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Getting Started with LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an an eLearning platform that contains over 16,000 video tutorial courses led by experts in their fields on web design, software development, photography, project management, graphic design, audio and video editing, and more. Tutorials are available in select languages (e.g. French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish).

How to Access LinkedIn Learning

1. Go to www.tpl.ca, the Toronto Public Library website.
2. Type in "LinkedIn Learning" into the search box. 
3. Click on "Access Online" under LinkedIn Learning.
4. Click "Get Started".
5. Enter your library card number and PIN. Note: Library cards must be in good standing (not expired or blocked)
6. Click "Continue".

Personalizing your Learning Experience

The first time you use LinkedIn Learning you have the option to select subjects/topics you are interested in. Indicating your interests allows the site to provide suggested courses and updates when new courses of interest have been added. It will also allow you to track your progress through your selected courses, manage saved courses and manage your certificates of completion. Certificates of completion are certificates that you may receive when you watch a course on LinkedIn Learning.

 

Click "Sounds good". 

After selecting topics you are interested in, click "Continue"

You have an option to set a weekly goal now or later and click "Start learning".

Navigating LinkedIn Learning

1. The navigation bar, at the top of the page stays constant throughout your experience. In contains the following features:
   • Browse
   • Search Box
   • Home button – return at any time to your LinkedIn Learning main page
   • My Learning – provides access to your “in progress” and “saved” courses, your learning history and your interested skills.
   • Notifications – updates and suggested content
   • Me – your personal account provides access to settings
   • EN – allows you to change the language of the website
2. Quick access to “My Learning” courses that are in progress and saved.
3. Recommended courses based on the skills you are interested in learning

Finding and Taking Courses

There are several ways to find courses:

1. Browse
2. Search Box
3. Suggested Courses

Browse

Click the "Browse"' icon at the top of the page. Scroll down for choices on Business Topics, Customer Service, Leadership and Management, Project Management, Training and Education, Software, and Learning Paths. Click "Show All" for more choices under the topics or sub-topics. 

Move your cursor over the other sections, Creative, or Technology for topics related to these areas.

You can browse for content under the business, creative, and technology sections based on subjects, software, and learning paths.

Search Box

The search box is used to find content on a specific topic. Enter the keywords of the course you are looking for. This could be the name of the software, type of skill, or subject you wish to learn.

As you start typing, a drop down menu appears with a list of related items. You can select on one of these items or click the search icon (magnifying glass) or press <Enter>. A complete list of courses with your keywords will appear. To filter through your results use the filters on the left. Skill level, software, and time to complete are some popular filters. You can also sort by "Best Match".

Suggested Courses

LinkedIn Learning provides course suggestions based on the skills you listed as being interested in when you created your account. At any time, these skills can be changed, added, or removed.

To change your skill selection:

1. Click on “Me” in the top right hand corner of the screen
2. Scroll down to “Skills” in the drop down menu
3. Delete any of the skills in green by clicking on the “x”
4. To add a skill, type the skill “e.g. coding” into the add new skill search box

Watching a Course

Once you have found a course that you are interested in, click on it and it will open up the course page. The course page has several features:

1. Course content
2. Video player controls
3. Course consumption page tabs - overview, notebook, transcript

Course Content

The table of contents for the course appears to the left of the video. Each chapter expands and you can see what the course covers and whether any course assessments, usually multiple choice quizzes (optional), are available. You can take the whole course or just a specific lesson. 

Video Player Controls

Note that the Video Speed can be increased or decreased based on preference for talking speed.

Course Consumption Page Tabs

The Course Consumption Page Tabs is located below the video player controls:

• Overview provides an overview of the course, who the instructor is with a link to their LinkedIn bio, a course description and when the course was last updated and any additional files that the course instructor has provided (exercise files).  Not all courses include exercise files, they are created and included at the discretion of the course instructor. 
• Notebook tab allows you to take notes during the course and saves them with a link to the specific part of the video you were watching when made that note. Click on the link above your note and it will take you back to that part of the video to review. 

 

• Notes are saved within your saved course and can also be exported as plain text (.txt) 
• Transcripts are course notes that can be read online, copied and pasted into any text editor. Each course has a searchable transcript.

 

Certificates of Completion

Certificates of Completion are certificates that you may download when you have completed a course on LinkedIn Learning.

1. Click on “My Learning” from the navigation bar
2. Click “Learning history”
3. Locate the course or the learning path you’d like to save the certificate for, and click More.
4. Select Download certificate from the drop-down.

Note:

There is no opt-in feature to allow users of LinkedIn Learning for Library to connect to a LinkedIn profile so that courses taken can be updated automatically. Library customers with a LinkendIn profile can add certificates of completion to their profile manually. In addition, there is no retention of people’s names within LinkedIn Learning for Library and as a result, certificates of completion are not printed with library customers’ names.

LinkedIn Learning app

A wireless internet connection is needed to stream the content. Using cellular data is not recommended as streaming multimedia content can consume a lot of bandwidth. Wireless internet access is available at all Toronto Public Libraries. You take courses on your smartphone or tablet.

To use the LinkedIn Learning app:

1. Download the LinkedIn Learning app from the App Store or Google Play
2. Click “Sign in” on the app
3. Select “Sign in with your library card”
4. Update the default custom invitation link, replacing libraryID with 'tpl'.  The correct link is: www.linkedin.com/learning-login/go/tpl
5. Enter library card and PIN

Check out the library's blog post Lynda.com is becoming LinkedIn Learning, and It's All Good.

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