Start an academy

If you want to run your own academy on Alethris, you create it from the Alethris Hub with Start an academy. You give it a name and a web address, confirm the timezone it keeps, choose a brand colour if you like, and agree to the academy terms on its behalf. The academy exists the moment you choose Create academy, you are its owner, and its workspace opens straight away.

While Alethris is open to invited academies, only a person Alethris has invited can create one. The invitation arrives by email, "You are invited to set up your academy on Alethris", and lasts 30 days. Sign in or create your account with the address it was sent to, then choose Set up your academy in the email. Anyone else sees Academies join by invitation for now in place of the form, with Request early access. One invitation makes one academy.

Creating an academy does not change your account. You keep one Alethris account for everything, and you simply become the owner of a new academy as well. If you do not have an account yet, the sign-up page offers Start an academy under "Here to run an academy?", and it brings you to the same form once your account exists.

Where to start

The Start an academy button is on My academies in the Alethris Hub. Someone who belongs to no academy, and holds no place or offer at one, also finds it on the Hub's Overview, under "No academies yet". The Start an academy page it opens reminds you what a new academy starts with: free for 30 days, no card needed, and 25,000 AI credits included.

Fill in the form

1. Enter the academy's Name, between two and 160 characters. You can change it later.
2. Enter its Address: the part that comes before .alethris.com. While you type, the line under the field reads "Checking that address…" and then "That address is free."
3. Check the Timezone. It starts on your device's timezone. Session times, attendance and reminders are read in it.
4. Read Currency. It is stated rather than chosen: the box reads NGN — Nigerian naira and cannot be changed, with "The only currency programmes can be priced in for now." under it.
5. Optionally, choose a Brand colour. Leave it, and a neutral starter palette applies until you set one.
6. Tick "On behalf of this academy, I agree to the Terms of Service for Academies and have read the Privacy Notice for Academies." Each document's name opens it.
7. Choose Create academy.

Choose the address with care

The address is where your public pages, your sign-in and your workspace live, such as meridian-studio.alethris.com. It cannot be changed afterwards: Academy settings describe it as "Your permanent platform subdomain. It cannot be removed and will always resolve."

• It needs at least three characters and at most 63.
• It uses lowercase letters, numbers and single hyphens, and starts and ends with a letter or a number. Capital letters you type are made lowercase.
• Some words are reserved for Alethris's own addresses, such as admin, help and www, as is anything beginning with alethris or isoterik. When your invitation holds one of those for your academy, Address already shows it and it is yours to use.

On the Growth, Scale and Enterprise plans you can later connect a domain of your own, such as courses.your-domain.com. It then becomes the address visitors see, and the alethris.com address sends them on to it. The guide Your academy's website explains how.

What happens next

Alethris creates the academy, makes you its owner and opens its workspace at the new address, on the Overview page with its Set up your academy checklist. The academy starts on a free 30-day trial, and the plans that follow are explained in the Plans, billing and usage guide.

The academy also starts with Alethris's starter set: a framework of general skills and two rubrics, so that work can be marked from the first day. Review it before your first programme, as Set up how your academy assesses explains.

The academy also appears under My academies in the Hub, with the line "You own this academy". Its name opens your membership there, and Open opens the academy itself in a new tab.

Visitors cannot see the academy yet. Its address shows a holding page until you publish its homepage, and you can invite staff whenever you are ready.

When the academy cannot be created

• "That address is already taken." Another academy has it, or it is a reserved word. Choose another address; Create academy stays unavailable until you do.
• "Use lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens." The address contains a space or another character, or a hyphen at its start, at its end or beside another hyphen. Remove it.
• "Use at least 3 characters." Lengthen the address.
• "Use at most 63 characters." Shorten the address. It becomes part of a web address, which allows no more than 63 characters in that place.
• "Agree to the academy terms of service to start an academy." Tick the terms box and choose Create academy again.
• "The academy could not be created. Try again in a moment." Wait a moment and try again; your entries are still in the form.

When you open a new academy's workspace, the Overview page shows Set up your academy: "These set the academy up to certify what it teaches and take applicants, in the order they happen." Each unfinished step has an Open link to the page where you do it, and each finished step is struck through. The checklist stays on the Overview until all six steps are done.

Owners and administrators see the checklist. Other staff roles see the Overview without it.

