Coursera Progress

Fetch and display Coursera course enrollment, completion progress, grades, certificates, and upcoming deadlines using the Coursera API. Use this skill whenever the user wants to check their Coursera learning progress, see what courses they're enrolled in, review assignment deadlines, track certificate completions, or get a learning summary. Trigger on phrases like "my Coursera courses", "Coursera progress", "check my Coursera", "what's due on Coursera", "Coursera certificate", "online course progress", or "my enrollments".

Coursera Progress Skill

Fetch enrollment status, grades, deadlines, and certificates from Coursera via the Coursera REST API v1.

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Authentication setup

Coursera uses OAuth 2.0. Two paths:

Path A — Personal access (for learners)

1. Go to coursera.org/account/api → Generate key
2. Note the Client ID and Client Secret
3. Get a token (client credentials flow):

bash

export COURSERA_CLIENT_ID="your_client_id"
export COURSERA_CLIENT_SECRET="your_client_secret"

COURSERA_ACCESS_TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST \
  "https://api.coursera.com/oauth2/client_credentials/token" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
  -d "grant_type=client_credentials&client_id=$COURSERA_CLIENT_ID&client_secret=$COURSERA_CLIENT_SECRET" \
  | python3 -c "import json,sys; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['access_token'])")

export COURSERA_ACCESS_TOKEN

Path B — Unofficial API (no key needed)

Coursera's public endpoints don't require auth for some queries. Use when the user hasn't set up credentials.

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Base URL and headers

text

https://api.coursera.com/api

bash

AUTH_HEADER="Authorization: Bearer $COURSERA_ACCESS_TOKEN"

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Core API calls

Get enrollments for a user

bash

# Get your own user ID first
curl -s "https://api.coursera.com/api/users/v1/me" \
  -H "$AUTH_HEADER"

# Then fetch enrollments
curl -s "https://api.coursera.com/api/enrollments.v1?userId=USER_ID&fields=courseId,enrolledAt,grade,completedAt,certificateCode" \
  -H "$AUTH_HEADER"

Get course details by ID

bash

curl -s "https://api.coursera.com/api/courses.v1?ids=COURSE_ID_1,COURSE_ID_2&fields=name,slug,description,specializations" \
  -H "$AUTH_HEADER"

Get on-demand course progress

bash

curl -s "https://api.coursera.com/api/onDemandCourseCompletions.v1?userId=USER_ID&courseId=COURSE_ID&fields=progressPercent,completedAt,grade" \
  -H "$AUTH_HEADER"

Get assignment deadlines

bash

curl -s "https://api.coursera.com/api/onDemandDeadlineSchedules.v1?courseId=COURSE_ID&fields=deadlineSchedule,moduleIds" \
  -H "$AUTH_HEADER"

Get certificate info

bash

curl -s "https://api.coursera.com/api/certificates.v1?userId=USER_ID&fields=courseId,issuedAt,verifyUrl,grade" \
  -H "$AUTH_HEADER"

Search for courses

bash

curl -s "https://api.coursera.com/api/courses.v1?q=search&query=SEARCH_TERM&fields=name,slug,partnerIds,primaryLanguages" \
  -H "$AUTH_HEADER" \
  | python3 -m json.tool

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Displaying results

Active enrollments summary:

text

Your Coursera Courses
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
📚 Machine Learning Specialization (Stanford/DeepLearning.AI)
   Progress: 68% complete   Grade: 91.4%
   Next deadline: Mar 28 — Week 4 Programming Assignment

📚 Python for Everybody (University of Michigan)
   Progress: 100% ✅  Grade: 96.7%
   Certificate: Issued Jan 12, 2026
   Verify: https://coursera.org/verify/XXXX

📚 SQL for Data Science (UC Davis)
   Progress: 23%  Grade: —
   Next deadline: Apr 3 — Module 2 Quiz
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Certificates earned: 1   Active courses: 2

Upcoming deadlines:

text

Deadlines (next 14 days):
  Mar 28  Week 4 Programming Assignment  — Machine Learning
  Apr 3   Module 2 Quiz                 — SQL for Data Science
  Apr 10  Peer Review Submission        — Machine Learning

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Without API credentials (public lookup)

For course search and public course info:

bash

# Public course info (no auth)
curl -s "https://api.coursera.com/api/courses.v1?q=search&query=python&includes=instructors&fields=name,partnerIds,instructorIds,primaryLanguages,workload" \
  | python3 -m json.tool

For personal data (grades, certificates), credentials are required.

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Python helper for parsing progress

python

import json, subprocess, os

def get_enrollments(user_id):
    token = os.environ["COURSERA_ACCESS_TOKEN"]
    r = subprocess.run(
        ["curl", "-s",
         f"https://api.coursera.com/api/enrollments.v1?userId={user_id}"
         f"&fields=courseId,enrolledAt,grade,completedAt,certificateCode",
         "-H", f"Authorization: Bearer {token}"],
        capture_output=True, text=True)
    return json.loads(r.stdout).get("elements", [])

def upcoming_deadlines(enrollments, days=14):
    from datetime import date, timedelta
    cutoff = (date.today() + timedelta(days=days)).isoformat()
    # Parse deadlines per course and filter by date
    ...

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Error handling

Error	Meaning	Fix
401 Unauthorized	Token expired or missing	Re-run token generation step
403 Forbidden	Scope missing on key	Regenerate API key with correct scopes
Empty elements array	No enrollments found	Confirm correct user ID
Rate limit (429)	Too many requests	Back off 30s; Coursera is ~100 req/min