Welcome!
This is the Exilian Academy. Here, people with personal and professional experience share that expertise in subjects from handicrafts to philosophy, programming to writing! People can work towards Exilian certificates and specialisations, or for their own enjoyment and professional enrichment.
If you are interested in taking a course, please visit the course sign-up thread.
If you are interested in running a course, you should message Lizard (Chartophylax) as soon as possible!
The FAQs have been taken from previous iterations of the Academy, as they're still relevant. Please ask any more questions in this thread!
Frequently Asked Questions
So what's so special about this?
The key thing the Academy offers is that it isn't just a bunch of things to read; the course creators will actively tutor their students to produce a final piece of work or be assessed over a few days or weeks. All the courses will be structured differently, so feel free to look around and dip in! The courses are grouped by subject, so if you want to work for one of the larger achievement awards (see below) you'll need to go for courses in a particular group.
How are the courses delivered?
There will be plenty of discussion areas in this part of the forum; these will be used for tutors to post articles which their students can then comment on & discuss. Tutors will also be accessible by personal messaging on the forum, and may also give out instant messaging details for Skype or MSN if they want students to be able to contact them that way. There will also be a shared Academy YouTube channel for the tutors to deliver lectures.
What course groupings are offered?
The current list of groupings, with codes, is found in the "Course List and Certification Categories" thread.
What do I get for doing these courses?
Courses will be worth Academy Credits; one credit approximates to a short day's work (though not usually done all at once), so most individual courses will be in the 1-5 region. For each course you do, we'll register you've completed it, and how well you did - the course tutor decides how many of the course's possible credits you get, so a 5 credit course gives a maximum of 5 credits. Credits may be given to the nearest decimal place; the expectation is that a good mark would be around 80%, an exceptional one 90%, with most people averaging around 70%. We can then email out certificates of achievement to you in PDF format.
Additionally, it's possible to work up to something bigger; those who do a lot of courses in a particular subject group can work for the following:
25 credits (Exilian Foundation Certificate)
50 credits (Exilian Academic Certificate)
150 (Exilian Advanced Academic Certificate)
350 (Exilian Degree)
450 (Exilian Honours Degree)
Certificates are available in specialisations, including Polymathematics for the varied course palette.
These accolades are designed to be difficult to achieve, but are a big possible target for particularly dedicated academy students to work for. There will be certificates available for them, as well as them showing up on the forum award system beneath your profile picture.
Can I create a course?
Yes! Information is available in the 'Running a Course' thread, or message Lizard.
What do I get for running a course?
There are no physical rewards or payments available to lecturers, but we of course do our best to show our appreciation. For any course lecturer who is also a site citizen, running courses will lead to rewards via our "triumph points" system, which is Exilian's system of showing the work of active and useful members. Lecturers who are not site citizens will find it easier to become citizens (a rank which gives full rights to vote on many vital site issues as well as other perks) as a result of the important work they are putting into the academy.
