, are available in the course card on your dashboard.

For example, if you have earned a certificate and the course team has generated certificates for the course, you can use the View Certificate option to access your web certificate.

For information about how to access certificates, including how to view, print, and share certificates, see Getting a Course Certificate or Badge.

Find a Course Start Date¶

You can enroll in a course before the start date. You cannot access course materials before the start date.

After you enroll in a course, the course is visible on your dashboard. The course start date is located below the course title.

For more information about different course statuses, see Course Availability

Start or Resume a Course¶

After you enroll in a course, the course is visible on your dashboard together with the course start date. After the course start date has passed, you can access course content.

After the course start date has passed, you can access course content.

Start a Course¶

Note

When you start a course, you do not need to sign in exactly when the course begins.

To start a course, locate the course on your dashboard, and then select View Course.

The course opens to the Course page. On this page, below any messages from the course team, the course outline is visible. Above the outline is a Start Course option.

• To start the course at the first section, select Start Course.
• To start the course at a different location, expand the course outline, and then select any part of the course.

Progress Indicators¶

When you are working in a course, green check marks that show your progress are visible in two places.

• The course outline on the Course page.
• The navigation bar at the top of the page.

These check marks appear when you complete all of the content in a part of the course. The part might be called a unit, section, module, week, lesson, or other part, depending on the terms your course uses.

For example, in the following image, the learner has completed all of the content in the “Introduction” part of the course, as well as some of the content in the “Module 1: Experiencing Course Content” part.

In the following image, the learner has completed the first two units in the “Lesson 3: Exams, Grades, and Certificates” lesson.

To complete content, you must complete all of the following actions.

• View all of each video in the unit.
• Submit answers for all of the problems in the unit.
• View all HTML content in the unit for at least five seconds.

The Progress Page¶

To see your scores on individual problems represented in both a chart and a list, as well as your current overall course grade, select the Progress page from anywhere in the course.

Grading Chart¶

On the Progress page, a chart shows how you have performed for each graded assignment in the course.

Assignments are listed along the horizontal axis, and the percentage score that you received in each lesson is read from the vertical axis.

Markers on the vertical axis reflect the grading scale for the course. For example, if the passing percentage score for the course is 60%, there is a marker on the vertical axis at 60% so that you can compare your total score with the required passing score. If the course awards a grade of B for scores of 50% and higher, and a grade of A for scores 75% and higher, then there are markers on the vertical axis at 50% and 75%, labelled “B” and “A” respectively.

Note

In the progress chart, assignments are grouped by type. For example, all homework sections are listed together, then all quizzes, then exams. A bar showing the average score for each assignment type appears for each group.

The bar for each assignment reflects your total score for all the problems in that assignment. For individual problem scores, see Grading Details below the chart. For each of the assignment types, an “average” bar shows the current average of scores for assignments of that type. This average is recalculated as you progress through the course and complete more assignments.

Note

In some courses, the course staff may have chosen to hide results for some assignments. For example, the results of an exam might be hidden until after the exam’s due date. When the results are hidden, you do not see whether you answered problems correctly, and you do not see your score in the body of the course or on your Progress page.

Some courses allow some number of graded assignments to be automatically dropped from your final score. For example, out of 8 quizzes, a course might have the lowest scoring quiz excluded from all learners’ final scores. A dropped assignment is indicated in the chart by an x above the horizontal axis.

Grading Details¶

The Progress page includes your scores for individual problems within an assignment. Below the grading chart is a listing of course sections in the order that they occur in the course.

For each problem in a graded assignment, the points that you earned out of the possible points is shown with the label Problem Scores. Scores for ungraded problems are shown with the label Practice Scores. Sections that do not have any problems are labelled as having no problem scores.

Accessing a Certificate¶

Some courses issue certificates, which you can access from your dashboard.

The following examples show the View Certificate option on a learner dashboard on the edx.org website and on the mobile app.

To open a web certificate in your browser, select View Certificate. You can then share or print your web certificate.

