FAQs for Equitas
What is Equitas?
Equitas is ASDAN’s digital learning platform, designed to make it easier for educators and learners to capture their work and complete courses. Our suite of Short Courses are available, with all ASDAN courses to be added over time. Find out more about the platform, the courses currently available and watch a walk-through video.
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Moving to digital-only Short Course offer
We are changing how ASDAN provides Short Courses and will stop producing and selling printed Short Course student books, with Equitas becoming the main source of Short Course resources.
This is so we can offer greater flexibility, choice and value for our members. Resources can be updated when needed, helping us keep them relevant and up to date, while users can select the challenges they want learners to complete and create more personalised resources. It also allows us to offer more flexible delivery options and reduced costs for volume purchases.
The final date to purchase print-version Short Course student books will be 30 April 2027. The final date for registering learners and creating cohorts will be 30 June 2027.
Yes. Learners who are already using the student books can continue working towards their Short Course as normal. You must claim their certificate before 31 August 2028.
ASDAN is fully committed to supporting all its learners and members: if you have learners using the student books who are not expected to complete their Short Course by 31 August 2028, or if you are concerned about any impact of this change, please contact us.
Educators can download chosen challenges in PDF format, create personalised student books for learners, and upload evidence to Equitas once work is completed. This means Equitas can support fully online, fully offline or blended delivery.
No, please do not order books unless you have learners you want to register for the course. You will not be able to create a cohort for Short Course after 30 June 2027.
ASDAN’s Equitas platform (and our website) can be adapted using the UserWay widget shown in the bottom right corner of each page:
UserWay provide a range of tutorial videos that demonstrate how to adjust Equitas to suit your learner’s specific needs.
We want to identify any potential challenges associated with this change in how Short Courses are supplied
If you are currently using print-version Short Course student books, we would welcome your feedback on how you currently use them, and whether there is any support that would help with this change.
The survey will be open from 29 September to 10 November 2026.
Onboarding learners and educators
To access Equitas, you must have a login for the main ASDAN website and have been granted access to Equitas in your centre contact details.
When logging in to Equitas for the first time, please enter your email address and select 'Forgot password or not set one yet?' to set a password.
You can set this to be the same as the password you use for the ASDAN website if you like, however please note that the accounts are not synced – if you change your password on Equitas, it will not update your password for the main ASDAN website and vice versa.
We are aiming to combine the two into one login. Although for the time being, they are separate.
No. You should find it saves time if learners can access the platform as they can then upload their work themselves. But if you prefer not to give them access – or that’s inappropriate in your setting – you can add the material to their accounts yourself. You can also add the evidence for them even if you do give them access.
If you do not wish to invite a learner to the system, simply do not tick the box to invite them when you add a cohort.
Like many platforms, Equitas uses email addresses to set up accounts. You must enter email addresses for your learners if you would like them to log in and access Equitas themselves.
However, if you don't wish a learner to have access or they don't have an email address – do not enter an email address at set up. This will generate a placeholder email address so that tutors can upload evidence as the learner.
You can edit or add a learner's email address at any time, by editing learner information in the members area of the ASDAN website.
Learners will have a single Equitas login, where they can access all of their courses
If a learner does not receive their invite email, it may be in their spam folder or has been filtered out by your organisation's firewall. They can still log in to Equitas.
Please note that when logging in for the first time, learners will need to enter their email address and select 'Forgot password or not set one yet?' to set a password.
You can give staff access to Equitas in the members’ area of the ASDAN website - click on the Equitas access toggle next to their names. You even have the option to give staff access to Equitas who you do not want to give full access to the information or purchasing options in the ASDAN members’ area (which you can do by keeping the “ASDAN website” option toggled off).
Groups are automatically created in your centre’s version of Equitas from the cohorts you have set up on the ASDAN website. If you need to add learners to a cohort then you need to do that on the ASDAN website in the members’ area. The groups in Equitas that match cohorts are shown as “locked” for this reason.
However, you are able to create multiple groups in Equitas as well. So if you wanted to create a big group for all learners at your centre, no matter what cohort, you could do that - or alternatively a set of smaller groups within a cohort. Learners can be in as many groups as you wish.
Pricing offer for packages of volume
Yes, the discount will only be available to Short Courses on Equitas. It is not applicable for physical Short Courses or any other products.
This is available to all our ASDAN members, except SEED and Western Australia.
Discounts will be offered for the following:
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1-9 learners: £12 per registration
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10-19 learners: £8 per registration
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20-29 learners: £6 per registration
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30+ learners: £4 per registration
Cohorts will need to be registered at the time of purchase. Adding a learner to an existing cohort does not apply the discount.
No, discounts will only be offered when purchasing the same course.
Please forward any questions or queries to info@asdan.org.uk
Printing courses
Yes! Our new digital Short Courses are designed for educators who may want to use physical materials as well.
Each challenge has a printable PDF containing more guidance than previous Short Course books. Instead of overloading learners with more than 90 challenges, you can select the challenges you wish to use and print or share just those sheets.
Centres can also download and print Skills Sheets if learners prefer to complete them by hand.
The newest ASDAN Short Courses do not come with printed books because Equitas already contains printable materials for each challenge, which are more extensive than previous books. Collectively, they would make a very large book. We welcome feedback on this and may consider print on demand options in the future - email us at info@asdan.org.uk
Planning and doing challenges
Each learner effectively starts with a blank sheet. In the learner’s view of a course, click 'Customise my course’ to select challenges to assign. Only those challenges will then show to the learner.
You can select challenges gradually during a course or assign them all in advance. The ‘Course progress’ view shows whether enough challenges have been planned to reach the full course target (60 hours) or another set target.
Customise one learner’s course first. Then, in 'Course progress' for a Group, select the dots next to the learner, and choose other learners in the Group to duplicate the selected challenges.
Yes. Simply take photos of the evidence in the folder and upload them to the 'Do' section of each challenge. Doing this progressively reduces the risk of losing materials. At the end of the course, the portfolio can be shared digitally, so posting a folder is not necessary.
Many challenges have shorter (approx. 2.5 hours each) and longer versions (5, 10, 20, 30 hours). Simply select the version corresponding to the hours you wish learners to complete.
Skills in Equitas are suggested to help match challenges to the ASDAN six skills. These suggestions can be edited or added to once a challenge has started, either by the learner or on their behalf.
You can add links to this evidence in Equitas instead. Links must be viewable for quality checks and moderation. This option is not available for qualification programmes.
No. Suggestions indicate ways learners might demonstrate skills. You may accept alternative approaches you consider valid.
Tracking progress
View an overview in ‘Group progress’ or by clicking on favourited groups on your homepage. Click into modules to see which sections learners have been working on and approve or check their work.
They display hours tagged to a specific skill. Charts indicate time spent rather than proof of proficiency and can guide future challenge selection.
This feature will be added soon.
This feature may be added to the platform in the future.
Yes, until the course or cohort has been submitted to ASDAN, challenges can be reopened to add or edit material.
Yes - feedback suggested it is helpful for quality assurance and monitoring progress across groups.
Only if the educator unlocks it via the ‘Course complete’ tab by selecting ‘Reset form.’
General enquiries:
0117 941 1126 | info@asdan.org.uk
Finance enquiries:
0117 941 1266 | finance@asdan.org.uk
Orders enquiries:
0117 941 1448 | orders@asdan.org.uk
Media enquiries:
ASDAN main office
Wainbrook House
Hudds Vale Road
St George
Bristol
BS5 7HY
International members
0117 954 8317 | international@asdan.org.uk
Customised members