Brave Dojo Instructor Resource Center

Important Bits At A Glance

Class Resources

Video Resources

Class Coordinators

Additional Dojo personnel can be found here.

Introduction

Welcome! Live classes and video guides are important components of the Dojo's overall mission to support Brave members and EVE players of all experience levels in whatever endeavors they choose to undertake in the vast and complicated world of New Eden. This page specifically aims to provide interested persons with all the information they need to get involved with the Dojo by teaching their own classes or creating their own video guides. It's also a good idea to join #dojo-instructors on Slack for asking questions and sharing knowledge with other instructors.

If you have questions regarding payment or other problems, please reach out to one of the coordinators listed above.

Live Classes

What constitutes a "class?"

We are not overly strict in our definition of a "class." In essence, any topic about Eve that you know well enough to talk about and explain for about 20 or 30 minutes can reasonably be considered a class. Most of our classes these days revolve around the basics of gameplay, particularly with regard to fleet PVP: Fleet 101, Logi 101, EWAR 101, Tackle 101, and so on. This is only scratching the surface, however. There is always demand for advanced content as well as niche topics. So when it comes to teaching, the sky really is the limit!

Who can teach?

We impose no official restrictions on who may ping and run classes, so long as they are a member of a Brave corporation. We only ask that you are sufficiently familiar with your course material before pinging.

Why teach?

Think back to your first day in New Eden. I'd wager it was quite overwhelming and you may have felt a bit lost. For many of us, our first days were long before the extensive tutorial systems that exist nowadays, compounding the difficulty of an already steep learning curve. Now think: was there anyone that offered you help in your early days? A fellow player? A Game Master? A corporation? Hopefully that's a "yes." Now think to more recent times: have you learned anything new about the game in the last week? Month? I also hope this is a "yes." The Dojo is here to be that hand that reaches out to help players no matter if it's their first day or their twentieth year, and we hope always to guide them in the journey of their own making.

If the above wasn't sufficiently moving by way of emotional appeal, let me instead see if cold, hard ISK will do the trick. That's right! You'll get paid for every class you teach! The current payment schedule is listed above.

What should I teach about?

That's a question I can't entirely answer here. I can, however, give you a couple guidelines: your class needs to be on a topic you know reasonably well. You don't need to know every single detail about every single facet of the subject, but you should be able to explain it well enough that someone with the prerequisite knowledge will understand you clearly. Typically instructors gravitate toward topics that cover the things they most often do and enjoy in the game: tackle pilots tend to teach tackle classes, industry moguls tend to teach industry classes, and so on. That's not to say you should limit yourself, though. If you have a good base of knowledge, even the process of preparing to teach a new class can impart a ton of knowledge, so don't be afraid of pushing boundaries every now and again!

How does the process of teaching work?

For those that prefer video format, I've recorded myself going into detail on this topic which is embedded here; for those who prefer text, I've written a summary below:

If you have an idea for a class, are very familiar with the material, and are confident in your ability to clearly explain the topics included, you are more than welcome to go off-the-cuff as an instructor. Oftentimes, a more informal feeling leaves students feeling a bit more relaxed and attentive so long as the instructor meets the criteria mentioned previously.

I know I for one am not a natural public speaker so I typically like to do at least a little preparation ahead of time so it's not completely improvised in the moment. That process can be broken down into some or all of the following steps:

