Support
Need some help with setting up, paying for or using an e-workbook? Our most commonly asked questions are listed below. Just click on the question to reveal its answer.
Registration
- How do I register an account?
To use a Perdisco product, you must first register an account. Registration is FREE and you only have to register once.
Once you have registered or logged into your existing account, you will be able to add your course's product by clicking on 'Add a product to my account'.
- Why am I not receiving the registration email?
To make sure that you receive emails from Perdisco, check the following:
- Make sure you have entered your email address correctly during registration. If your registration email has been sent, the email address you entered will be shown on the screen. If you have entered it incorrectly, start the registration process again.
- If you have a junk mail or SPAM filter on your inbox, check your junk mail or SPAM folder for the registration e-mail. If it is there, follow the instructions of your email provider or software to make sure that future messages are not marked as junk/SPAM.
- Is your inbox full? If it is, you will not receive new messages.
- Have you tried using a different email address? If you are still unable to receive the registration email, try using a secondary email address (if you have one).
- Why can't I click on the registration email link?
If you are having difficulty clicking on the registration link in your email, you may need to copy and paste it into your browser's address bar. You can do this by highlighting the entire link (it may be broken over 2 lines in your email) and selecting 'copy' (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+C on PC, Cmd+C on Mac). In a new browser window, click in the address bar and select 'paste' (Ctrl+V on PC, Cmd+V on Mac). When you do this, make sure your computer has pasted the entire link into the address bar.
If you can click on the link but are taken to a blank window or an error message, try disabling your computer's firewall or internet security software temporarily until your registration is complete.
- Why am I being told that I have already registered?
To use Perdisco, you will only ever have to register one (1) account. If you registered to use Perdisco in a previous semester (for either free OR paid access), you can add this semester's product to that account. To do this, login using the link at the top-right of this page.
If you have forgotten your username or password, you can retrieve these using the lost username or password link on the Login page.
- What should I do if I have registered with the wrong university, college or school?
If you have registered with the wrong university, college or school or have changed your university, college or school since you registered, please contact Perdisco support.
- How can I delete a product I added by accident?
To help you avoid accidentally deleting a product that is required for your course, products cannot be deleted from your Perdisco account.
Although a 'How do I pay?' link is shown next to each product that has been added to your account, payment is only required for the products you want to use. For those you don't want to use, simply disregard this link.
Payment
- Why does PAYPAL *PERDISCO appear on my debit/credit card statement?
PayPal securely processes internet payments for Perdisco.
Perdisco sells textbooks, assessment tools and other learning resources to students and instructors
of universities, colleges and schools.
If you see a charge from PAYPAL *PERDISCO 4029357733 AUS on your debit
or credit card statement but do not know why, it is likely because you (or your spouse or your child
with a secondary credit card on your account) has purchased study-related materials from us to
support their education.
If you still do not understand why you see PAYPAL *PERDISCO 4029357733 AUS on your account statement,
we encourage you to contact us directly before raising a dispute with PayPal or with your issuing bank.
We respond to all customer service inquiries within one working day. Please email or call using our
contact details.
- What should I do if I experience a problem with my payment?
If you experience any difficulties while trying to pay for a Perdisco product, or if your payment is taking longer to process than you expect, please contact Perdisco support with the following details:
- Your Perdisco transaction number for the product you were trying to pay for
- The payment method you used (Credit card, cheque, money order, BPAY)
- The date and time you made the payment
If you attempted to pay by credit card, please also provide the following information:
- The first and last 4 digits of the credit card number you used
- The name on the credit card
Your payment can only be investigated once these details have been provided.
Remember: Only online credit card payments will provide immediate access. All other payment options, including BPAY, can take up to 5 business days to process.
- What is a prepaid access code and how can I get one?
If your university, college or school has decided to purchase Perdisco e-learning on behalf of their students, or if payment for your Perdisco product can be made in-person at your university, college or school, you will see the 'Use access code' option within your Perdisco account.
A prepaid access code provides immediate access to a product once it has been entered into your account. Instructions on how to receive an access code will be provided by your course instructor. Access codes should be treated like cash and may not be replaced if lost.
- How can I get a refund?
As set out in our Terms Of Use, we do not generally provide refunds once a product has been purchased. However, we will accept withdrawal from your course as an exceptional circumstance and provide you with a refund.
If you have withdrawn from your course and wish to receive a refund, please send us a copy of the formal confirmation that you receive from the university of your withdrawal. You must send this to Perdisco within 2 weeks of your course withdrawal to be eligible for a refund.
If you are seeking a refund as part of Perdisco's Guaranteed Pass Program, please follow the guidelines provided here.
