Frequently asked questions

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1. GENERAL INFORMATION

How does POK work?

More than a hundred MOOCs are available on POK.
To take a course you need to:

create your account (How can I create an account?);
activate it, if required (How can I activate my account?);
enroll in one or more courses you are interested in (How do I enroll in a course?).

Once enrolled in a MOOC you will find useful information in the Overview page, including the duration of the course itself and the prerequisites needed to access it.

Once a course starts, you may follow it whenever you like, at a pace that suits you.

What does POK stand for?

POK stands for Polimi Open Knowledge: it is an initiative of Politecnico di Milano, started in 2014, to develop MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses).

The POK slogan is “MOOCs to bridge the gaps”: it expresses the strategy adopted by Politecnico di Milano to:

support students during their career;
promote teaching innovation in both higher education institutions and schools;
promote academic social responsibility (opening up the expertise of Politecnico di Milano for the benefit of a general audience, promoting conscious citizenship in compliance with the third mission of universities).

To this end, we classified the courses by six thematic patterns.

Can I access POK courses on my smartphone or tablet computer?

Yes! You can access POK on your phone or tablet, but keep in mind that at this time Moodle may not fully support access with mobile devices. While most components of your courses will function in the app or a mobile browser, some may not.

What browsers are supported for use in POK courses?

We recommend current versions of Chrome or Firefox.

In which language will the courses be taught?

It depends on the course itself. Some of the courses are taught only in Italian, others only in English, others in both languages. A flag in the preview of the course and in the right block in the description of the course give you this information.

2. REGISTRATION AND ACCOUNT

How can I create an account?

We are so happy you want to join Polimi Open Knowledge!

If you are an institutional user of Politecnico di Milano (meaning you already have a personal code), you have to go to: POLIMI LOGIN and use the credentials you normally use to access to Politecnico di Milano Online Services.
If you are planning to study at Politecnico di Milano, you have to create your personal Politecnico di Milano account by activating it on Aunica.
If you do not have a Politecnico di Milano personal code, you may create your POK account. Creation of an account is easy and free of charge! In the registration page you have to enter information including your e-mail address, a unique username and a password of your choosing.

Entry link: How can I create an account?

How can I activate my account?

After creating your own account, you need to activate it by opening the link in the e-mail you receive. If you do not receive the confirmation message within a few minutes of signing up, please check your spam e-mail folder just in case the confirmation email went there instead of your inbox. If so, select the confirmation message and mark it Not Spam, which should allow future messages to get through. Do not forget to click the link in the confirmation message.

In case you did not receive the e-mail, please contact pok@polimi.it and the staff will contact you as soon as possible in order to solve the problem.

If you are logged in as a Politecnico di Milano user, you don’t need to activate your account.

Entry link: How can I activate my account?

How can I delete my account?

To request deletion of your POK account and personal Information, you should send a request to privacy@polimi.it. Because deletion on the POK system cannot be reversed, POK may ask you to complete a process that aims to confirm your identity. More information in the privacy policy (6. How to manage your personal information).

Please note: if you created a POK account without using your Aunica credentials, you can link your account to your personal code without having to delete it and create a new one (11. I registered without using the credentials of Politecnico di Milano, what should I do?).

Entry link: How can I delete my account?

How do I reset my password?

If you are logged in as Politecnico di Milano user, your password is tied to your Politecnico di Milano account and any change must be done through Online Services.

If you are not registered through your personal code and you are using an account created on POK, you can request a new password by clicking on "Forgotten your username or password?" in the login form.

I forgot my password, what should I do?

If you forget your password, you can easily generate a new one going on “Forgotten your username or password?”, in the Login page. You will receive an e-mail in a few minutes with a reset link (check Junk box, too!). If you are logged in as a Politecnico di Milano user your password is tied up to your Politecnico di Milano account and any change must be done through Online Services.

I registered without using the credentials of Politecnico di Milano, what should I do?

If you created a POK account without using your Aunica credentials, you can still link your account to your personal code. This way you can prove your participation in courses for official recognition.
To do so you, you can send a request to pok@polimi.it.

Can I modify my personal/account data?

You can easily modify the data you provided when registering with POK. Just log in to your account and click on the image with your name initials at the top right of any page, then select "Profile". Here you will find the section "User details", where you will be able to modify your profile. If you registered by using your Aunica credentials and wish to change the fields "Name", "Last name" and "Email address", you can do so through online services.

3. ENROLLING

How do I enroll in a course?

Once you have registered and logged into Polimi Open Knowledge you can easily and quickly register for one or more courses by clicking the “Find Courses” link at the top of the page. Once you enrolled in a course, it will be added to your Dashboard page, where you can access all the courses you are enrolled in.

How can I unenroll from a course?

The option to unsubscribe from courses is in the Dashboard. Below the title of each course there is a gear icon: use it to open an options menu. By choosing “Unenroll” the course will no longer be on your course list and you will no longer receive communications regarding it.

Can I enroll in a course already started?

Yes, you can enroll in a course at any time, but if there are expected outcomes like peer assessment activities or due date for homework – and they have already passed – you would not be able to take part in them.

All the courses available on POK are scheduled to re-open several times a year. For most of them the new edition is launched right immediately after the end of the old one, for the others the new edition re-open after only a few weeks.

Entry link: Can I enroll in a course already started?

When will these courses be offered again?

When does my course start?

The start and end date of the course are available on the About page of the course. To get there, click on the course name from Courses page.

In this page, you will find a lot of useful information: the duration of the course, the estimated effort, the prerequisites required for taking the course, information about instructors, and all the information about the general structure of the course.

If you enroll in a course before it begins, you will not be able to get in until the Class Start date.

How much do courses cost?

All the courses offered on POK are free of charge.

4. COURSE ACTIVITIES

Where are the lessons and assignments?

Follow the “View Course” button on your Dashboard page and you will find the course. The course environment contains the Home, the Course, the Discussion and the Progress tabs at the top left of the page. In the Course page, you may see the table of contents; inside each module, you can move through the lessons and reach the previous or the next module.

How do I submit my answers?

To submit your answer to a quiz, use the “Submit” button you find under each question. If you are not ready to submit your answer, just use the “Save” button, and your answer will not be submitted.

Please note that there is generally a limit to the number of answers you may provide. Once you have used all the attempts available or you have given the right answer, an explanation might show up.

If you need to write a mathematics formula or some special typos, please check the suggestions provided by the instructor in the course. These suggestions are generally included at the beginning of the course, in the course Information section, in the week 0 or at the beginning of the exercise itself.