The six steps

Each step, in the checklist's own words:

1. Public profile filled in — "A description and a public email, which your public pages show to applicants." It is ticked once the academy's profile has both a Description and a Public email saved. Open goes to Academy settings, then Profile.
2. Skills and rubrics reviewed — "Alethris started you with general skills and two rubrics. They decide what your credentials certify, so keep them, adapt them, or add your own." It is ticked as soon as the academy has a framework of its own, or once every item of Alethris's starter set has been kept, changed or archived while an active framework and rubric remain. Open goes to Competencies. While the step is to do and the assistant can draft, owners and administrators also see Draft with and the assistant's name, which opens Draft your academy’s skills there.
3. Programme created — "A programme is what you teach: outcomes, curriculum and assignments." It is ticked by the first programme you create. Open goes to Programmes.
4. Programme published — "Publishing fixes an edition that learners can enrol on." It is ticked the first time a programme's edition is published.
5. Open for enrolment — "A scheduled cohort, or a published self-paced programme, which learners join without one." A cohort still in draft does not tick it. Open goes to Cohorts.
6. Homepage published — "Publishing opens the academy. Until you do, its address shows a holding page and no programme or application link opens." Open goes to Public homepage.

The optional steps

No step under Optional counts towards the total:

• Invite staff — "Instructors and assessors work here under their own accounts." It is ticked when the first staff invitation is sent.
• Payout account approved — "Needed before learners can pay a fee. Free programmes need none." It is ticked once the settlement account is approved; Open goes to Payments & earnings.
• Staff assistant switched on — "It drafts programmes, skills, rubrics and announcements for your staff. 25,000 free AI credits from Alethris expire on 5 November." Every academy starts with 25,000, which expire 30 days after it is created; the line names the free credits that expire first. Once they are used up or expired, it reads "It drafts programmes, skills, rubrics and announcements for your staff, using the academy's AI credits." It is ticked once the staff copilot is switched on, and Open goes to AI assistant, where its switch is.

Why the order matters

The steps depend on one another. Your skills and rubrics come before the first programme because its outcomes name skills and its assignments are marked against rubrics, so the programme certifies what you teach, not Alethris's general skills. Set up how your academy assesses explains the review.

A cohort runs a published edition, so a programme is published before its first cohort. The profile comes first because applicants read its description and contact details on the homepage. The homepage comes last because publishing it lets visitors in: until then, every programme page, cohort page and application link at your address is closed.

Before a learner can join

Until the academy is open for enrolment, the Overview is in its opening state. The line under the greeting counts the setup instead of the day, such as "2 of 6 setup steps are done.", there is no Today section, and the figures beside the page say "Money, admissions, delivery and outcomes are counted here once learners start to join." Once a cohort is published or a self-paced programme is, the Overview shows today's sessions and the academy's figures, and the checklist moves below Today until it is complete.

On a phone, the workspace opens on Today, which shows the same checklist until the academy is open for enrolment.

When a step will not tick, or comes back

• The profile step stays unticked. Both Description and Public email must be filled in and saved with Save changes. A support email or a phone number does not count instead.
• The skills step stays unticked. The academy has no framework of its own, and something from the starter set is still unreviewed. Review the starter set on Competencies lists what is left; a framework of your own, made by hand or drafted by the assistant, ticks the step at once.
• The step is ticked, but the starter set still shows Starter. Ticking the step reviews nothing: each starter item keeps its badge until it is kept, changed or archived.
• A finished step is unticked again. The profile step is checked every time the profile is saved, so clearing the description or the public email unticks it. Unpublishing the homepage unticks Homepage published and brings the checklist back to the Overview. The skills step stays ticked once it is ticked.
• A cohort exists, but Open for enrolment is not ticked. A cohort in draft does not count. Publish it from its page with Publish cohort.
• You do not see the checklist. It shows only to owners and administrators. Ask one of them how far the setup has come, or ask them for the Administrator role on the Team page.

Your academy's profile is the set of facts people read about it: its name, a short description, how to reach it, and the timezone and currency it works in. If you are an owner or an administrator, you edit them in the academy workspace under Academy settings, then Profile. A description and a public email complete the first step of the set-up checklist, and the homepage cannot be published without them.

Edit the profile

1. In the academy workspace, open Academy settings. It opens on Profile.
2. Change any of the fields described below.
3. Choose Save changes. The page confirms with "Profile saved", and the time it saved appears beside the buttons.

Nothing is saved until you choose Save changes. Discard changes puts back what was last saved. If you try to leave the page with changes not saved, it asks Leave without saving?: choose Stay to keep working, or Leave without saving to drop them.