Share a Web Certificate¶

You can share your web certificates on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

1. Make sure that you are logged in to the social site on which you want to share your web certificate.

2. In a different browser tab or window, open your web certificate.

3. Select the social icon at the top of your web certificate.

   A dialog box for the social site you selected opens, with the certificate URL already entered.

   On the mobile app, select the Share icon to open a page from which you choose the social network to share your certificate to.

1. Complete the steps for the social site to post your web certificate.

Viewing Earned Badges in Your Profile¶

If badges are available for your courses, you can see the badges you have earned in the Accomplishments section of your profile.

Sharing Badges on Mozilla Backpack¶

You can share any badge that you earned, including certificate badges, to a badging site such as Mozilla Backpack.

Share Badges From Your Profile¶

To share badges from your profile to the Mozilla Backpack site, follow these steps.

Note

You have to create an account on Mozilla Backpack before you can share your badges.

1. On your profile, select Accomplishments.

2. For the badge that you want to share, select Share, or on the edX mobile apps, select the Share icon.

   The following examples show the Share options for badges on the edx.org website and on the mobile app.

You see instructions for downloading your badge and then sharing it on the Mozilla Backpack site.

Share Certificate Badges¶

Some courses that offer web certificates allow you to download a badge that represents the certificate, and then share that badge on a badging site such as Mozilla Backpack. You can download your badge as soon as your web certificate appears on your dashboard. Many courses distribute web certificates within two weeks of the course end date.

To share your web certificate on the Mozilla Backpack site, follow these steps.

1. On your dashboard, locate the course that you want, and then select View Certificate.

   If this option is not available, the course might not have distributed certificates yet. Check your dashboard again in a few days.

2. On the certificate web page, select the badge sharing icon.

You see instructions for downloading your badge and then sharing it on the Mozilla Backpack site. You have to create an account on Mozilla Backpack before you can share your badge.

Overview of the edX Mobile App¶

You can use the app to do the following things.

• Register and create an account
• Find and enroll in courses
• Complete most course assignments
• Watch course videos
• Read course handouts and announcements
• Participate in course discussions
• Download course videos for watching when you do not have an internet connection

Course Questions¶

Video Questions¶

Troubleshooting¶

The Steps in an Open Response Assessment¶

Open response assessments can have several possible steps, which appear in the order that you must complete them. Future steps are not available until you complete your current step. This topic describes all of the possible steps. The actual steps in your assignment depend on how your course team has designed the assignment.

• Your Response. In this first step in an open response assessment, you submit your response to the assignment question.

• Learn to Assess Responses. In this step you practice grading some responses. You evaluate example responses and then see how the grade you gave differs from the grade that a member of the course team gave. The goal is to learn how to assess responses similar to the way that course staff would assess them, using the same rubric.

• Assess Peers. You grade responses that other learners in the course have submitted, and other learners in the course grade your responses.

  Your course team decides the number of peer assessments that you have to perform and receive. For example, you might be required to assess the responses of two of your peers, as well as receive assessments by two of your peers.

• Assess Your Response. In this step you assess your own response, using the same rubric that you used to perform peer assessments.

• Staff Grade. Members of the course team assess your response. If you receive a staff grade for your assignment, it always overrides any peer assessment grades that you receive.

  Note

  Course staff can grade your open response assignment even if a staff assessment step is not included in the assignment. This might happen if, for example, you receive peer assessments of your response that are inappropriate. In such cases, course staff can perform an assessment of your response that overrides any peer assessment grades.

How Grading Is Done In Open Response Assessments¶

Grading for every type of assessment in an ORA assignment is done by comparing each response against the same set of guidelines, called a rubric. Every open response assessment has a rubric provided by the course team.

A rubric consists of several criteria and a set of options for each criterion.

The parts of the rubric in the image below are labelled as follows.

1. Criteria. Each criterion describes characteristics that a response should have, such as concepts that a response should cover, or the amount of supporting information that a response must include.
2. Options. Each criterion has options which describe how well each response satisfies the criterion. The options are usually a range of ratings, for example “Fair”, “Good”, or “Excellent”, with details to help you decide the rating.

