Hello,
I think it wolud be very good to have accredited Asgardian university with fully legitimate cerfiicate which could offer a second opportunity to Asgardians to be educated in field in which they feel most comfortable and thus develop maybe hidden potentials which have been maybe muted because of bad education system, lack of opportunities, or bad choices.

An online learning Academy would be nice but what about people with limited internet access? If the learning is mostly through videos and pictures would those having slow internet speeds in more rural areas lose out? What about people who need teachers to guide them through the learning process because they could not understand on their own? Skype is a solution but again people with limited internet speeds would be unable to do so.

Not trying to make it seem impossible or tough here but I'm stating the problems that will have to solved in order to implement this :) It is an excellent idea that reaches out to all children and teenagers around the world but I think it needs to be polished.

I liked the idea , but its not better to make the best courses to Asgardians? like astrology and bioeng. , i think that asgardians can gain the preference to the courses and the spots that have left , we can make a scholarship to the rest , well I may seem a bit selfish, but we (Asgardians) should gain some privilege to study since its to go the best of Asgard

By: BohZao on 25 December 2016, 6:12 p.m.
I liked the idea , but its not better to make the best courses to Asgardians? like astrology and bioeng. , i think that asgardians can gain the preference to the courses and the spots that have left , we can make a scholarship to the rest , well I may seem a bit selfish, but we (Asgardians) should gain some privilege to study since its to go the best of Asgard

BohZao, all this things are not for Asgardia, but for humanity. Read again the Asgardia concept: https://asgardia.space/en/page/concept

This is from the concept:

The scientific and technological envelope of Asgardia is a space arena for the scientific creativity of its citizens and companies in developing a broad range of future space technologies, products and services for humanity on Earth and humanity in Space.

Therefore, Asgardia is not just another state which strives to be the best among others. Asgardian philosophy is well-being of every human being.

i have never said that they cant partipate , its if we want make the good for others we need first knowledge , at least in the beginning asgardians can have some preference, if we want to make a nation we need that the people know whats is doing or at least have some knowledge , in the inital phase we should give preference for asgardians, if more asgardians have some knowledge about some basics from the university we can make faster that Asgard do a real good thing to humanity (obvious we will not say that they can not enter only that we make class and make like 60% of the class for asgardians and 40% for public interested in learning...) you can say that its not following Asgardia concept but its for the good at long term, and we can make this like a test for the university XD

One thing that really concern me is the cost. If you look around, in most country, the university fees has been absurdly high that it's not affordable for those who's coming from poor family. So, the best way we can do it is by providing it free, but what about operational cost? Who will be covering that?

As for delivering method, current online course is the most feasible. Until Asgardia has an actual piece of land somewhere, then other option may be possible.

... Unless, we are having branches in multiple countries and have academy staff there. Once again cost will be the biggest consideration (and other political issue. Imagine the attack from those for-profit institution, if we are doing it for free).

Being accredited is ideal. However not essential. What is essential is high quality to educational standards. That's what will be recognised the most, externally and internally.

Multiple choice questions are commonly accepted to be the easiest way to pass a course you haven't studied for.

Skype isn't an option, if you understood security or privacy. It's entirely possible to have this sort of functionality, but without things like sampling your desktop, filingsystem, etc, lent to the site the educational courses are run on. Internet access obviously won't be that limited, or they wouldn't of got this far. Sometimes, learning is best done thorugh the use of video etc, in some cases it may be possible to offer reduce bitrate versions or where sensible textual transcripts. However, as speed is a function of distance over time one could simply just wait longer for the video to download. I can remember dialup quite clearly, and I seemed to cope back then. Another option would be to package the course materials onto some form of media - do people still use optical? - and have it posted to them.

The "best" courses for Asgardians is everything. There should be no facet of knowledge ignored. Astrology is the superstitious belief that the various position of stars in relation to other stars somehow has impact on terrestial events or people. I fear you may of intended Astronomy. I've no idea what the second specified field is supposed to be. There should never be privilige involved with educational opertunities. It is something that should be freely available to all. There is far more advantages. In the initial phases, I would doubt there would be sufficient interest outside of Asgardians. If anything, courses could be offered at a cost to citizens of other nations during our startup phase as a way of making this self sustaining. The problem with that, is until we are recognised as a serious educational provider I predict most to be unwilling to pay for a qualification no-one will recognise.

