MindEdge Learning

MindEdge Learning is an online course publisher that sells skills courses and certificates to learners and licenses its content to colleges, associations and employers. The About page says it was founded "by Harvard and MIT educators in 1998" and has "served some four million learners," and the home page describes "over 25 years" of building online courses and states that over 250 organizations and schools partner with it. Its stated mission is "to improve the way the world learns." The company organizes its work around four audiences, each with its own section of the site: For-Credit, Professional Development, Continuing Education and Corporate Solutions. It also runs a family of brands: Acuity Institute for corporate training, PM Skills for project leaders, HR Skills for HR and management professionals, Frontline Manager for first-level managers, and Nonprofit Skills.

What a learner gets

For an individual, MindEdge is a catalog of practical courses that end in a certificate. The testimonials on the home page name some of them: How to Coach, Leading and Managing Change, Challenges for Agile Teams, Six Sigma Basics, Personal Creativity, and the Allerton Connector Highway Simulation, which one reviewer calls "Very impressive project management training." The current category highlight is Human Resource Management, which the site says covers "recruitment, performance management, compensation, and inclusive workplace practices." The site also promotes flexible, industry-aligned microcredentials and a Six Sigma certification.

Courses mix reading with video, games and assessments. The partner FAQ describes the content as "a textbook with video, interactivity, adaptive learning technology, quiz banks, and other features not available in a traditional textbook." The adaptive engine tests a learner's mastery and sends anyone who has not mastered a topic to new content and practice before testing again; the company says its data shows "70% of learners require some degree of adaptive learning" and that on average 97% reach mastery by the end of the adaptive segment. The learner FAQ notes that some courses have printable materials, but video, games and assessments cannot be downloaded, and learners can flag mistakes through a Report an Error tool inside each course.

Certificates of completion are PDFs that learners download from their course records page, and the FAQ says they stay available "even after access to the course has expired." Course access runs for a set period; when it lapses, a learner can buy an access extension from the login screen.

Credits, approvals and exam prep

This is where MindEdge differs from most course libraries, and why it also sits in this directory's test-prep and certifications category. The About page lists the professional credits its courses can carry: American Council on Education (ACE) Learning Evaluation Credits, American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer CEUs, ATD Certification Institute credits, Certified Fund Raising Executive CEUs, HR Certification Institute recertification credits, IACET CEUs, Project Management Institute PDUs and SHRM Professional Development Credits. It also names MindEdge as an approved training provider for CompTIA, OMCP, IAEM and ISSA. The For-Credit page says "MindEdge is proud to offer 12 ACE CREDIT® reviewed and approved certificates," with a separate ACE Credit catalog.

For certification exam prep, the learner FAQ sets out a guarantee. A learner who passes the prep course's final self-assessment "with a score of 70% or higher on their first attempt" but does not pass the certification exam itself can take the MindEdge prep course again for free. To qualify, the learner must sit the certification exam within 45 days of finishing the prep course and passing the MindEdge practice exam.

For colleges and universities

For higher education, MindEdge works like a digital textbook publisher. Its For-Credit page says adding its content to a course is "a quick, cost-effective way to boost student engagement and improve learning results, without the need for overhauling your curriculum," and it keeps a dedicated undergraduate For-Credit catalog for partner institutions. It also suggests building its "top-selling certificates" into degree programs. Students usually buy access through the campus bookstore: the access code FAQ explains that a code is "a one-time-use digital key" for one semester or class period, entered inside the school's student portal or learning management system, with Blackboard, Desire2Learn and Moodle given as examples. The partner FAQ adds that educators get "click-by-click tracking of learner engagement" to spot struggling students. Under Continuing Education, the home page invites universities to combine MindEdge content with their own university brand to generate revenue and expand what they offer.

For companies, associations and course authors

Corporate Solutions offers training libraries for teams, and the Professional Development section is aimed at organizations that want to offer career skills to their own audience. MindEdge can turn a partner's existing material into an online course: the partner FAQ says its team has "helped several organizations develop online versions of popular classroom-based training and seminars." Partners choose instructor-led or self-paced delivery, and MindEdge can supply an instructor-facilitator, an academic or industry expert, for classroom, blended or online formats.

On the technical side, the FAQ says MindEdge "can integrate with most learning management platforms" and also has "a proprietary multi-featured learning management system (LMS), which partner institutions can use at no additional cost." The newest product is LearningEdge, which the home page introduces as "a new course authoring platform created to make better learning experiences for your students and better authoring experiences for your instructors." That is the link to this directory's course authoring tools category.

Content comes, according to the partner FAQ, from "academic experts, business practitioners, authors, journalists, and others," shaped by staff subject matter experts and course designers. The leadership team on the About page includes President Joe Mullen, Hugo Lallo as Chief of Technology and Staff, Emily Hemingway leading editorial and instructional design, and Stephanie Herman as managing director of Acuity Institute.

Prices, refunds and support

The pages publish no course prices; schools and companies are invited to book a demo. The refund policy for direct purchases allows a request "up to 5 days from the purchase date," and the registration fee is refunded only "if less than 10% of the course has been completed." For bookstore access codes, used codes "cannot be returned under any circumstance," while unused ones go back through the bookstore. Support runs by email at support@mindedge.com, and the FAQ says representatives answer questions seven days a week; for-credit students are pointed first to their school's help desk. Courses run in the last three versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, and the FAQ warns that some ad blockers stop course videos from playing.

Who it suits

MindEdge suits a working professional who needs a certificate that carries recertification credits, such as PMI PDUs, SHRM credits or HRCI credits, or who is preparing for a certification exam and values a free retake of the prep course. It suits colleges that want ready-made, trackable course content for undergraduate programs, and associations or employers that want a branded skills catalog or need classroom training moved online. The trade-offs are that prices are not public and that the refund window is short, so learners should be sure of a course before buying.