When you assess a response, you evaluate the response, and for each criterion, select the option that best describes how well the response met that criterion.

Completing an Open Response Assessment¶

An open response assessment’s steps are arranged in the order that you must complete them.

The topics in this section describe how you complete an example open response assessment that includes a response step, an assessment training step, a peer assessment step, a self assessment step, and a staff grade step. Your actual assignment might not contain all of these steps. Possible steps are described in The Steps in an Open Response Assessment.

At any time during an assessment, you can see your progress at the bottom of the page under Your Grade. A message indicates the steps that must still be completed before you can receive your final grade for the assignment.

Submit Your Response¶

To submit your response to an open response assessment question, follow these steps.

1. Read each question carefully. Some course teams include important information in the question, such as how long a response must be, or specific topics that your response must cover.

   Note

   The total word count for your response cannot be more than 10,000 words (approximately the equivalent of 20 pages of 8.5x11 inch paper, with single-spaced text).

2. For each question, enter your response into the field under Your Response.

   Note

   In some assignments, you can submit images or other types of files along with or instead of a written response. If you can upload files in your assignment, Browse and Upload your files options are available below the response field.

   For information about uploading images or other files in your ORA assignment, see Submit a File with Your Response.

   Note

   For assignments that require LaTeX responses, a Preview in LaTeX option is available that you can use to preview your work before you submit your response.

3. When you have finished answering all of the questions, select Submit your response and move to the next step.

   If you need more time, you can select Save Your Progress to save a draft of your responses, and then come back and submit them later.

After you submit your response, the next step, which is usually either assessment training or peer assessment, becomes available. However, you do not have to start the next step right away. If you want to stop working and come back later, just refresh or reopen your browser when you come back.

Submit a File with Your Response¶

If your assignment requires or allows you to submit images or other types of files, you see two buttons below the response field: Choose Files one one side of the page, and Upload Files on the other side of the page.

Note

• The cumulative size of the files that you upload must be less than 10 MB.
• Image files can be in .jpg, .gif, or .png format.

To upload files in your response, follow these steps.

1. Below the response field, select Choose Files.

2. In the dialog box that opens, select the file that you want to upload, and then select Open.

   A preview image of each file is visible.

3. In the boxes next to each preview image, enter a written description of the image. This step is required to help learners who cannot see or access the image understand and evaluate your response.

4. Across from the Choose Files button, select Upload files.

You can replace the files that you uploaded with different files until you submit your response. To replace your uploaded files, repeat steps 1-3.

View Your Submitted Response¶

You can view your own response at any time after you submit it.

Select the Your Response heading in the assignment to expand the section.

Your response appears, along with the status of the response, and information about additional steps you have to complete before you receive your grade.

Learn to Assess Responses¶

Some ORA assignments include a training step so that you can learn how to effectively assess responses for a later peer assessment step.

In a training step, you evaluate example responses using a provided rubric as a guide for grading. After you complete the grading, you are shown how the grades you gave differ from the grades that a member of the course team gave. The goal is to learn how to assess responses similar to the way that course staff would assess them, using the same rubric.

Complete the training step as follows.

1. Read each sample response and the rubric carefully, then for each criterion, select the option that you think best reflect the response.
2. When you are satisfied with your assessment, select Compare your selections with the instructor’s selections.
   • If all of your selections are the same as the instructor’s selections, the next sample response opens automatically.
   • If any option that you select is not the same as the instructor’s selection, you see the response again, with a message indicating that your assessment differs from the instructor’s assessment.
3. If your assessment did not match the instructor’s assessment, review the response again and consider why the instructor assessed the response differently than you did. Continue to assess the example response until the options you select for all criteria match options selected by the instructor.

When you have successfully assessed the sample responses, the next step in the assignment becomes available.

Assess Peer Responses¶

In the peer assessment step of an open response assessment, you perform assessments of responses that were submitted by other learners in your course. The course team sets the requirement for how many peer assessments each learner is expected to complete.