The academy

• Name appears on your public pages, on credentials, in the Alethris Hub and in the emails the academy sends. It takes two to 160 characters. Renaming changes the public pages and the Hub at once; credentials already issued keep the name they were issued under.
• Description is shown as one paragraph in the footer of your public pages, and in the homepage's Hero when the Hero has no text of its own. Search engines are given it as the academy's description. It takes up to 4,000 characters, and line breaks are not kept.

How people reach you

• Public email is shown in the footer and the Contact section of your public pages, and it is where a programme page's Ask the academy goes. Replies to the academy's emails come here when there is no support email.
• Support email is where replies to the emails the academy sends go. When both emails are set and differ, the Contact section lists them as Enquiries and Support.
• Public phone is optional and shown in the footer and the Contact section.
• Website is optional and linked from the footer and the Contact section. You can type it as example.com: https:// is added for you when you save.
• Social links appear as icons in the footer and in the Contact section. Choose Add link, choose the network the link is for, and type its address. The network you choose stays with the link even when its address is on another site, such as a WhatsApp link on wa.me. For a site that is not in the list, choose Another site. Each network can be listed once.

The Contact section shows each of these only when it is switched on in the homepage builder, and the guide Your academy's website explains the section.

Operating settings

• Timezone is the timezone new cohorts take unless you choose another for a cohort, and the weekly summary goes out by it. Changing it does not move cohorts that already exist: each keeps its own timezone. Analytics counts its days in it, and after a change counts every figure again in the new timezone within a few minutes.
• Currency is set when the academy is created, and it cannot be changed. Programme and cohort prices are in this currency. Every academy works in Nigerian naira (₦).

The academy's web address is not part of the profile; it is managed under Domains.

When a change is refused

Each problem is named in red beside the field it belongs to, and nothing is saved until every field is accepted. Above Save changes the page says "Some fields need attention. Each says what is wrong beside it."

• "Enter the public email as a full address, such as hello@example.com." The address is not complete. The support email is checked the same way.
• "Enter the website as a web address, such as example.com." The website is not an address.
• "Instagram is listed twice. Keep one link for each network." Two links are for one network. Remove one, or choose another network for it.
• "Someone else saved the profile" Another owner or administrator saved changes after you opened the page, so yours were not saved over theirs. Your changes stay on screen: note what you want to keep, choose Load the latest profile, and make them again.
• The fields cannot be changed. Only owners and administrators edit the profile. Other staff read it, with the note "Only the academy’s owners and administrators can change the profile."

The owner also finds a card for closing the academy at the end of this page. The Records, support and closing an academy guide explains it.

Your academy's branding is its four images and its two colours. If you are an owner or an administrator, you set them in the academy workspace under Academy settings, then Branding. Everything is optional: without a logo, a tile of the academy's initials stands in, and without colours, a neutral starter palette applies. Unlike the homepage, branding has no draft: whatever you save is what people see from then on.

Upload the images

The Identity card holds one row per image, each with Upload, or Replace and Remove once there is one. The page advises a mark on its own rather than a logo that spells out the name, because "Your academy's name is written beside the mark everywhere these appear".

1. Choose Upload beside the image and pick the file.
2. In the dialog, choose the part to keep, then Use this image. For a logo, Trim the logo lets you drag the corners in to cut away empty margins. For the favicon, Choose the square holds a square: drag it over the part you want, or move it with the arrow keys and resize it with − and +.
3. The row reads "Uploading…", then "Checking…", and then shows the new image. Repeat for each image you want to change.
4. Choose Save changes. Nothing you uploaded or removed takes effect until you do, and Discard changes puts everything back. The page confirms with "Branding saved".

Each image is prepared in your browser before it is sent: turned the right way up, trimmed, made smaller and saved as a PNG, so a large file is never refused for its size.

What each image does when it is missing

While an image is missing, its tile shows what stands in, with a line such as "Not uploaded. Your initials stand in for it."

• No logo: your academy's initials on its primary colour stand in, on the public pages, in the Hub and in the workspaces. Emails show the initials too.
• No dark logo: "Your logo is shown on a white plate instead."
• No favicon: the Alethris icon shows in the browser tab.
• No credential logo: certificates and credential pages use the standard logo, or no logo at all when there is no standard logo either.

A credential keeps the logo it was issued with, so a new credential logo appears only on credentials issued after you save it.

Set the colours

The Colours card holds two colours, each typed as a six-digit hex value or picked from the swatch beside it.

• Primary colour covers "Buttons, links and highlights, and the ground every public page is derived from." Left blank, the neutral starter palette applies.
• Accent colour covers "Eyebrows, prices and highlights." Left blank, it is derived from your primary colour, and the field shows the colour it will use.