1. Select a topic: You should be knowledgeable about it but you do not need to know every single detail. Scope should be limited–try and stick to a single topic, avoid being overly broad or lengthy. Depth should be appropriate for the level of class (beginner, etc). Ask in #dojo-instructors if you're looking for ideas
2. Prepare outline and reference materials: Outlines are a great way to keep yourself on track during your class, though some people prefer fleshed-out scripts. My favorite method is an outline with bullet points which remind me of each sub-topic at a glance, but allow a natural speaking cadence and flow of conversation as I expand on the finer details. Either way, having the major topics, any supporting information, as well as the order in which to present the information helps keep the class moving at a steady and smooth pace. If you have anything you're going to direct your students to such as wiki pages, websites, videos, streams, and so on, it's a good idea to gather all those links into one place and have them ready to go before class begins. The in-game notepad works great for this purpose.
3. Select a time for your class: There is no set schedule–run classes at whatever time best suits your availability. That said, those with flexible schedules may consider the following: our busiest times are EUTZ and USTZ during their respective evening hours. AU/CNTZ is under-served and could certainly use some classes.
4. Send out a pre-ping: Using the ping board will automatically add your class to our event calandar. You should also quickly check this calendar to see if there will be any conflicting events. Make sure to select the #pings-dojo channel and fill out the pre-populated ping body. Please pre-ping classes 24+ hours in advance to give potential students plenty of notice. Including a time link greatly reduces confusion across different timezones (the pingboard can automatically do this with {{time}})
5. Ping again and run the class: Repeat the previous step about 15 or so minutes before class begins. If you need to delay or reschedule, ping this information as well
6. Conclude your class: Give any closing remarks, leave time for Q&A, and provide direction to further resources if applicable
7. Submit payment request form: The form can be found here
8. Done!

Borrowing Dojo Ships

If you need to borrow ships from the Dojo for your class–such as Ospreys for Logi 101 or Atrons for Tackle 101–simply reach out to any member of the Dojo crew ahead of time and request the ships you would like to borrow. When you're finished with them, just create a contract to give them back to the Dojo (with max expiry time) and someone will accept it when they can. Dojo crew can be reached in #dojo, #dojo-instructors, or the in-game Dojo channel. You can also reach out to a class coordinator noted above.

Video Content

What kind of videos?

Similarly to classes, we want videos on pretty much anything Eve-related, from the most general overviews to the narrowest niche topics. These can be videos produced and edited solely for the topic–what I call "standalone" videos–or they can be recordings of live classes (do note that there currently aren't any additional pay incentives for recordings submitted in addition to live classes, but that may be subject to change)

Where do these videos go?

All videos accepted by the Dojo go on our official YouTube channel for anyone to view and learn from. Alliance leadership uses funds generated by ads run on these videos to fund further Dojo operations

What standards do you look for?

The minimum standards we like to see are pretty basic; professional-grade work not required. As long as a video has the following traits there should be no issue accepting it:

1. Decent quality video (final cuts are uploaded at 1080p60)
2. Some kind of explanation of your material such as voice-over or text
3. Where applicable: clear, clean audio (free of background noise as much as possible)
4. No copyrighted materials (music, images, etc)

How do I create videos?

This is a tricky question to answer concisely as it's ultimately down to the preference and hardware of each creator. I did make a video explaining the things I prefer to do (specifically about using OBS for recording), and for those that prefer reading, I will summarize the key points in writing below:

1. Install some sort of screen recording software (like OBS Studio)
2. Set up your video source, either whole-screen recording for the monitor you'll be using to display your material, or program-specific window recording for Eve or other programs you might wish to record for your video
3. Set up your microphone as a recorded input (if recording a class or voice-over)
4. set up any other programs as audio sources if you need to record them for sound
5. I highly recommend setting up all your audio sources in separate tracks so they can be independently modified during editing, as opposed to a single track where all audio sources are permanently mixed and can't be separated again. I go into detail on this process in the video above (for OBS specifically)
6. Adjust your recording parameters such as resolution, framerate, bitrate, etc. Videos are most often rendered at 1080p 60fps for the final upload unless the original video is a lower value than that. Consider using the mkv container format, as it is more robust than mp4 when it comes to recovering data in the event of a crash during recording
7. If not recording voice-over to explain the content, add text as needed to explain the details of the topic you're covering. This will require editing software; Da Vinci Resolve is a relatively powerful editing suite which comes with the additional benefit of being free, but any editing software of your choice will do
8. Optional edits you can do if desired include: adding a title with the video name and instructor name, blurring any sensitive information, cutting irrelevant sections, etc. Please note that our editors will also handle all of the aforementioned and more for raw video submissions, but we do very much appreciate receiving edited videos!
9. Submit your video using the form found here

Join the Dojo Editing Team

If you like working on video content and want to get more involved, you can join the Dojo Video Editing team! There are never deadlines or crunch times, everything is done at your own pace and convenience. DM Nater Ormand for more information.