As for operational costs, Initially they can be kept low by recycling and making effective use of existing resources. This server is likely to be able to support dozens of other sites - the largest issue will be storage of many materials: videos, etc - and as for the content itself, this could be produced by those in our number qualified in the appropriate fields in their spare time. Even with a donation of one hour per week of their time, then over time this will collate.

I had lent thought of attempting to register Asgardia as a charity in my country in order that certain operations can take place tax free. If we are offering educational courses on a non-profit basis then this will assist with conforming to various requirements for. I don't imagine the "for-profit" institutions will feel threatened by us in the slightest - I seriously don't think they would entertain launching any form of assault. There's multiple organisations already offering courses sans cost. But these tend to be of limited quality or use.

That proposal is a good step forward and I hope that it can be realised fairly quickly. In the absence of that education can start already , particularly as we have many members with no much to do :) From the many on line education resources linked in the E teaching/on-line education posts may I suggest preparing a short list of recommended courses "approved" by the education Ministry and in its absence a temporary subcomittee made of members interested ( that have posted here ?) I will start with the Astrobiology introduction course..a good foundation from the Uni . of Edinburgh which a number of us have completed . We may wish to also include others such as basic health care , mircro biology, education, nano tech Robotics, AI ??? So a first step is making a list of the topics recommended for certain sub groups

Age groups 1 - 11

11- 18

18 and above

and as the majority of us fall into the last category let us form the committee and focus first on that and promote recommended links for specific free online courses. Meanwhile the project for our in house option can continue probably using existing courses as a guide or resource. At least things will immediately happen with this method.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/astrobiology/

here is one for Healthy Eatting from Stanford which is a nice general topic https://www.coursera.org/learn/food-and-health

I think knowledge should not be behind a pay wall at any level. It is a shame that we can't do as Greek philosophers done it. Anyone should be able to see Aristotle speak.

Free Robotics ( 101) course starts Jan 2017

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-robotics

and more advanced
6 courses

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/robotics

I love the idea of a AU. No one mentioned medical and psychological sciences, they are even more important than rocket science. and need a lot of research to overcome the nowadays multinational medicine driven path.

In all this I see a huge limit: as far as AU remains in the virtual space no lab activity is possible.

Waiting for the materialization of the first Asgardia campus, we can create a virtual campus where people meet to discuss theories, and propose courses to explore new points of view or fields that external courses don't offer. Of course there are always well established massive platforms for all current status of the art, and I don't see the reason to duplicate that. All this must be serious and rigorous, so before all this starts it's necessary to have a group of experts in charge of the quality of education.

I agree. if truly we want to build a space nation from scratch, education, esp space related courses,will have to be taught and above all, practical sciences will have to be practiced more and more inorder to equip citizens with necessary technical skills that will enable them maintain this space civilization esp the space vessel if we will ever have one.E-learning will work...but sometimes education is well learnt if students are able to socialize face to face...am not sure what can be done about that...since building one university on earth will not cater for everyone since we are scattered allover the world as per now. I think the best way is to Collaborate with different institutions allover the world since it will be impossible to build an Asgardian University in each and every country in the world.

Global learning movement will be very useful to asgardians..Various subjects will be available online. thanks

I suggest to establish a temporary campus in Midgard for Asgardia University. As Asgardia University will have academic standards competitive to universities in developed countries, I suggest that the temporary location of Asgardia University will be in either Greenland, Iceland or New Zealand which are far places and considered as metaphors for the residence in space. Antarctica has not been populated yet to be a location for Asgardia University even though it is suggested to be a temporary place of residence for Asgardia nation on Earth.

I do not agree that Asgardia University will be based on the web and online coursers. I suggest that Asgardia University signs twining agreements with high academic standard universities around the world so that asgardian students will study academic degrees in these universities and finally get the certificate from Asgardia University. Asgardian students may study various courses some of which in a different university having a twining agreement with Asgardia University to get a degree for an academic program from Asgardia University.

Studying in Asgardia University will be free of tuition fees for Asgardians. The exemption of tution fees will be also applied for Asgardian students when they take academic degrees or courses in universities signing twinning agreements with Asgardia University even if these universities charge tuition fees for either students of the same country of the university or international students. For example, if an asgardian student wants to study in a university in UK signing a twinning agreement with Asgardia University, s/he will be exempted of tuition fees even though tuition fees are applied for both UK and international students.

Sounds a lot like the Open University. A self funding university that teaches through the internet and post. See: Open University