If you believe that you may have accidentally paid multiple times for a single product, please follow the directions provided in FAQ#8 so that we can investigate your payment(s) and provide you with a refund if necessary.
All refunds will incur a manual processing fee of $5.00.
- I accidentally paid for the wrong product. Can I transfer my payment to another?
If you have paid for the wrong product, we can transfer your payment for you to the correct product. Please contact Perdisco support with the name of the product you accidentally purchased and the name of the product you would like to have your payment transferred to. If there is a difference in price between the two products, we will either contact you to request payment or refund you the difference.
- Can access to my products be extended?
Access to Perdisco products will generally remain open until 2 weeks after the end of your university, college or school's final examination period. If you require extended access after this time to complete a deferred examination, please contact Perdisco support with your course details and the date of your examination.
If you are studying a course again this semester and you purchased a Perdisco product for that course when you studied it in a previous semester, you will need to purchase a new copy of the product. Each product is tailored to the current semester and the content may be different to when you last studied the course.
Getting started
- How do I set up my computer to use Perdisco?
Detailed instructions on setting up your computer to use Perdisco e-learning can be found here.
- What web browsers does Perdisco support?
Perdisco e-learning products are written to current web standards. To ensure that your e-learning functions correctly, we strongly recommend the use of the following standards compliant browsers:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6+
- Mozilla Firefox 1+
- Safari 3+
Perdisco does not support the use of browsers other than, or below the versions of, those listed above.
- How can I change my browser's font size?
To assist with accessibility, the font size of Perdisco e-learning can be changed to suit viewer preference. That said, our e-learning is best viewed with your browser's font size set at the default level of Medium, Normal or 100%. In most browsers, the option to change the font size can be found on the 'View' menu under 'Text size' or 'Text zoom'.
- How do I login?
To access your Perdisco products, you must first register an account and add your course's product(s) to that account (see FAQ#1).
To log in, enter your username and password in the login box on the Login page and click 'Login'. If you have forgotten either your username or password, see FAQ#18 below.
- How can I access a free library copy (ESR copy) of my Perdisco product?
In some courses, a limited number of virtual 'library copies' of a Perdisco product are provided free of charge through our Electronic Special Reserve (ESR) service for students who cannot afford to purchase their own personal copy.
Just like a real library copy, access to Perdisco's ESR copies are limited by time and number of users. While sufficient copies are always made available (based on students enrolled and the length of assessment submission periods), you may find it difficult to access a copy close to the due date of an assessment task. In this case, it is better to complete those tasks early while demand is lower.
To access an ESR copy, you must first register an account and add your course's product (see FAQ#1) in the same way that you would for a paid copy. However, instead of clicking on 'How do I pay?' to purchase the product, products with ESR access will also show an 'ESR login' link that will provide you with free access if a copy is currently available. If all copies are currently being used, you will be shown the usernames of those students logged in, with a 'return time' indicating when their copy will become available again.
More information about ESR can be found by logging into your account and clicking 'ESR info'.
- How do I find my lost username or password?
If you have forgotten your username or password (or both), you can find them by using the lost username or password link on the Login page.
- Lost password? Enter your username and we will email your password to the email address you registered with
- Lost username? Enter your given name, family name and email address. We will email your username and password to the address you registered with.
- Can't use the email address you registered with? Enter your first name, last name and the answer to the 'secret question' you chose during registration. Your username and password will be displayed on screen.
- How can I change my account details?
- Login to your account using the link at the top-right of this page
- Click on 'Change my details' in the 'Action menu'
- Enter your new details into the form, enter your current password to confirm the changes and check the 'Terms of use' box
- Click 'Next' to submit your new details
- You will then be given a summary of your new details. Click the 'Update details' button to confirm your changes.
Using Perdisco e-learning
- How do I use Perdisco's e-learning functionality?
Detailed instructions on using the functionality of Perdisco e-learning can be found here.
- How can I work on my questions offline?
Once you have logged into your e-learning product, click on the question link you would like to work on. When you are presented with a set of questions, press the 'Print' button. Once your questions are printed, press either the 'Home' or 'Bookmark' buttons to save your question set (do not click on 'Submit answers'). You can now log out of your e-learning.
After you have worked out your answers, login again and click on the question link for the questions you have been working on. Those questions will now be loaded. Enter your answers and click on 'Submit answers' to have your answers marked and to receive feedback on them.
- Can I get a copy of feedback that I have lost?
When you are provided with feedback on answers you have submitted, it is important to make sure that you follow the instructions provided to print or 'copy and paste' this feedback if you would like to refer to it at a later point. Feedback can only be viewed at the time of completing a question set and it is not possible for us to forward you a copy of your feedback at a later time.