At the top of the peer assessment step, you can see counts of how many responses you are expected to assess and how many you have already assessed. For example, if you are required to perform 3 peer assessments and are about to start your first peer assessment, the count appears as “1 of 3”. Within the Assess Peers step, you see each question, a learner’s response, and the rubric that you will use to grade the response.

You assess other learners’ responses by selecting options in the rubric. This process will be familiar to you if your assignment included the learn to assess responses step. Additionally, this step has a field below the rubric where you can provide comments about the learner’s response.

Note

In addition to a field for overall comments on a learner’s response, some peer assessments include Comments fields for individual criteria that allow you to enter up to 300 characters. In some assessments, you must enter comments before you can submit the assessment.

After you have selected options in the rubric and provided comments about the response, select Submit your assessment and move to response #{number}.

After you submit each peer assessment, a response from another learner becomes available, until you have assessed the required number of responses. The count of how many responses you have assessed updates after you assess each response.

When you have completed the required number of peer assessments, the next step in the assignment becomes available.

Note

If there are no submitted responses available for grading, a status message indicates that no peer responses are currently available for you to assess, and that you should check back later.

Receive Your Score and Provide Feedback¶

You receive your score for an open response assessment when you have completed the following steps.

• Submitted your response to the question.
• Completed the assessment training step (if included).
• Performed the required number of peer assessments.
• Performed a self assessment (if included).
• Received the required number of peer assessments of your own work.
• Received a staff assessment (if included).

If other learners are still assessing your response, you see the following message below the Assess Your Response step.

Your Grade: Waiting for Peer Assessment

Your response is still undergoing peer assessment. After your peers have
assessed your response, you will see their feedback and receive your final
grade.

If you see this message, check back periodically until peer assessments of your work are complete.

View Your Score¶

When peer assessment is complete, and if the assignment does not include a staff assessment step, you can see the scores you received from all of the peers who scored your work, as well as your self assessment. You can also see any comments that your peers have provided.

If the assignment included a staff assessment step, you receive your final grade when a member of the course team has graded your response. If a staff assessment step is included in the assignment, peer assessment grades and comments are included in the assignment grade details, but the staff grade becomes the final grade.

Provide Feedback on Peer Assessments Received¶

If you want to, you can provide feedback on the peer scores that you received, under Provide Feedback on Peer Assessments.

View Top Responses (optional)¶

Some open response assessments include a Top Responses section below your own score, that shows the highest scoring responses that were submitted for each question.

If your course team included this section in your assignment, it appears only after you have completed all the steps of the assignment.

How Peer Assessment Scores Are Calculated¶

Peer assessments are scored by criteria. Each criterion’s score is the median, not the average, of the scores that each peer assessor gave that criterion. For example, if the Ideas criterion in a peer assessment receives 10 from one learner, 9 from a second learner, and 5 from a third learner, the score for that criterion is 9 (the median), not 8 (the average).

Your final score for a peer assessment is the sum of the median scores for each individual criterion.

For example, your response might receive the following scores from peer assessors.

To calculate the final score, the system adds the median score for each criterion.

Ideas median (8 out of 10) + Content median (8 out of 10) + Grammar median (4 out of 5) = final score (20 out of 25)

Note, again, that your final score is not the median of the scores that each individual peer assessor gave the response. Your final score is the sum of the median scores for each individual criterion.

Canceled Responses¶

If the course team deems a response that you have submitted to be inappropriate, they can cancel that response and remove it from peer grading. In the open response assessment you see an indicator that your submission was canceled, with the date and time of the cancellation, and a comment by the course team member about the reason.

The course team might allow you to submit a replacement response for the canceled one, or they might not. If they do not allow you to submit a replacement response, your grade is zero for the assignment.

Overview of Embedded Files and Calendars¶

Courses can include files, such as documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and a calendar. Your course team uses Google to create and maintain these files and calendars. They appear in the body of your course just like any other course content.

Google Drive Files¶

Your course might include the following types of Google Drive files.

