Academic verification for classes

Some partner content (Red Hat Academy, Palo Alto Networks Cybersecurity Academy, and Cisco Networking Academy) requires learners to be at a school in that program, to use the labs or to get academic pricing. This article explains the rules for instructors and school administrators. Learners: see Verify and manage email addresses, or ask your instructor.

NDG Online accepts a learner as verified when they:

• enroll with an email address their school issued, or
• enroll through an LMS-integrated or instructor-led class, or
• use an address NDG Online support added to the allow list.

School email addresses

Most learners verify with the email address their school gives them, such as name@school.edu. It can be the primary or a secondary address on their NDG Online account.

NDG keeps a list of approved academic domains. If your school's student email uses a different domain from its website, contact NDG Online support to add it.

The allow list

If your school doesn't issue email addresses and you don't use NDG Online's class tools, send NDG Online support the list of addresses your learners will enroll with. Support adds them to the allow list, so those learners can enroll with addresses such as Gmail or Outlook.

Generic school accounts are not allowed

Don't issue generic addresses (student1@school.edu, student2@school.edu, and so on) for learners to enroll with. That bypasses academic verification and breaks the NDG terms of use and your school's agreements with the partner programs. Every account must belong to one learner and use their own email address. If your school doesn't give each learner an address, use the class tools or the allow list.

Classes created with NDG Online's tools

Instructor-led classes and LMS-integrated classes created in Teach turn academic verification off by default, so learners can enroll with any email address. The instructor is responsible for making sure only learners at their school use the class.