We are excited to introduce the Onshape Educator Plan, a new offering that is free for teachers or mentors who are training the next generation of engineers.
Designed to help educators get the most out of Onshape’s revolutionary CAD and data management capabilities, this new plan includes access to advanced features like Classes & Assignments and Onshape Simulation.
Upgrading Your Education Account
If you indicated that you were an educator when you originally signed up for Onshape, on your next login you will be prompted to upgrade by filling out this form. Once you verify that you qualify for the new plan by filling out the form, your account will be upgraded and you can return to cad.onshape.com to continue modeling and collaborating on all of your existing documents.
Once upgraded to an Educator Plan, you will become the owner of a “Classroom” that you can add your students to so they can access the additional features as well. You can manage users and change the name of your “Classroom” at any time from the “Classroom Settings” option in the top right corner of the screen.
Classes & Assignments in the Educator Plan
The Classes & Assignments feature was designed to meet the data management needs of educators, streamlining how you administer and assess CAD learning. Originally released for Education Enterprise one year ago, we are excited to be able to provide all educators with this revolutionary feature.
Once you create a class, you can add your students with a list of email addresses from the Members tab. This will automatically add them to your “Classroom” or send them an activation email if they don’t have an Onshape account already.
Assignments are designed to help you keep track of student work and there are three submission options for different teaching scenarios.
If you want to scaffold specific skills for your students by providing them with a document that has starter models or self-paced tutorials (like this one from the “Intro to CAD” curriculum), the “students begin with a copy of selected document” assignment type is a great option. You can upload PDF or video guides to a starter document along with parts or assemblies, then a copy will be made for each student when they click “Start Assignment”.
If you want to have students work on an open-ended modeling assignment or assess their ability to start from a blank document, you can select the “Students begin with a new document” assignment type. The “Students can choose what to submit” option is great for longer-term projects or group assignments where students are already working on a document before the assignment is created.
Any document attached to an assignment is automatically shared with you and can be accessed from the submission list under each assignment. Students will have a “Submit” option at the top of their documents attached to assignments which creates a version in Onshape for you to evaluate and comment on.
Onshape Simulation in the Educator Plan
The Educator Plan will also give you and your students access to Onshape Simulation, the easiest and fastest way to perform structural analyses on your designs. From an assembly, you will be able to apply loads and almost instantly see the stress, deformation, and natural frequencies of your parts and assemblies. You can learn more about how to use Onshape Simulation from the self-paced course in the Learning Center.
This new offering should help all educators using Onshape with students. Check out how it might help FIRST Robotics mentors organize their team’s work.
Onshape is proud to expand our offerings to allow educators teaching the next generation of engineers to use the highest quality tools for free. We can’t wait to see what you and your students make together.
Get Started with Onshape Education
Onshape for education brings CAD out of the computer lab and into the modern era.