• Google Docs (text documents)
• Google Drawings (images)
• Google Forms (forms or surveys)
• Google Slides (presentations)
• Google Sheets (spreadsheets)

For example, your course might include a spreadsheet that resembles this one.

You can interact with these Google Drive files in your course. For example, you can complete forms, look through the slides in a presentation, and enter different values in a spreadsheet. However, you cannot save changes that you make to the Google Drive file.

Google Calendars¶

If your course includes a Google calendar, you see that calendar in the body of the course. You can also add it to your own Google calendar.

By default, the view that opens in the course calendar is the view that the course team set. You can change the view by selecting the Week, Month, or Agenda tabs in the upper-right corner.

When you view the calendar in your course, the dates and times on the calendar automatically adjust to your local time. Your time zone information appears in the lower-left corner of the screen.

Add the Course Calendar to Your Own Calendar¶

If you have your own Google calendar, you can add the Google calendar from a course to it. After you add a calendar, you see that calendar whenever you view your personal calendar, even if you are not signed in to your edX account. The course information appears together with your own information.

To add the course calendar to your own calendar, view the course calendar in the course, and then select the Google Calendar icon in the lower-right corner of the course calendar.

For more information about Google calendars, see the Google Calendar website.

About Teams and Topics¶

If your course uses teams, there is a Teams page where you can see the list of topics that the course team has created, and their descriptions.

You can browse the topics to find one that you are interested in working on. Then, view the list of teams that exist within that topic. Teams are always associated with a specific topic.

For each team, you can view the team members, team details, and discussions to help you decide whether you want to join a particular team. If you do not find a team that you want to join, you can create a new team in the topic. For more information, see Browse Topics and Find a Team to Join.

You can belong to only one team at a time. For information about joining and leaving teams, see Join a Team and Leave a Team.

Search for a Team¶

You can use keywords to search for teams within a topic that match your interests.

To get a list of teams that match your search keywords, follow these steps.

1. In the course, select the Teams tab.

2. On the Teams page, select Browse, then select the topic in which you want to find a team.

3. In the search field, enter one or more keywords, then press Enter or select the search icon.

   Teams within the topic that match your search are displayed.

   To clear the existing search term, select the X in the search field.

Join a Team¶

When you have found a team you want to join, select Join Team.

You are added as a member. Your profile is added to the list of team member profiles, and you can participate in the team’s discussions. The team that you joined appears on your My Team page.

Leave a Team¶

To leave a team that you belong to, follow these steps.

1. On the Team Details page, select Leave Team.

2. In the confirmation dialog, select Leave Team.

After you leave a team, you are no longer visible in the team membership profiles list, or in the membership count. Although you can still view the team’s discussions, you can no longer participate in them.

Create a Team¶

If you do not want to join any of the existing teams in a topic, you can create a new team. When you create a new team in a topic, you are automatically added as a member.

To create a team, follow these steps.

1. On the Teams page in the course, find a topic that you are interested in.
2. Select the topic’s arrow button to see the teams that exist in that topic.
3. At the bottom of the list of teams within the topic, select the create a new team in this topic link.

4. On the Create New Team page, add a name and description for the team.

   In the description, include details about your proposed project or activity to help other learners to decide whether they want to join your team and work with you.

   

5. (Optional) Include some optional details for your team. You can specify a language that members would primarily use to communicate with each other, and a country that members would primarily identify with. Keep in mind that if your team details make the team membership seem too selective, other learners might be discouraged from joining.

   Note

   Be careful in entering your team details. After you save the details for your new team, you cannot change them, and you cannot delete your team.

6. When you have finished adding your team details, click Create.

   Your new team appears in the list of team under your selected topic. You are automatically added as a team member.

Participating in Team Discussions¶

After you join a team, you can participate in discussions on your team page with other members.

Although you can view discussions in any team, you must belong to a team to add new posts and responses to the team’s discussion.

Team discussions work in the same way as your course discussions. For information about course discussions, see Anatomy of Course Discussions.