Choose Save changes to apply them. The same two colours are on the Design tab of the Public homepage builder, where the template miniatures and the previews show a colour before you save it, and See the learner workspace in these colours opens the learner workspace in them.

Where the colours reach

Your primary and accent colours are drawn from on the public pages, on the sign-in pages people see on their way into your academy, in the workspace your learners study in, in the academy's emails and as accents in the staff workspace. On a light public page the ground stays near-white, as it does in the learner workspace, and your colours show in the buttons, the links, the coloured section backgrounds and a header or footer the template draws in them; on a dark page the ground is a near-black shade of your primary colour. The page template, fonts, corners and image shapes are not part of branding: they are set in the homepage builder.

When an upload or a save does not work

• "Choose an image: a JPEG, PNG or WebP file." The file is not a picture.
• "That image is width × height pixels. This place needs at least 48 × 48 to stay sharp." Choose a larger favicon.
• "That file is over 40 MB. Save a smaller copy and upload that." Choose a smaller file.
• "The upload failed. Try again." Nothing changed. Upload the file again.
• "Six-digit hex, like #0E9F6E." A colour is not a whole hex value. Correct it, or clear the field, before Save changes becomes available.
• "Branding could not be saved. Try again." Nothing changed. Try again in a moment.

Your academy's competencies and rubrics decide what its credentials certify: a skill an assessor approves against a rubric appears on the learner's credential, on the page an employer uses to check it, and on the learner's Skills Passport. So that a new academy can mark work at once, Alethris gives it a starter set of general skills and rubrics. Those general skills may not be what you teach, so the set-up checklist asks you to review them under Skills and rubrics reviewed, after the public profile and before the first programme.

Owners and administrators review frameworks and create skills. Owners, administrators and instructors review rubrics.

What the starter set holds

Alethris's starter set has three items, each with an amber Starter badge on the Competencies or Rubrics list until your academy keeps it or changes it. The badge names the starter set, not the Starter plan.

• Core Professional Skills, code CORE: six general competencies, Written communication, Collaboration, Problem solving, Quality of work, Professional conduct and Independent learning.
• Project assessment: a rubric marked with a score out of 100, with four weighted criteria.
• Core skills check: a rubric approved against skills, whose five criteria cover the framework.

Review the starter set

The Competencies page opens with Review the starter set while anything is left to review: "Alethris started your academy with general skills and rubrics. They decide what your credentials certify, so look at them before your first programme". Under Still to review: it links to each starter item nobody has kept or changed.

1. Open an item from Still to review:. Its page opens with Alethris’s starter framework or Alethris’s starter rubric.
2. Read its competencies, or its criteria and levels.
3. If it fits, choose Keep as it is. "Kept as it is" confirms it, and its badge goes. Keeping the framework keeps every competency in it.

To make an item your own instead, change it. Saving a change to a rubric reviews it. The framework is reviewed whole: changing its name, description or any competency with Edit… reviews them all. Archiving an item reviews it too. On a rubric, Make a copy gives you a copy of your own to adapt; the starter original still waits to be kept, changed or archived.

Draft skills of your own with the assistant

If your academy's assistant is on, owners and administrators can have it draft a framework of the skills you teach. Nothing is saved until you choose what to keep.

1. On Competencies, choose Draft skills with the assistant. The dialog Draft your academy’s skills opens.
2. Under Draft from, choose A description of what you teach and write, under What your academy teaches, the subject, who it is for and at what level, in a sentence or two. Or choose One of your programmes and pick it under Programme. An academy with no programme yet starts on the description.
3. Choose Draft skills. "Drafting skills from your description…" shows while it works, with Stop.
4. Rename the framework under Framework name if you like; its code is shown beneath. Untick any skill you do not want; the Skills heading counts those kept. Drafted from a programme with a draft open, The outcomes they prove maps each outcome to its skills; untick any you do not want.
5. Choose Create framework and N skills, or Set aside to keep nothing.

"Framework created" appears and the new framework opens. A draft spends AI credits. A programme's Outcomes offers the same for its own outcomes, with Draft skills for these outcomes. The set-up checklist's Skills and rubrics reviewed step offers Draft with and the assistant's name, which opens the same dialog.

Then draft a rubric for those skills

A rubric is how an assessor judges work against your skills, a criterion for each. Under a framework's skills, Draft a rubric for these skills opens a new rubric approved against skills, with the assistant's draft open and the framework's skills ticked, up to 8. Say what work it judges under What it judges, and choose Draft rubric. Read the criteria and their sentences, then choose Create rubric. Owners, administrators and instructors who may use the assistant see the link. Build a rubric covers the draft and the editor.

