Courses built from reusable lessons.
A course is an ordered set of lessons, and a lesson is a stack of chapters — written material, an attached document, a video, a step-by-step procedure, a labelled diagram. Add an exam if the material needs one, a hands-on evaluation if it needs that, or neither. Publish it, and every member who works through it has a completion on file the moment the last requirement is met.
The course editor
Everything you author lives in The Academy: courses, the lessons inside them, the exam, the hands-on checklist, and the qualifications the course counts toward. One screen per course holds all of it.
- 1 Sheltering law, roles & the Red Cross relationship 3 chapters · reading, 1 attached document
- 2 Site survey & facility walkthrough 4 chapters · reading, video, labelled diagram
- 3 Registration & intake 3 chapters · step-by-step procedure
- 4 Dormitory setup & ADA compliance 3 chapters · reading, video
- 5 Feeding, supply & the shelter log 3 chapters · reading, attached forms
- 6 Demobilization & turnover 2 chapters · reading
The course editor. Illustrative content; your courses are whatever your program teaches.
- Members must pass an exam
- Members must pass a practical evaluation
- Issue a certificate on completion
- Allow members to audit before prerequisites are met
What a course requires is set per course, not fixed by the platform.
How it goes together
- Lessons are reusable, not copies. The same “Radio discipline” lesson can sit in your comms course and your SAR course. Correct a procedure in it once and both courses are correct, because there is no second copy.
- Order is drag-and-drop, and it's the order members see. There is no numbering scheme to maintain and no renaming a lesson to make it sort right.
- Draft until you publish it. A course is invisible to members while you build it, and can be unpublished later when a procedure changes.
What the course decides
- What counts as done. All lessons, plus an exam if you required one, plus a hands-on evaluation if you required that. Nothing is marked complete until every requirement is met, and completion is recorded in one place, so a course cannot be finished twice.
- Whether it issues a certificate. A PDF in your organization's own design, generated on completion and downloadable by the member afterwards.
- What it counts toward. Attach the course to the qualifications it feeds, and finishing it moves the member along that path automatically. That has its own page.
Chapter types
A lesson is built from chapters, and a chapter takes the shape of the material. They mix inside one lesson: read the policy, watch the demonstration, walk the procedure, then label the panel.
Written material
Formatted text with images, plus any file you attach — the SOP PDF, the checklist, the form they'll be handed in the field.
Video
Upload once and it streams to any device. A watch requirement is optional: a percentage you set, or the whole thing.
Step-by-step procedure
A numbered visual procedure, scrolling or one step at a time. Built by hand, or pulled out of a video you already have.
Labelled diagram
Your own photo or schematic with the parts named — and the same diagram can become an exam question. See how.
Walking a candidate facility
Six minutes, filmed at an intake, showing the team clearing the route before anyone counts cots.
- Confirm the entrance is accessible before assessing anything inside.
- Walk the egress path end to end. Note anything you would have to move at 2 AM.
- Photograph the panel and the shutoffs and attach them to the survey.
The member's view of one lesson: chapters across the top, progress along the bottom, in a browser.
Progress is saved as they go
Every chapter and lesson is saved as it's finished, so ten minutes at a kitchen table and the rest on a phone the next evening add up. Nobody loses a session's work or restarts a course.
Video that has to be watched
A video chapter can be a suggestion or a requirement. Set a percentage the member has to reach, or require the whole thing, for material where the demonstration is the training.
Say where it came from
Chapters can cite the source document behind them, which answers an auditor asking why the course says what it says, and locates everything that referenced a standard when that standard is revised.
The member's course list
One screen, on whatever device they have: what is assigned, what they are partway through, and where the certificate is.
A member's course shelf. Illustrative content.
How the list behaves
- Working ahead is allowed; skipping isn't. A member can start a course before earning its prerequisite and their progress is kept, but it doesn't count until the prerequisite is met. Nothing is re-done at that point.
- A refresher can't damage the record. Reopening a finished course to re-read it leaves the original completion, date, and score as they were.
- The certificate is downloadable from the list. Generated on completion in your organization's own certificate design, and available for as long as they're a member.
Courses somebody else taught
FEMA independent study, a state academy class, a Red Cross certification, a CPR card. These are tracked here as outside courses, recorded against the member without being presented as training you delivered.
- Dana WhitfieldFEMA IS-100.C Completed Jul 28, 2026 · certificate attached (PDF) Verify Reject
- Marcus ReyesCPR / AED (American Heart Association) Completed Jun 2, 2026 · expires Jun 2, 2028 · card attached Verify Reject
The verification queue an admin works through.
How an outside course behaves
- The member logs it, with proof. They pick the course, give the date they passed, and upload the certificate or card — a PDF or a photo of it is fine.
- An admin verifies it. Until then it sits pending and counts for nothing; a member cannot award themselves a qualification.
- Once verified, it counts like any other completion. It feeds the same ratings and the same advancement as a course you wrote yourself, and the record carries the expiry date where the certification has one.
The first draft can be generated
Where the material already exists as an SOP, a state curriculum, or a binder somebody has maintained for years, that document can go to the AI course generator. It proposes objectives and a lesson plan, you approve or rewrite the plan, and it drafts the chapters for you to edit.
It is a first draft, not an authority: nothing publishes without a human approving it, and the generated chapters cite the document they came from. See how the authoring assist works.
Bring one of your own courses to the call.
Send us an SOP or a lesson plan you already run and we'll build it out in front of you, so you're looking at your own material.
Pick a time that suits you, or email us about courses & lessons.