If you have forgotten to save your feedback and you are using a product that contains practice questions, it is still possible to receive help on your assessment questions by completing similar exercises within the practice questions section (if available). Practice questions are divided into the topic areas covered and provide feedback in the same way as your online assessments.
- How do I get an extension on my Perdisco assessment tasks?
Perdisco can only provide you with an extension to complete an assessment task if we have received permission from your instructor to do so.
If you require an extension, please discuss your situation with your instructor and ask them to email us their permission.
Troubleshooting
- Why is the score for my assessment task displayed incorrectly?
If your assessment score is not showing or your average/highest score is displayed incorrectly on your home page, it may be because you have not correctly submitted your assessment attempt by clicking on the 'Finish' button as instructed.
If your assessment submission period is still open, login to your account and click on your assessment task link. You will be presented with the question or feedback page you most recently viewed. To complete the submission process, follow all of the instructions provided to ensure that you continue until you are told that you have finished.
If your assessment submission period has closed, the score you achieved for each attempt will be reported to your instructor, regardless of the score that may be shown on your home page.
- What should I do if I am being asked to login each time I click a question link?
If you are being asked to login each time you click on a question link, it is likely that your web browser or internet firewall is rejecting 'cookies' that are being sent from our website.
A 'cookie' is a small piece of data that our server sends to your computer once you login to your Perdisco account. Each time you click on a link, we check for that 'cookie' - and if you rejected or blocked it, our server assumes that you never logged in and asks you to login again.
To ensure that cookies are enabled in your browser, see FAQ#13.
If you have made sure that cookies are accepted and you are still having difficulty logging in, you may need to reset the cookies stored on your computer. You can do this by choosing to 'Delete cookies' or 'Remove cookies' in your browser settings/options (generally under your browser's 'Tools' menu). After doing this, close your browser window and then open a new one and try logging in again from: http://www.perdisco.com/login (rather than any other link you may have bookmarked).
You might also like to check if your computer's firewall or anti-virus software is blocking cookies. If you are unsure about this, you can temporarily disable these programs to see if doing so makes a difference.
- Why cant I access my Perdisco assessment task?
If you are unable to open an assessment task, please check the following things before contacting Perdisco support:
- Has your assessment task opened yet? You will not be able to click on the link to begin completing your assessment task until after the date and time that your instructor has chosen for the assessment to become available to students.
- Have you already submitted the assessment task? Once you have submitted an assessment task the allowed number of times, the attempts column will show a dash (-) and you will no longer be able to click on the link to begin further attempts.
If you have checked these things and you are still unable to access your assessment task, please contact Perdisco support.
- Why do I receive an error when I use the browser back and forward buttons?
Perdisco e-learning has its own navigation buttons built into it and you are required to use these to move forward, submit answers, bookmark pages and return to your home page and 'My account' page.
Once you have submitted a question page, you cannot use the back button of your browser to attempt to change your answers. Our e-learning's security system requires that you always move forward through its pages. To avoid seeing error messages:
- Do not use your browser's back, forward or refresh/reload buttons
- Always login before trying to access any question pages
- Login again if you haven't interacted with your e-learning for an extended period.
- What should I do if I think a question is academically or technically incorrect?
Although our e-learning content is both academically and technically reviewed before it is made available to students, we take all student queries regarding errors very seriously.
If you believe that you have been marked incorrectly or unfairly, we ask that you do the following before contacting Perdisco support:
- Carefully review the feedback provided by your e-learning to ensure that you have not misunderstood the concepts covered in the question
- Discuss the question with your course instructor, providing them with a copy of the question, your answer and the feedback you were given
If your instructor believes that the question is academically or technically incorrect, they should contact Perdisco support with the assessment name, question ID and why they believe the question to be incorrect.
Generally, Perdisco support will not investigate possible academic or technical errors unless prompted by a course instructor.
- How can I avoid rounding errors?
Our question authors consider the nature of rounding errors that can be made in each numeric question and the appropriate range in the final answer to allow for them. These standards are applied consistently throughout all of our questions.
The best way to avoid making rounding errors is to ensure that you do not round any of your intermediate working. Unless you are explicitly told otherwise, the final answer is the only component of your working that should be rounded.
When you are entering your final answer, you will need to carefully follow the instructions provided (for example 'Give your answer to three decimal places') in order to be marked correctly.
- What should I do if my question isn't answered above?
If your question isn't answered above, you can contact Perdisco support and we will respond within one business day.
So that we can answer your query, please provide us with as much information as you can about the issue you are experiencing.
Downloads
To use Perdisco e-workbooks, you may need one or more of the following free programs installed on your computer: