Introduction

It's been a wonderful month as I begin to settle into my new role, and I'm excited about the things we've accomplished already as well as the things on the very near horizon. Marcus has proven to be an absolute rockstar, Ood continues to be an excellent mentor in all things SA, and Mirus and Alishu are still working hard on their respective projects. Our Professors and Docents are grading their exams quickly and efficiently, and I couldn't be more pleased at how hard everyone is working as we begin a full audit of the SA.

New Courses

Since my last report, we've released three new courses. As Wally detailed in his recent report, there is a new Lightsaber Combat exam that focuses on how to utilize your fun glowbats in the ACC properly. Along the same lines, the new Martial Arts guide now has a proper Martial Arts exam to go along with it as well. Both exams are based exclusively on their respective guides and were created by Wally and his staff, so hats off to them on excellent work.

Over the past month, Wally and his staff weren't the only ones keeping us busy. Aexod also put the finishing touches on an excellent Diablo 3 primer course that you can find here if you haven't already taken it; in less than a month, 41 people have taken it, so there are a few of you left I suppose. :)

Speaking of lightsabers... as Wally mentioned in his report, the Lightsaber Combat exam was splintered off from Mirus' work on the general Lightsaber Studies course. As of a few minutes ago, the outdated Lightsaber Studies course and exam have been replaced and the new version can be found here. If you previously took the course, you will not have to retake it; you're welcome to look over the new material though!

Projects

Current

Shadow Academy Staff are currently engaged in the following projects:

• SW History Department Rewrite - Aabs & Farrin: Because of the evil Darth Mickey, my beloved Galactic History courses aren't fully canon anymore. The courses are being pared down (almost in half) and will be added to the Legends Department. This has been delayed a bit because Aabs and I are a bit busy. Should be done by next report, though. Estimated completion: 7/1/16

• DJB History I & II Update/Rewrite - Alishu: The DJB History courses have become outdated and needed some clean-up. DJB History I has been more or less completed and Alishu is almost done with DJB II. This has taken a bit longer because he discovered some of our more recent history isn't as well catalogued on the Wiki. Estimated completion: 7/1/16

• The Dreaded... AUDIT! (non-SW courses) - PROFs/DOCs, Farrin & Ood: The non-Star Wars courses will be audited for accuracy, typos, etc. Exams are going to be reconfigured and updated. Expected Completion: 7/2016

• The Dreaded... AUDIT! (SW courses) - PROFs/DOCs, Marcus, Alishu, Rhace: The Star Wars-based courses will be audited for accuracy, typos, etc. Exams are going to be reconfigured and updated. I'll be reaching out to some people this week to help us out. Expected Completion: 9/2016

Upcoming

• Operation Remodel - SA Staff: In an effort to streamline the organization of the Shadow Academy and make it easier to initially get to information and then to find similar information, the SA will see a fairly extensive reorganization. The audit takes precedence, but expect to see more about this later on this summer. Expected Start: 7/2016; Expected Completion: 9/2016

• Operation Prereq - Farrin: In order to make a more focused new member experience, different options are going to be explored to create prerequisite courses before other courses open up to a member. This is on the back burner for now, as the SA Staff has more pressing matters (y'know, the stuff above this item) and it'll require some tweaks on the coding end. Expect more info on this over the summer as well. Expected Start: Unknown; Expected Completion: Also unknown. :)

That's of course not all we're working on. There are a bunch of other exciting things I'm hoping to get completed this summer. Man, it's a great time to be in the Shadow Academy!

Miscellaneous Announcements

• Beginning (way too damned) early tomorrow morning, I'll be traveling to a national debate tournament and will return next Sunday. I don't expect much of a disruption in my email or Telegram response time, but just in case... if you need anything urgent from me, please include Marcus on the email. You should be doing that anyway.

Top Exam Takers

Name	# of Exams	# of ACs
Privateer Xeipha	23	12
Neophyte Zul Zorrander	22	8
Savant Edgar Drachen	12	20
Proselyte Kyx	12	5
Savant Mune Cinteroph	12	15

Note: these numbers cover the period from 5/12/16 to 6/11/16.
Cooler note: as promised last month, this month's top exam taker - Xeipha - has received a SoF for her efforts!

Conclusion

The Shadow Academy covers tens if not hundreds of thousands of words, and those words were written by imperfect humans (GASP!). We try our best to catch and fix any and all errors before we release courses, but we're not always successful. Because of that, we will always need your help. If you spot an error, please report it to the SA Staff using this simple form; if it's a major enough error, or you spot enough, you'll be rewarded. At the very least, you'll get the thanks of a grateful HM... that's got to count for something, right?

In Darkness -
Farrin Xies,
Headmaster of the Shadow Academy