free skills training, college-level courses, and certifications The Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) is partnering with Coursera in order to provide access to free courses and certifications on a wide variety of subjects ranging from basic technology skills to advanced programming. This means that a large catalog of Coursera courses is free to anyone who creates a HiRE account through the LWC. There are also courses covering business subjects, arts and humanities, language learning, personal development, healthcare, math, science and social sciences. There are over five thousand courses available through this collaboration, many of which grant you a professional certification. What Is Coursera? Coursera is one of the larger Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) websites, and provides courses that can be audited for free as well as paid for in order to obtain a certification. We have promoted Coursera, along with other MOOCs, on our website under Professional Development. However, it was always with the disclaimer that in order to obtain a certificate indicating that you have completed the course, you were required to pay for the course. This collaboration between the LWC and Coursera is eliminating that barrier for Louisiana residents. In order to access the Tech Ready Louisiana program, a HiRE account is necessary. In order to sign up for one; go to the https://www.laworks.net/ landing page and click on the Tech Ready Louisiana banner in the middle of the page. Creating a HiRE Account If you do not have a HiRE account, click on “my HiRE account” as marked on this image by a red checkmark. Then click the sign in button at the top of that page, and scroll down until you see the “create a user account” section where you can click “individual registration”. The process of signing up for a HiRE account will take around 20 minutes, and will require knowing your Social Security number as well as having an email in order to sign up. If you have any questions about this step of the process, you can go to your local library and someone will be able to assist you. If you live in East Baton Rouge Parish, you can come to the Career Center inside the Main Library at 7711 Goodwood Boulevard, and we will be happy to assist you. Signing Up for Coursera through LWA After you have created a HiRE account, you click on the Tech Ready Louisiana banner, and you will arrive at a sign up page, where you can click on the “Enroll Now” button. You will be prompted to enter your name, your email and your HiRE username. Please use the name and email associated with your account, to make the process easier. Once you press enroll now, you will have an email in your email inbox from the LWC with link to the Coursera/LWC landing page. You will have to press “join now” in both the email and on the landing page. This will provide you access to any of the courses within the catalog. In order to find courses, you are able to search using the search bar at the top. There is also an “Explore Careers” page which will list courses commonly associated with certain careers such as IT, bookkeeping and database management. Finally, you can also look at a variety of courses using the sections provided under the search bar. When you find a course you want to enroll in, you simply just press enroll and you are free to start the course! In order to see your enrolled courses, you can locate them under “my courses” on the landing page as well. final thoughts We hope that this service provides invaluable information and education to your job search experience and professional development. Also, as a disclaimer, it may take 1 -2 days to gain full access to the courses, so if the “enroll” button includes a 7-day trial, you do not have full access yet. If you have any further questions, you can reach out to the Career Center at 225-231-3733 or visit your local branch library for assistance. Written by Kathryn Cusimano
