.. _About Certificates:

#################################
About Certificates
#################################

.. tags:: educator, concept

This section describes how to create and manage certificates for your course.


  .. note::
   Before you can issue certificates, the administrator for your instance
   must configure the platform to allow course teams to generate and
   issue certificates. For more information, see
   :ref:`Manage Course Certificates <Manage Course Certificates>`.

For more information about certificates, see these additional topics.

* :ref:`Manage Course Certificates`
* :ref:`Edit Course Certificates`
* :ref:`Configure Certificate Availability and Timing`
* :ref:`View Certificate Data <View Certificate Data>`


For information about awarding badges for your course, see :ref:`Manage Course
Badges <Manage Course Badges>`.

.. _Overview:

********
Overview
********

Using Studio, you create and manage the certificates that learners can earn in
your course.

The platform can automatically generate certificates as each learner
passes the course for both self-paced and instructor-paced courses.

* For self-paced courses, certificates are available immediately after they
  are generated.
* For instructor-paced courses, certificates become available 48 hours after
  your course end date by default. You can also specify a different date to
  make certificates available. For more information, see :ref:`Specify an
  Alternative Certificates Available Date <Specify an
  Alternative Certificates Available Date>`.

When certificates become available, options for learners to view their
certificates are available on the learner dashboard,
the learner **Profile** page, and the course **Progress** page.

For more information about issuing certificates, see :ref:`Configure
Certificate Availability and Timing <Configure Certificate Availability and
Timing>`.

The design of certificates for your course, including your institution's
logo, are configured on your instance. For more information, see
:ref:`Manage Course Certificates <Manage Course Certificates>`.

.. The course start date limitation is not published for partners at this time.
.. Confirmed March 9, 2017 that there's no hard requirement for having
.. activated certs before the course starts. Although there is a procedural
.. requirement for announcing activated certs, courses are able to start if
.. they have deactivated certs.



   .. note:: If your course is configured to issue certificates, you cannot
    start the course until the required certificates are
      :ref:`activated<Activate a Certificate>`.

       For information about starting the course, see :ref:`Guidelines for
       Start and End Dates <Guidelines for
       Start and End Dates>`.

.. seealso::

  :ref:`Manage Course Certificates` (how-to)

  :ref:`Edit Course Certificates` (how-to)

  :ref:`Configure Certificate Availability and Timing` (how-to)

  :ref:`Manage Course Badges` (how-to)

**Maintenance chart**

+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
| Review Date  | Working Group Reviewer        |   Release      |Test situation                  |
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
|              |                               |                |                                |
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+--------------------------------+