Academy on Layer5 Documentation

Content Creator Guide

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Welcome, content creators and instructors!

This guide provides all the necessary documentation for building high-quality educational content on the Layer5 Academy. We leverage a Git-native workflow, allowing you to use simple Markdown to create powerful, interactive learning experiences.

This section covers the entire content creation lifecycle, including:

Structuring your first Learning Path from scratch.
Writing course materials and embedding interactive labs.
Designing effective quizzes and assessments.
Managing and publishing your content.

We’re excited to see what you’ll build!

Extending the Academy

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The Layer5 Cloud Academy is a modular learning management system (LMS) designed for building learning paths and interactive, hands-on challenges. It is deeply integrated into the Layer5 cloud ecosystem and Kanvas — a visual designer for cloud native infrastructure. This integration allows you to embed live visualizations, interactive designs, and contextual experiences directly into your courses.

This approach transforms learning from passive reading into active, hands-on practice.

Learner Guide

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This guide is designed to be your friendly companion, helping you navigate the platform, understand its features, and make the most of your learning experience.

Here, you can achieve:

A systematic understanding of complex topics
Hands-on experience by solving real-world problems
Verifiable badges to showcase your skills
Official certificates to formally recognize your expertise

Exploring the Content Catalog 🔗

Your journey begins at the Academy’s main catalog page, where you can discover all available learning content.

Creating Content for the Academy

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This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough for creating and organizing new content in the Layer5 Academy. You’ll learn how to set up your content repository, structure your content, add assets, preview your work, and publish it for your organization.

Prerequisites 🔗

Before you dive into creating your first Academy content, it’s helpful to be familiar with the core technologies and concepts used by the Academy platform.

Shortcodes Reference

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The Layer5 Academy platform supports a wide range of shortcodes for enriching your learning content. Shortcodes are reusable template snippets you invoke in Markdown files to generate HTML output. They come from three sources:

Academy Theme — custom shortcodes built specifically for the Academy platform.
Docsy Theme — shortcodes inherited from the Google Docsy documentation theme.
Hugo Built-in — shortcodes included with the Hugo static site generator.

For guidance on creating your own shortcodes, see Extending the Academy.

Default Academy Roles

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Academy Administrator

Academy Administrator 🔗

What is the purpose of this role?

Management of an organization’s academy, learner management, and access to academy instructor console.

Who can assign this role?

Organization Administrators

When this role first assigned?

Manually assigned by an Organization Administrator.

How many instances of these roles?

Min: 0, Max: many

Who can remove assignment of this role?

Integrating Assessments in the Academy

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Layer5 Cloud Academy implements Learning Paths, Challenges, and Certifications to enrich the learner experience. We support multi-level assessments to guide and evaluate progress. The content structure is hierarchical and modular, enabling scalable learning design.

Think of it as a botanical garden:

Learning Path = the comprehensive plant collection
- Courses = themed sections within the garden
  - Modules = individual plant exhibits or plots
Challenges = the garden competition - focused skill challenges
Certifications = master gardener diploma - expertise validation

Our assessment strategy is like conducting growth check-ins throughout the garden. As a content developer, you have the flexibility to place assessments anywhere – after a single activity, at the end of a module, or as a final course assessment

Academy

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Layer5 Academy is a platform that provides a comprehensive learning experience for anyone beginning their journey into cloud native infrastructure or advancing along that path.

It organizes content into three key formats: 🔗

Learning Paths: Guided sequences of courses that break down complex topics into manageable modules.

Challenges: Practical exercises that focus on solving specific problems, often structured in a competitive or scenario-based format.

Certifications: Formal assessments that validate professional skills and provide recognized credentials.

Academy Instructor Console Guide

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The Academy Instructor Console serves as your command center for the Layer5 Academy, providing both a comprehensive overview of your content and detailed insights into learner engagement.

Gaining Access 🔗

To view the Instructor Console, you must have the Academy Admin role or be an organization admin.

Enterprise Feature

The Instructor Console and custom academy features are available exclusively for organizations on an Enterprise plan. Learn more

Building Certifications

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In Layer5 Academy, a Certification is a formal assessment designed to validate a learner’s professional skills in a specific domain. Unlike a Learning Path, which guides a user through a curriculum, a Certification’s primary goal is evaluation.

The successful completion of a Certification results in an official, shareable Certificate of Completion and a valuable badge, signifying a verified level of proficiency.

When to Use a Certification 🔗

To understand its unique role, here is a comparison with other content types in the Academy. Use this table to decide if a Certification is the right format for your content.

Using Academy Content Template Creator

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The Academy Content Template Creator is a step-by-step wizard that helps you create structured templates for your Academy content. This generator streamlines the process of creating learning paths, challenges, and certifications by collecting all necessary metadata and generating a ready-to-use template.

Getting Started 🔗

Access the Creator: Click on the “Create New Content” card in your Academy dashboard
Create Your Content: The wizard will guide you through 5 essential steps to create your content template

Since it’s straightforward, let’s walk through a practical example to demonstrate the process.