Take a course

Courses on Magpie are run by schools: each school is a team or a person who makes courses, and its courses are at its own address. Your courses at every school are kept in one Magpie account for your email address.

Signing in

When you enrol in a course with your name and email address, Magpie makes an account for that address and signs you in. You do not need a password. If the address already has an account, the course is added to it and a sign-in link is sent to the address instead. A course a school adds you to, or one you buy, is added to the account for the address it was given in the same way.

To sign in later, press Sign in on the school's pages and enter your email address. Magpie will email you a sign-in link. Open it in the same browser and you will be signed in and taken back to the page you were on. Opened in another browser or on another device, the link shows a page with the address it signs in and a Sign in button. Each link works once.

The welcome email has a link to confirm your address. Until you confirm it you can open lessons, but you cannot comment, submit assignments or get a certificate. If your account was made earlier and its address is still not confirmed, a course you then enrol in, buy or are added to opens only once you confirm the address. A course that made your account opens at once. Send the link again on the course home sends a new confirmation link.

Your courses

Your courses, in the account menu once you take a course, lists every course you take at every school, with your progress and a Continue link to your next lesson. Your courses in a school's catalogue lists your courses at that school. Your Dashboard also lists the courses you have not completed, each opening your next lesson (Find your way around Magpie).

The course home

A course's home shows how far you are (the percentage complete and how many of the required lessons you have completed), when your access ends if it does, and Continue, which opens your next lesson. On your first visit it says Start. Below that is every module with the state of each lesson. A lesson that is not open yet says when it opens. Dates and times are shown in your own time zone.

Announcements from the school are shown at the top of the course home until you press Mark as read. They stay in the course's Discussion.

Completing lessons

Press Mark as complete at the foot of a lesson, then Next for the lesson after it. Mark as not complete undoes it. Some lessons complete another way, and the lesson says how:

• A lesson with a video or audio may complete when you have watched 90% of it. If the course asks you to watch first, pressing Mark as complete too early says how much is left.
• A quiz completes when you pass it, or when you submit it if it has no pass mark.
• An assignment completes when you submit it, or when an instructor approves it.
• A live session completes when an instructor marks you as attended, when you watch 90% of its recording, or when you mark it complete.

An optional lesson does not count toward completing the course. In some courses a lesson opens only when the one before it is complete, or on a date.

You complete the course when every required lesson is complete. The course home then says so, with the date.

Comments and discussion

Under a lesson you can comment and reply to other students' comments. The course's Discussion page, linked from the course home, holds the school's announcements and the posts students start with New post. Other students see your name and picture, never your email address.

You can change a comment for 15 minutes after posting it, and delete it at any time. In some courses a comment waits for an instructor's approval, and only you see it until then. Report comment on another student's comment tells the instructors, who decide whether it stays.

Your notes

Each lesson has a Your notes box. What you type is saved as you type, and only you can read it. The course home lists your notes by lesson, and Download your notes downloads all of them for the course as one Markdown file. Your notes are kept when your access ends.

Your certificate

When a course gives certificates, you get one when you complete it, once your email address is confirmed. View certificate on the course home opens its page, which anyone with its address can open to check it. The page has Download PDF and Add to LinkedIn profile.

The certificate shows your account's name when it was issued. If you change your name in your account, Use my current name on the course home puts the new name on it, with the same code and date. See Give certificates for a course for what the certificate's page shows.

Emails from a school

A school emails you when lessons open, when you have not opened the course for a while, when your access is ending, and with its announcements. To stop these, turn off the school's switch, Emails from and its name, in Your courses, or use the link at the foot of its emails. Emails about your enrolment, changes to your cohort, live session invitations and changes, assignment feedback, a missed payment and completing the course are always sent. Turn the emails back on in Your courses.

If you tick the box to also get a school's newsletter when you enrol, you will join it at once when you are signed in and your address is confirmed. Otherwise the newsletter will email you a link first, and you will join it only once you confirm.

To ask a school something, reply to one of its emails.

When you cannot open a course

The course home says why, at the top:

• Waiting for approval: the school decides who joins this course, and will email you when your application is decided.
• Your access has not started: it says the date it starts.
• Your access is paused: a payment of your payment plan was missed. Pay pays it and opens the course again. If the plan was ended, the band says to contact the school.
• Your access ended: your access period is over, the school ended it, the course was refunded, or your support for the school ended. The band shows how to get access again, if the school offers a way.

Your progress, notes and certificate are kept in each case.

If you cannot sign in with the emailed link, Contact support.