If you leave a team, you can view posts that are made, but you can no longer participate in that team’s discussions.

Overview of Search¶

You can search much of the content of your edX courses, including the course title, description, text, and video transcripts. You can search for a term in an individual course, or you can search for that term in all of the courses that you are enrolled in, whether the course is active or archived. When the search engine returns results, either for an individual course or across all courses, you can select any search result to view that result inside the course.

The search engine returns not only exact matches for search terms, but also matches that contain the search term. These matches must contain the entire search term. For example, a search for “grade” returns results for “grades” and “graded”, but a search for “graded” would not return “grade” or “grades”.

Search a Single Course¶

To search for a term in a single course, go to the Course page for that course, enter your search term in the Search field in the upper left corner of the page, and then press Enter. Your search term can contain more than one word.

After you press Enter, your search results appear in the right pane. The search results include the following items.

• Your search term.
• A brief excerpt from the surrounding text.
• The place in the course where the search term appears.

To view your search term in the body of the course, select View to the right of the search result.

Search All Your Courses¶

You can search for a term across all your edX courses. To do this, go to your dashboard, enter your search term in the Search Your Courses field in the upper right corner of the page, and then press Enter. Your search term can contain more than one word.

After you press Enter, your search results appear on the Search Results page. The search results include the following items.

• A brief excerpt from the text surrounding your search term, with your search term in bold.
• The name of the course and the place in the course where the search term appears.
• The type of content, such as text or video, that contains the search term.

To view your search term in the body of the course, select View to the right of the search result.

Add or Remove a Bookmark¶

You can bookmark any page in the course. To bookmark a page, select Bookmark this page under the name of the page.

After you add a bookmark, Bookmark this page changes to Bookmarked, and an indicator appears in the unit navigation bar.

To remove a bookmark from a page, select Bookmarked.

After you remove a bookmark, Bookmarked changes back to Bookmark this page, and the indicator disappears from the unit navigation bar.

View Your Bookmarks¶

As you go through the course, you can see which pages are bookmarked in the unit navigation bar on the Course page. You can also see a list of all of your bookmarks on the My Bookmarks page.

To access the My Bookmarks page, select Bookmarks on the course page.

The My Bookmarks page lists all of the pages you have bookmarked in the course, with the most recently created ones at the top. This page includes the location of the bookmarked material and the date that you added the bookmark.

To go to any bookmarked page, click anywhere in the box for that bookmark.

Overview of Notes¶

As you work through an edX course, you may want to highlight a particular passage or make a note about what you have read. In some edX courses, you can highlight passages and make notes right in the course.

When a course includes the notes feature, every page has a Notes page at the top and a pencil icon in the lower right corner.

Your notes can contain text as well as tags that help you organize and find your notes. You can see individual notes inside the course content, or you can see a list of your notes on the Notes page. For more information, see The Notes Page.

Highlight a Passage or Add a Note¶

You can use either the mouse or keyboard shortcuts to create, access, and delete notes. For more information about using keyboard shortcuts, see Keyboard Shortcuts for Notes.

To highlight a passage or add a note that includes text and tags, follow these steps.

1. Select the text that you want to highlight or make the note about. You can select as much text as you want.

2. When a pencil “edit” icon appears above the selected text, select the icon to open the note editor.

   

3. When the note editor opens, enter your note and any tags that you want to add. You can also save the highlight for the passage without entering a note or tag.

• To highlight a passage without adding a note or tag, select Save or press Enter. When you move your cursor over the highlighted text, the note field contains the words “no comment”.

• To enter a note, select Comments, and then type the text of your note. Your note can contain as many words as you want.

• To add one or more tags, select Add some tags here, and then type any tags that you want to add.

  Tags cannot contain spaces. If you want to add a tag that has more than one word, type multiple words as one word with no spaces, or use hyphens (-) or underscores (_) to separate words in the tag.

  

1. After you finish writing your note and adding tags, select Save or press Enter. The note editor closes, and the text that you selected remains highlighted.

View Notes¶

You can view your course notes in two places.

