There's been a few things going on in the last week. Firstly, the XvT mission design course is finally online. The professor, LC Marcin, has shown extreme patience in waiting and has gotten a Silver Star for his efforts in writing the course. Thanks to COL Striker for taking the time to write the site for it and host the course. The course is now under the Courses page (http://www.imperialacademy.org/courses.asp). This brings to the total number of active courses to 16 and closer to my goal of having 20 active courses.
The Post Graduate Center is a facet of the Training Office that a lot of members don't use or know about. Some members have often asked where they can go after they've done an IWATS course to improve their knowledge and skills beyond what the courses cover. The Postgrad Center tries to fill that role. It contains links to books and other products that can extend a member's learning past what the courses cover. The latest review is of a book called Modern Database Management and it's an exceptional book which I used during my database unit at university. It's also used in many US colleges. It would be a good companion to the upcoming database design course. The Postgrad center has been neglected lately, but hopefully, as more courses come out, more resources will be listed.
In light of the fast-approaching graduate total of 10K, I've added a new poll to the site. The poll asks "What should Ast get for IWATS getting 10,000 graduates?". So far 23 people have voted and with a massive lead of 13 votes is Natalie Portman. The next most popular option is renaming the Sovereign after me, which I'm sure is making all those Sov people nervous. :P I'll be looking into a way also, of coding some stuff such that a person can view the results of previous polls too, and not just the current one.
The Shameless Promotion Competition (http://www.imperialacademy.org/comps/shamelesspromotion/) and Daedalus Motto Competition (http://www.imperialacademy.org/comps/daedalusmotto/) close this Monday, the 27th, so get your entries in ASAP. I plan on starting another competition either mid-next week or on the weekend.
I did some cleaning up of the imperialacademy site during Friday, deleting a lot of files and other junk. I also fixed an annoying database design problem with the competitions database. The Projects page also got an update. Membership Concerns has been updated, along with a courses section and stuff planned for the EH Ladder. Before anyone panics, the PHP course is listed as Suspended because myself and the outgoing IO, AbsoluteK, are still working out if the course design will go ahead and who will do it. In light of the deleting of files and the database updating I've been doing, it's very likely that an error or two will pop up. If this happens, email me with the exact error.
Lastly, I personally passed 6,000 graduates during the week. Not bad. The mIRC/1 course has also just passed 1,200. mIRC/2 is almost at 800.
ID Line Blast from the Past
FM/LT Goatham/Rage 3-4/Wing I/SSD Avenger (27th August 1999, mIRC/1)
WC/MAJ Fondor/Wing V/SSSD Sovereign (26th August 2000, IIC/1)
Current Staff
HA Astatine - Training Officer/IWATS Dean
VA Mell - Training Office Assistant
COL Ford - Professor, TIE Fighter Tactics
CPT Predator - Professor, Rebellion Tactics
CPT Daisuke Airyu - Professor, Graphics
LC E. Tarkin - Professor, XvT Fighter Tactics
LC Marcin - Professor, XvT Missions
CM Flelm - Professor, ICQ
AD Ari - Professor, VBS
MAJ Aylius Khan - Professor, Computer Basics
COL Scoser - Professor, TIE Missions
COL Ricardo - Professor, Squadron Management 2
COL Striker - Professor, XWA Missions
TO-DEAN/HA Astatine/CS-6/SSSD Sovereign
MoH/IC/OoR/GOE/GSx2/SS/BSx3/PC/ISM/MoI-DC/LoC/CoS/CoE/CoL/LoA/OV-3E
{IWATS-IIC/1/2}
"Command Attache free since January 2000"
"I just can't seem to score with chicks. They just bounce off the edge of the hockey goal and lie there chirping in pain."