Students currently enrolled in for-credit MS-DS courses are eligible for free access to non-credit versions of 200+ CU courses.

As a current student enrolled in for-credit classes, you are eligible to join the CU on Coursera learning program. This program grants you sponsored access to paid enrollments in a selected bundle of open (non-credit) courses from across the University of Colorado Coursera portfolio (including CU Boulder, CU Denver, CU Anschutz Medical Campus, and CU Colorado Springs content). Below you’ll find important details about joining CU on Coursera, and some key troubleshooting tips.

Join CU on Coursera 

In order to work ahead on publicly available Coursera courses without being prompted to complete a payment on Coursera.org, you will need to join the CU on Coursera program before enrolling in a course on Coursera. This enables a free enrollment option for any course or specialization in the learning program collection.

  1. To access CU on Coursera, your Coursera account must use your CU email address (@colorado.edu). If your Coursera account uses a different email address, go to Account Settings and update your Coursera account to use your CU email. You will have the ability to add or re-add your personal email address to your account later.
  2. Log out of your Coursera account and close the browser.
  3. Open a new browser window and go to the CU on Coursera home page.
  4. Click Join for Free.
  5. Select Log in with the University of Colorado. This will bring you to the Ping Federate portal. 
  6. Log in with your university credentials. You will be re-directed to Coursera.org.
  7. Log in to Coursera with your existing Coursera account credentials (using your CU email address). This should be the same account you’ve previously linked to the degree program to access the MS-DS Onboarding Course.

Find and Enroll in Courses

Once you have joined the learning program, you can navigate to a course from the following places. When looking to start the course, you will see the option to Enroll for Free for any course that is part of the learning program. If you want to work ahead on Coursera courses before the start of your degree session, you can still do so as you have in the past following Coursera’s public learner enrollment steps.

  • Coursera course page: Find a course by using the search box on Coursera.org. Alternatively, go to the Curriculum page, scroll down to Find Data Science Courses and click on the course you're interested in. Then, click the View on Coursera button to see that course on Coursera.
  • Degree Home dashboard: You will see a filtered view of your enrolled Coursera courses associated with your degree program. This includes both public Coursera courses (i.e., MOOCs) associated with for-credit, high-engagement courses, as well as private, high-engagement and onboarding courses.
  • CU on Coursera dashboard: You will see a curated view of your Coursera courses and collections that are available through the CU on Coursera program. This may include courses that are part of your degree program and part of the sponsored learning program but will not include private courses or onboarding courses.
  • My Coursera learner dashboard: You will be able to search for all publicly available courses on Coursera and find all enrollments associated with your account (active, inactive and completed).

Open versions of MS-DS affiliated courses will be added to the CU on Coursera learning program as they are launched on a rolling basis. Check back into the program often to join courses you're interested in as they are added!

Troubleshooting and Support

If you experience an issue joining CU on Coursera, please ensure that your Coursera account is not already linked to another organization, such as Facebook.

You can reach support for any technical or account issues you experience when joining CU on Coursera. You have two contact options: 

  • Talk to Coursera via their 24/7 chat. Go to the Learner Help Center and log in to access the 24/7 chat.
  • Email the program team's for-credit support email address listed at the top of the Current Students page.