As part of the retirement of Design Academy, this FAQ was created to help answer some of the most common questions about the move to the Learning and Certification site. The FAQ is organized into three sections:
Answers to common questions
General questions
The Learning and Certification site was created to develop a single location for learning and certification at Autodesk to make things simpler, more streamlined, and to bring focus so that we can most effectively improve the learning experience. Our goal is to give students and educators a better lesson format, more tools for tracking progress and planning learning paths, expand the breadth of content, and integrate certifications into the learning pathways.
Autodesk is committed to investing significantly in learning content and platforms that helps students, educators, and professionals learn the skills they need and continue to grow and evolve their career paths. The Learning and Certification site is the learning platform to introduce new learning experiences, and so Design Academy is being retired as part of this transition. We moved all up-to-date and current content from Design Academy to the Learning and Certification site, so it is now available there.
Here are the steps to begin learning on the Learning and Certifications site:
- Navigate to the Learning and Certification site
- Sign in with your Autodesk account (it’s the same ID and password as your Design Academy account)
- Navigate to the course catalog, the learning pathways, or certification from the dropdown
- Search for the content or courses you want to explore
- Add that content to a list, bookmark it, or directly enroll right there.
- View your dashboard to see enrollments, certifications, learning lists, and bookmarks.
After those steps, you’re ready to continue your learning on the new Learning and Certification site.
While the navigation, look and feel, and some features are different, the overall experience of the new Learning and Certification site should feel familiar coming from Design Academy.
The biggest change is that content has been organized into new learning pathways that are now directly aligned to certifications. This means that as you go through learning paths, you're learning the skills and knowledge that will help you both in future roles and in attaining Autodesk Certifications. With this closer relationship between learning and certification, there is also now a certification space on your personal dashboard.
Another change is that there are some improved features that are different – specifically the dashboard with learning lists, bookmarks, enrolled courses, and certifications. While there are some new features, the overall experience should be familiar - and when you’re actively engaged in a course on the Learning and Certification site, you'll notice a similar and recognizable format to courses from Design Academy that includes video content, course assets, and PDF guides.
No personal or user data will transfer from Design Academy to the Learning and Certification site, but up-to-date course content will move. More specifically, there are a few different types of data, here is what will happen to it:
Learner Course/Progress Data:
Learner data from Design Academy will not transfer over to the Learning and Certification site. When Design Academy is shut down on June 30th, the data will be removed and will no longer be available in any form. The data will then be permanently deleted from all Design Academy servers. It's important for you to save any data or information you'd like to keep prior to the June 30th, 2022 Design Academy retirement date. If you would like to keep a record of the courses you've completed, make sure to download course completion certificates from your Design Academy profile page or from the individual course pages that you've completed 100%.
Groups Data:
Data from Design Academy groups is currently not available and will be permanently deleted within 30 days after the retirement of Design Academy on June 30th, 2022.
Portfolio Data:
Portfolio data will be deleted shortly after the Design Academy retirement date, so be sure to download any portfolio items prior to June 30, 2022. This can be accessed from your Design Academy profile page.
Learning content and courses: Up-to-date learning content and courses from Design Academy have been recreated on the Learning and Certification site and you can use the search or browse functions to find them there. Out-of-date courses and content from Design Academy will be retired permanently.
Reminder: Learner data does not transfer from Design Academy to the Learning and Certification site. Save any data from your Design Academy profile prior to June 30th, 2022.
Design Academy groups were disabled in the fall of 2021 and will remain disabled through the retirement of Design Academy. Design Academy groups data will be permanently deleted after the site's June 30th, 2022, retirement date.
Design Academy Portfolio content will be removed on June 30th, 2022, on the same day Design Academy is retired. You will want to save any portfolio content you may have uploaded to keep for your records prior to that date. This content can be accessed on your Design Academy profile page. After June 30th, it will no longer be accessible.
- If you don’t already have one, create an Autodesk account by clicking Get Started on the Get Products page.
- Confirm your eligibility, which involves validating your role as a student or educator with a qualified educational institution.
- Download and install your software.
For more information, see Get started for students and educators.
Student questions
The Design Academy content will be available through June 30th, 2022. You can continue learning through that date on Design Academy or you can find the equivalent course on the Learning and Certification site, skip ahead to the point of your progress, and continue there.
However, if you're just beginning your courses, or you're not currently enrolled in any Design Academy courses, the best option is to enroll in the equivalent course on the Learning and Certification site. That way, you'll be able to take advantage of the updated content, new features, and other benefits of the new Learning and Certification site.
