Academy is an innovative model of open education. At academy, we have found a way to provide a highly scalable, accessible, and collaborative model of education that allows the highest quality education to be taught by many people around the world, in their local time zone, in their local language. By integrating live instruction and networking, mentored research experiences, and professional development into the program, we advance scientists skills while connecting them to the next step in their careers.
Our tutorials can be completed asynchronously or synchronously, individually or in a group.
Our content is open access. All content is CC BY licensed (CC-BY Copyright Requirements), meaning anyone can reuse or build on it at any time.
Tutorials are interactive. They should include:
Mini-videos lectures
Videos should be short (3-5 mins). One concept per video.
Interactive exercises
The most important part of our pedagogy is to teach through interactive exercises
Written content is used to reinforce the main ideas that are also reviewed in the videos
Keep it brief
Make it clear and concise
No new content in the written text
Our content is accessible. People from all over the globe and from all different cultural background engage with our content. There are a few core points below, but you can see more aboutCreating Accessible Materialshere.
Think about the language you use - English is not many of our students' native language. Make sure your videos and written content are free of confusing sayings, jargon, and acronyms as much as possible.
Think about your images and diagrams - use colorblind-friendly palettes.
Think about scaffolding and creating small wins for students.
We believe in building student's knowledge about the How and Why, not just the What.
Students should learn the underlying theory of the concepts in the curriculum, not just how to run a set of code.