This is Not a Report: An Introduction and Some Degree Changes

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This is Not a Report: An Introduction and Some Degree Changes

First off, I'm going to thank Muz and Raken for giving me the opportunity to run the Shadow Academy. I spent a year and a half helping Anshar and Aabs as Praetor to the Headmaster, and this institution means a lot to me. It's great to be back, and I appreciate the trust that has been placed in me. I also want to thank Solari for doing a fantastic job of bringing the SA alive on the new website. Unfortunately, now my office smells like a dirty lightsider and I will have to spend extra time plotting and brooding to clear the air. :P

Second, who am I? I'm Dacien Victae di Plagia, most recently Aedile and then Proconsul of that Clan over there. Before that, I was lazy for a long time, kind of like a certain beer-guzzling-polar-Panda I know. But back even before that, in the long, long ago, I held all sorts of jobs from BTL to CON, RHoJ, and P:HM. Now, though, I'm the new Headmaster.

In the next few weeks I hope to launch some new courses that are very near completion and get to work on courses that currently look nice on paper. :P But the first thing I'm going to do is happening right now.

A few codemonkeys-in-training have pointed out that starting this month, Udacity, the source of the courses and certificates required to earn a Dark Maven or Savant in Programming, is shifting to a new business model that will elimiante the free certificates currently offered. Assuming that our members do not, in fact, want to pay to earn degrees (let me know if I'm wrong -- I will gladly take all your moneys), and after consulting with my good friends in the Seneschal's Office, I have identified a new provider of free online programming training: codecademy.

codecademy offers interactive courses in HTML & CSS, jQuery, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, and Python as well as a number of directed projects that build on skills acquired in their courses. Creating an account is free, quick, and best of all (for me) publically available account information allows the HM staff to quickly verify completion of a given course.

Effective immediately, the following changes are being made to the Shadow Academy's programming degrees:

  • Dark Maven - Programming (MVPR) is retired.
  • Two new Dark Mavens are created:
  • Dark Savant - Programming (SVP) now requires completion of both new programming Mavens as well as the completion of the Ruby, PHP, or Python course (you only need one!).

No changes are being made to the Dark Sage - Programming requirement. You'll still need to toil for James to get that one. :P

So how do you pick up a degree after completing the requirements listed above? You send an email to me and Ood with a link to your codecademy profile. The profile will show us that you have actually completed the courses and we will manually award you the appropriate degree.

Very Important: Be sure that the name on your codecademy profile matches your DJB name as closely as possible (e.g., my profile).

The Wiki will be updated to reflect the changes shortly.

If anyone is currently working on completing one of the Udacity courses, get in touch with me and we will figure out how to handle your case (I promise to be nice).

Psht. This guy. Thinking he's in charge or something. =P <3 u Bub. Keep up the good work.

Hey, HEY. I don't guzzle beer. I sip my beer like a proper gentlepanda. :P

PS: This is basically a report (and a fine one at that)

going to have to do the programming ones now that the course work is free

Good report, and thanks for giving me an excuse to continue exploring the Codecademy site.

Riverche, this is not a report! :P

OK, good whatever it is.

totally a report.

I shall have to check this coding-link-thingy out...and yes, this is a fine non-report-that-is-really-a-report!

Boss,I am here to REPORT that your REPORT is in fact a REPORT that has been wrongly REPORTed as a non-REPORT. So until this REPORT is officially recognized as a REPORT, we're going to have to examine past REPORTS for validation of what classifies a REPORT a REPORT. I will REPORT back to you with my REPORT on your REPORT.

Brimstone REPORTing out.

This is satisfactory. Carry on.

Nice choice going with codecademy :D

Congratulations to DJK Meleu Karthdo of Plagueis for being the first person to attain one of these degrees (Maven Web Design)!

Also, I think reports have those banners and such in it. Think this is an update or something like it...

My reports are banner free so you can't judge by the banner :P

Sweet! I've been studying codecademy off and on for a couple weeks now. I love their lessons and the interactive editor. Nice choice!!!

Why do we have a sudden spate of report deniers. Why don't you want things to be reports? Is this a grand conspiracy to do away with reports? Are there secret codes hidden in real reports that aren't in fake reports?

Someone should write a report on this....

I'm actually having a lot of fun with these courses on Codecademy. Does that make me a nerd?

...don't answer that. :P

Points at the JH nerd

I said it in my non-report... if we call it a report then we did more than one report in a month, and that can't become the expectation! lmao

Good thing I got my Maven for Programming when I did :P

Sir, if you want to do that wordplay thing right, talk to a lawyer. We'll happily find you better terms than "non report" or "this isn't a report". That's too obvious and Muz will see right through it :P

Perhaps "quick update" would work insted

Are the titles for the SA society placeholders for now or are they seriously the final thing? 'Graduate (magna cum laude)', 'sophomore', etc. seem distinctly not Star Wars. Seems unusual for this club and not quite as shadowy as the name Shadow Academy suggests :P

Elincia, if you have any ideas shoot me an email :P

The issue I ran into is we needed a dozen names that weren't already in use (the Brotherhood uses a lot of names for everything.) In the end borrowing education titles seemed the last objectionable for an education based society =P

Also as a light sider I was acutely aware of how dark side biased everything is lmao.

Like Dacien said, email him your better ideas.

Dibs on Super Secret Lore Holder of The Fifth Circle of Exar's Suns!

SSLHotFCoES requires 180 academic credits and an appropriately large sum of unmarked, nonsequential credits in paper bag.

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