If your school/institution course ends before June 30th, 2022, then just complete the course as planned and make sure your professor or teacher is aware of the transition and plans to use the Learning and Certification site for course learning going forward. However, if you are early in your course, it's a good idea to use Autodesk learning content from the Learning and Certification site instead of content from Design Academy. That way the Design Academy retirement date won't impact the class schedule.
If your school/institution course ends after June 30th, 2022, then your professor or teacher will want to find the equivalent content on the Learning and Certification site and transfer to using that prior to June 30th, 2022. After June 30th, 2022, Design Academy data, courses, content, and the site itself will no longer be available.
In either case, make sure to save any course completion certificates, portfolio items, and capture any progress made in courses that won't be completed for your records, and those are available through your Design Academy profile page. That will need to happen prior to June 30th, 2022.
The goal of the Learning and Certification site is to provide free, high-quality learning content and our intent is for the learning content to remain free.
The certification exams themselves, however, are not free. There will still be a cost to taking certification exams. For more information, please see this certification support page.
The new certifications are designed to be more accessible, more relevant to the skills and understanding required for modern roles, and are aligned to learning paths.
The new certifications on the Learning and Certification site are broken into three levels – Associate, Professional, and Expert. Each of the three levels tests for a breadth of understanding aligned to the level of expertise of the certification. Associate-level certifications are ideal for students and people early in their careers. Professional-level certifications show a level of understanding of a seasoned professional. Expert-level certifications are reserved for those who want to become experts in the most cutting edge and advanced methods, technologies, and skills. The certification platform comes with a personal certification dashboard where you can access your earned certificates and badges at any time.
Additionally, certifications can be either software specific, or role/domain specific. For example, you could get an Autodesk Certified Professional in Infrastructure Design in Civil 3D, which would be specific to the Autodesk Civil 3D software. You could also get a certification like the Autodesk Certified Expert in Generative Design for Manufacturing, which is more about the domain of expertise than any particular software (though this certification is still largely based on work in Fusion 360).
Another key benefit is that the Learning and Certification site brings together learning content and certifications into one place, and helps structure learning paths that align the right content to the certifications a learner wants to earn. This makes it easy to set certification goals and know exactly how to reach them.
The new structure for certifications should help you stay up to date in both software and big concepts in your industry.
Educator questions
If your course ends before June 30th, 2022, then just complete the course as planned and make sure your students are aware of the Design Academy retirement and that students should plan to complete their Design Academy courses before June 30th, 2022.
You should plan to use the Learning and Certification site for course learning going forward after you complete your course and you'll find the same great content there. Up-to-date content from Design Academy has been recreated on the Learning and Certification site. Make sure to introduce your students to the new platform and have them sign up using the same Autodesk login they used for Design Academy.
If your course ends after June 30th, 2022, then you will want to find the equivalent content on the Learning and Certification site and transfer to using that prior to June 30th, 2022. After June 30th, 2022, Design Academy data, courses, content, and the site itself will no longer be available. Please find the relevant content on the course catalog, and then plan to use the courses there in your curriculum.
In either case, make sure you and your students save for your records any course completion certificates, portfolio items, and capture any progress made in courses that won't be completed. That will need to happen prior to June 30th, 2022.
The best way is to use the course catalog. Once you sign into the Learning and Certification site with your Autodesk ID, you can add courses to your lists, bookmarks, or enroll in them right from that page. Use the search and filter features to narrow down the list to exactly what you want to find.
Yes! Up-to-date and current content from Design Academy has been recreated on the Learning and Certification site and it's the same high-quality content as before.
Additionally, the new site has improvements in learning paths and a tighter integration with all new certifications that are aligned to roles and industry skill domains. The Learning and Certification site provides an improved foundation for learning and will continue to grow with more content and features. However, as of now, courses on the Learning and Certification site are not able to be downloaded as they were on Design Academy.
The new Learning and Certification site brings together learning content and certifications and a lot of thought has been put into how to best combine those two things. Autodesk worked with industry partners, educators, internal experts, and other thought leaders to create a new structure for how learning content and certifications interact. Now with the new Learning and Certification site, learners can progress through learning pathways designed around specific roles and industry skills. As they progress through the learning paths, learners will have the opportunity to take certification assessments and earn certifications at the Associate, Professional, and Expert levels.
If you plan to include certification exams as part of your course, this structure will make it far easier to know when and how to include them with regards to your syllabus and course plans. If you don't plan to include certifications in your course, your students will still be prepared to do so if they complete the relevant content, so they will have the option to take the certification exam if it's something they'll want to pursue. Certifications can help them stand out as job candidates when the time comes, so many of your students may choose to pursue these certifications, and the new Learning and Certification site makes it easier for them to do so. Certifications are available for purchase from Autodesk on the Learning and Certification site, and through our partner PearsonVUE.
