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How do I join courses using my Unlimited subscription?

FutureLearn Support
  • Updated

Table of contents

Where to look for courses to join

To browse all of the short courses which are included in Unlimited you would go to https://www.futurelearn.com/courses, then filter the page under the ‘Course Subscription’ section to those courses which are ‘Included in Unlimited’. 

[Image description: a screenshot of the first page of short courses included in the Unlimited catalogue. The title of the filters section for course subscription type is highlighted, as is the selected filter of Included in Unlimited. We can see the title cards for a selection of courses, all of which are labelled as included in Unlimited]

You can can also select 'Explore courses with Unlimited' from the options under Short Online Courses to get to this same selection.

[Image description: a screenshot showing the options under 'Courses' selected from the navigation options at the top of the FutureLearn homepage]

You can then filter this page by subject area, with areas such as Business & Management, Language, IT & Computer Science, Study Skills, and many others to choose from. This will then narrow down the courses shown on the right hand side to those under that subject area. 

To further narrow down the course selection, you can use our topic pages to browse all the courses on the platform by topic. You can find our topic pages at the top of the site, under Subjects. If you click on a subject area, you should then see a list of topics under that subject. 

Once you select a topic, you will then be taken to that Topic page to browse all of the courses which relate to that topic. For example, if we select the subject of ‘Business & Management’ and then the topic of ‘Communication’ we will be taken to this page which lists all of the courses on FutureLearn which relate to Communication.

[Image description: two screenshots side-by-side. The first shows us the subject list with Business & Management selected and a highlight on the topic of Communication. The second shows the topic page for Communication and the course title cards for four short courses under this topic, all of which are included in Unlimited]

Please note that topic pages are not automatically filtered to show you only the courses included in the Unlimited catalogue, even if you are logged in with your Unlimited connected account. You will need to look out for the label on a course card which tells you it is ‘Included in Unlimited’, in order to find courses which are included in your Unlimited access.

 

[Image description: a screenshot of the bottom of a course title card, which tells us the number of weeks in the course, the recommended minimum study time per week, and that it is Included in Unlimited]

Joining a course with Unlimited

Video guide:

Once you have found a course to join, and you’ve checked that it is included in Unlimited you can click on the ‘Join now’ button on the course description page to enrol on that course straight away. If you can’t see that button, scroll down to the ‘Start dates’ section of the course page and check for future start dates.

When you click the join now button, you will be taken to the enrolments option page shown below.

[Image description: screenshot of the enrolment options page, with the option to Join for free through your organisation, join with Limited access, or join and upgrade]

To have your Unlimited access applied to this course, make sure to select the option to ‘Join for free with [name of your organisation]’. If you select the ‘Limited access’ option in the middle, then you will have restricted access to the course content and will not be able to get a certificate upon completion. The ‘Upgrade’ option is there for learners who wish to purchase a course for themselves, which includes access to a printed as well as digital certificate for the purchased course. 

Once you have confirmed that you will be joining the course through your organisation, you will be enrolled on the course and have all the benefits of Unlimited applied to that enrolment. This means that you can access all of the content from each week of the course straight away, and can learn at your own pace. Whereas, if you joined for free as a Limited Access learner you would have to wait for each week of the course to be unlocked. 

For help on how learning works on a FutureLearn course please jump to the section How do I start learning? 

How do I get back to my course

If you exit out of your course you can get back to them at any time by:

  1. Signing in to the site from here- https://www.futurelearn.com/sign-in
  2. clicking on your profile picture/ initials in the top right hand corner of the page
  3. selecting Your Learning from the menu selection
  4. clicking on the course you'd like to go to. You can also use CTRL F or CMD+ F to search for a course on this page. 

Which courses are not included in Unlimited

Unlimited only includes access to the short courses in the Unlimited catalogue. It does not include access to microcredentials, degrees, or any of the courses which are available only as part of an ExpertTrack. If a course is labelled as including a ‘free digital upgrade’ then it has been sponsored, usually by the course partner, to give all learners who join it upgraded access to that course- for free. You can still access these courses as an Unlimited learner.

If you are having any access issues (such as being unable to access all weeks of the course, course test steps, the end of course certificate, or the course is telling you your access has expired, when joining a short course on FutureLearn please follow the troubleshooting advice in this article- I have a problem with my access

What support is available to me?

For any queries about your FutureLearn account please send an email to our support team at support@futurelearn.com stating your name and organisation so we can resolve your issue quickly.

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