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As many of you have noticed, we just launched our new Qt Academy! Thus, we have recently received many questions regarding our learning initiatives. So, it’s about time we wrote a blog post to keep things transparent and all of you well-informed.
Self-Reflection and Strategizing Learning as an Experience
Throughout the past year, we have been going through our learning initiatives. We took the time to analyze the bigger picture: our resources, the overall experience, and community demands. We found learning material scattered around and no clear learning paths. It was relatively easy to find tutorial videos for specific topics; however, learning more prominent entities was much more difficult. How should you start, where do you go from here, and what should you expect? Well, our material needed direction and purpose.
So, it was time to stop everything and focus on designing a clear vision and strategy. We decided to aim high and target to create an industry-leading learning experience.
We started with re-designing our Education License. Our old Edu license required the teachers to apply for licenses annually for the class. We turned this upside-down, and now the students can individually apply for licenses. We also automated the process so students will get their licenses immediately; they only need an edu-domain email address.
Get Your EDU
Next, we hired pedagogical professionals to bring expertise and meaning to our project. Naturally, we researched learner profiles, their pain points, expectations, and ambitions. Then, we started to produce, upload and catalog our material, fitting into tracks and easy-to-follow learning paths.
We launched an improved learning site, courses.qt.io so that we could put our ideas and prototypes into your hands. And the response was incredible! We have over doubled the monthly visitors consuming learning content, and the overall course ratings are 4.5/5. What have we learned from it? The community was hungry for this content, so we should keep delivering it and constantly improve it. Speaking of improvements…
The Qt Academy Launch with FYI
In case you missed it, we have just launched our new portal for an even better experience. Yes, we are talking about Qt Academy and its distinguishable branding to highlight the importance of learning. This new platform enables learners to pre-register for courses and better schedule their learning activities. Also, it is easier for learners to follow their progress as they can continue where they left off last time. Learners can also count on a shared chat to ask questions and discuss learning-related topics with teachers and peers. Another feature will be gamification: learners can achieve badges faster than a whole Qt certificate and instantly share them on social media, such as LinkedIn.
The most significant change is the new customer-sponsored learning paths. It will encompass existing and new learning material to compose meaningful learning entities around the customer use case. We are still to introduce customer-sponsored learning tracks from a variety of fields. This initiative is directed at students, career-changers, or tech-minded people, providing them with the necessary groundwork to have Qt as a Career and a straightforward prospect.
The most significant change is the new customer-sponsored learning paths.
Customer-sponsored tracks include Qt courses and an interactive component, such as competitions, hackathons, or other development & design projects. The sponsoring customer and Qt shall then get together and decide on the best ones according to pre-established parameters. Those winners can showcase their work at the Qt World Summit, our annual Qt conference, or any other relevant event.
Our pilot track is developed with FYI.me, a California-based mobile tech company founded and headed by artist and tech entrepreneur will.i.am. The unveiling of Qt Academy and the FYI-sponsored track occurred at our launch event at the FYI headquarters in LA this April. The first courses will be opened on the 8th of May.
Due to overwhelming popularity, the Qt Academy x FYI Learning Path has reached total capacity four days after launch! Successful registrants will be contacted, and those who did not make the initial registration will be placed on a waiting list and notified if spots become available.
Qt as a Career - Mike's Story
On-Track for a Better Learning Experience
Now, of course, pilot projects come with a lot of testing out ideas and trying bold and new things. As well as a few issues here and there. Please, rest assured that we are actively working on them. For instance, we will tie together Qt Accounts and Qt Academy Accounts – right now; we understand it can be unpleasant to register for the Qt Academy when you already have a Qt Account. This hurdle should be out of your way, hopefully soon.
Our learning site, courses.qt.io, will be replaced at some point with https://www.qt.io/academy. The site will not just disappear; we will ensure no content will be lost, and users are redirected to Qt Academy pages. We are already in the process of copying courses to the Qt Academy. Some courses are part of the FYI x Qt learning path; those courses will also become visible to all.
Our learning site, courses.qt.io, will be replaced at some point with https://www.qt.io/academy.
Many of you may wonder why we are replacing the courses.qt.io so soon. The honest answer is that it was never meant to be a permanent solution but a more sophisticated way to test our hypothesis. Courses.qt.io is a webpage, not a real LMS (Learning Management System). Meanwhile, we tested the actual LMS internally. Our initial timeline was not this fast, but we got the results we wanted and wanted to go ahead and take the learning experience to the next level!
For now, we will continue working on partnerships, learning tracks, and content creation. We should also soon have news about our Qties dedicated to eLearning; stay tuned!
We aim to provide the five-star, industry-leading learning experience you deserve as part of our community.
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