This article is about the reviews and ratings that appear on a Course Description Page. For information about registration, in-course and post-course surveys, please see Learner surveys.

Reviews and ratings are presented on Course Description Pages and course cards for all open short courses including degree tasters. This does not include invite-only courses, or short courses locked behind the paywall of a Microcredential or degrees.  

Reviews are a signal of credibility, demonstrating that other people have trusted FutureLearn and enjoyed the course. 

Learners receive an automatic email asking for a rating and a review when they have marked 90% of steps complete on a short course. 

• Five reviews are required before they feature on the Course Description Page. 
• A new course must be live for 10 weeks before reviews will be published. This is the period of time when a course is labeled as ‘new’. 
• Reviews appear on courses, not runs. They will carry over to new runs. Reviews will continue to be displayed, with no cut-off period. They are dated so it is clear when the review was made. 

Yotpo review moderation 

Yotpo is the third-party review platform we use to send email requests for reviews and to present the reviews on the platform via widgets.  

Yotpo’s in-house moderation team checks all reviews using guidelines based on the Code of Conduct for Reviews that learners are directed to. 

Moderators will then do one of the following:

• approve and publish the review on the Course Description Page once a course has five or more reviews. 
• escalate the review to the FutureLearn Community Team for a private or public response.
• reject the review. 

Use reviews in your own marketing

If you wish to use your course reviews in your own marketing: 

• exercise discretion. Avoid reviews that contain sensitive or personal data or sensitive comments about a person’s physical or mental health, disability, or religious beliefs
• always anonymise the learner review, removing their name and other personal data in all cases.
• let your Partnership Manager know.

Responding to reviews 

• Our community team will respond to reviews (in public or in private) if a response is necessary or helpful. 
• If the team needs support with a response they will get in touch with you via your Partnership Manager. 
• If partners see a review that they want to respond to they can contact their FL Partnership Manager, who will contact the community team.
• The Community team may decide to hold reviews back from publishing until they have a response if it’s important to provide context.
• Partners should contact their Partnership Manager if they think a review is in breach of our Code of Conduct for Reviews, and the Partnership Manager will liaise with the Community Team. 
• If it does not breach our Reviews Code of Conduct we will post the review and leave it live.

Terminology on this page that you aren’t familiar with? Check out our glossary. 

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