When the checklist step is ticked

Skills and rubrics reviewed is ticked as soon as your academy has an active framework of its own, made with New framework or drafted by the assistant. Without one, it is ticked once every starter item has been kept as it is, changed or archived while the academy still has an active framework and an active rubric. Ticking the step reviews nothing: each starter item keeps its Starter badge, and Review the starter set keeps listing it, until it is kept, changed or archived.

If you leave the starter set as it is

Nothing stops you building or publishing a programme. Until an item is reviewed, an outcome's suggested skill from the starter set is marked "A general skill from Alethris’s starter set." and left out of Accept all suggestions, and a programme that names a starter skill or uses a starter rubric lists it under Worth a look in its checklist, such as "… a rubric from Alethris’s starter set that nobody has reviewed yet." It still publishes.

When it does not work

• No Keep as it is. Only owners and administrators keep a framework; owners, administrators and instructors keep a rubric. Others see the callout without the button.
• No Draft skills with the assistant. The academy's assistant or its Programme authoring task is off, or your role cannot create skills. An owner or administrator can turn the assistants on.
• Draft skills is unavailable. Write at least 12 characters, or choose a programme.
• Not enough credits. The dialog says the assistant "needs more AI credits for this draft." The owner or a finance administrator buys more under Billing, then AI credits.
• No new skills. The dialog says the assistant "drafted no skills the academy does not already have." Your frameworks already hold what it found. Describe the subject more closely, or add skills yourself.

If you are getting an academy ready for its first learner, six things have to be true before a visitor can find a programme, join it and pay. Three of them are counted steps on the Set up your academy checklist, and the settlement account is one of its optional steps. The programme's visibility and its price are not on it: a programme only staff can see still takes learners you invite, so the checklist can read complete while visitors cannot find it.

1. A published edition

A programme, or course, is something visitors can join only once an edition of it is published. Until then it is a draft that only staff see. Publishing fixes the edition, the version learners study, and the Build a programme guide explains the readiness checks it has to pass.

2. A visibility that lets people in

Every programme starts as a private draft. Publishing asks who can find it, under Who can find it, and the same choice stays on the programme's page in the workspace afterwards:

• Public: "Listed on your academy's site for anyone to find", on the homepage and under Programmes.
• Link only: "Not listed. Anyone with the link can open it." Search engines are asked to leave it out.
• Staff only: "Only your staff can see it", with no public page at all.

The first publish starts on Public. Owners and administrators choose and change it.

3. A cohort with open dates, unless the programme is self-paced

A cohort-paced programme takes people onto a cohort, or class: one run of the programme with its own dates. Create the cohort, put at least one instructor on its staff, and choose Publish cohort on its page. Until someone is on its staff, the page says "Publishing needs at least one instructor.", and the cohort's checklist lists what else publishing needs.

Only a published or running cohort has a public page, and its enrolment dates decide what visitors see: Open while enrolment is open, Opens soon before it opens, and Closed once it has closed or the cohort is running. A cohort with every place taken shows Full. The Run a cohort guide covers cohorts in full.

A self-paced programme needs no cohort. Learners join it at any time once it is published and visible.

4. A price, or a free place

A programme's fee is set on the draft's Details page: Price is Free or Paid, with an Amount per learner for a paid one, and a cohort can set its own. A free programme: the public page shows "Free" and "No fee for this programme." A fee is paid in full in one payment, and the public page says so.

5. A settlement account, to take fees

Learners pay fees to your academy through Alethris, into your academy's settlement account: the bank account its earnings are paid into. Until there is one, the Payments & earnings page reads "No settlement account yet" and explains: "Learners cannot pay until a bank account is verified with Paystack, reviewed, and out of its cooling period."

The owner or a finance administrator chooses Set up settlement account there. Other staff see "An owner or a finance admin sets this up." A new account is not used straight away: the page says "Collections start once it is approved." The Fees, payments and earnings guide explains the review. A free programme needs no settlement account.

6. A published homepage

Publishing the homepage opens the academy. Until you do, your address shows a holding page, and every programme page, cohort page and application link at it is closed, however ready the rest is. Someone you invite by email from Learners can still take their place. The guide Your academy's website explains publishing.

Check it as a visitor would

Once all six are in place, open your academy's address in a private browser window, where you are signed out. Find the programme, open it, and follow Apply for this programme or Enrol on this programme as far as the sign-in step. If the programme is missing, check its visibility; if its page says enrolment has not opened, check the cohort's dates.