• You can view individual notes on the page where you created the notes. To see your notes, go to the unit that contains your note and move your cursor over or select the highlighted text. When you select the highlighted text, your note remains open until you move outside the highlighted text.
• You can view a list of the notes you have made in the course on the Notes page. You can also search your notes and tags on this page.

The Notes Page¶

On the Notes page, you can see a list of the notes you have made in your course. You can also search the text of your notes or the tags that you added to your notes.

The Notes page lists your notes by the date you created or edited them, with the most recently modified first. The page shows you both the text that you selected and the note that you made. You can also see the following information next to each note.

• A link to the location in the course that contains the highlighted text and your note. To go to that location, select the link under Noted in.
• The time and date when you last edited the note.
• Any tags that you added.

Edit or Delete a Note or Highlight¶

To edit a note, follow these steps.

1. In the course body, move your cursor over the highlighted text until your note appears.

2. When the note appears, select the pencil icon in the upper right corner to open the note editor.

   

3. In the note editor, edit your note, and then select Save.

To delete a note or highlight, follow these steps.

1. Move your cursor over the highlighted text until your note appears.
2. When the note appears, select the trash icon in the upper right corner to delete the note or highlight.

Show or Hide Notes¶

By default, you can see all of your notes. You can hide your notes, and show them again, by selecting the pencil icon in the lower right corner. When the pencil icon has a dark gray background, notes are visible. When the pencil icon has a light gray background, notes are hidden.

Search Notes¶

To search your notes, follow these steps.

1. At the top of any course page, select Notes to open the Notes page.
2. In the upper right corner of the page, type a search term in the Search notes for field. You can search for the text of a note, or you can search for a tag you created.
3. Select the magnifying glass icon or press Enter.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Notes¶

You can use keyboard shortcuts to create, edit, and delete your notes.

Before you use the following keyboard shortcuts, you must make sure that notes are visible. To show or hide notes, press Ctrl + Shift + left bracket ([).

Adding a Wiki Article¶

When you add an article to the wiki, be aware of what level you are currently viewing, to make sure that you add your new article to the correct level in the course wiki.

To move down a level in the wiki, select See all children; to move up, select the appropriate level in the wiki breadcrumb trail links at the top of the page.

Editing a Wiki Article¶

If you have permissions to edit an article, you see an Edit button and icon to the right of the article content.

To make changes to a wiki article, follow these steps.

1. In your course, select Wiki.
2. Navigate to the article you want to edit.
3. Select Edit.
4. Make your changes. For help with Markdown syntax, select the link to the cheat sheet at the upper right corner of the Contents field.
5. In the Summary field at the bottom left, below the Contents field, enter a short description of the changes you made. This description appears in the Changes list, and helps other users of the wiki understand what changes you made to the article.
6. When you have finished making edits, select Save changes.

Searching for Wiki Articles¶

A Filter field is available only if any level of the wiki contains multiple articles.

Enter a text string in the Filter field to find a list of all articles with that text string in their titles.

Managing Versions of Wiki Articles¶

The wiki includes a change history for each article. You can view each past version of the article, roll back to a selected earlier version of the article, or merge the current version of the article with a selected earlier version.

Overview of Licenses¶

The course author can specify licensing options for course content as well as for each video in the course.

The course and video licenses specify whether and how you can reuse course content.

All Rights Reserved¶

All Rights Reserved indicates that the course author owns the copyright but reserves all rights for sharing copies of course content or videos. You cannot reuse or republish course content or videos that have All Rights Reserved licenses.

Creative Commons License¶

The Creative Commons license indicates that the course author owns the copyright but is granting certain permissions for reuse, depending on the license options selected by the course team.

A Creative Commons license has one or more of the following options.

For more information, see the Creative Commons website.

Viewing Licenses¶

If the course author has set a license for the course, you see the license at the bottom of the page when you view content in the Course tab.

If a video has a different license than the course as a whole, you see the license at the bottom right of the video player.

For a license that reserves some, but not all, rights, you can select the license to get see information about your rights.