This article defines the terms for the basic kinds of content in QA and explains how to use each one. The content in this article applies to personal and enterprise accounts.

This article contains the following sections:

• QA Library
• courses
• Lessons
• Hands-on Labs
• Exams and Related Content Types
• Assessments and Training Plans

QA Library

The QA library is where you go to start your training. You can get to the library from the dashboard by clicking Browse Library from the toolbar at the top, or you can just go directly to https://cloudacademy.com/library/.

On the left side of the training library you see a list of categories.

You can click the down arrow beside each category name to expand or collapse it. The following list describes what you can expect to find in each category:

• Get Started: Training content if you're just getting started with the cloud.
• Cloud Platform: Training content organized by platform, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Alibaba Cloud.
• Job Roles: Training content curated for people developing along one of the job roles delivered in the platform. See Job Roles for more information. Job roles include Cloud Architect, Data Engineer, DevOps Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, and Software Engineer.
• Certifications: Training content that will help you prepare for a certification exam. The list of certifications includes several from Amazon, Microsoft, Alibaba, and other certifying organizations. 
• Topics: Training content organized by subject, such as Business Management, DevOps, and Security. 

courses

courses are collections of lessons, quizzes, exams, and hands-on labs on a related topic. When you access the QA Library, you can tell which items are courses because they say course at the top.

When you click a course from the library, a screen appears where you can read about the contents and decide whether you want to start it. You can start a course to consume the content right away, or you can enroll in the course to schedule working on it.

You can find more detailed information about courses in the courses article. QA offers courses of related content to give you a cohesive experience when learning about a topic, but you can also find the component parts of the course in the library if you want to view them individually.

If you are an enterprise client, you can use Content Engine to create custom courses with components you create yourself or with components from the QA library.

Lessons

A lesson is a demo or tutorial about a technology topic. You might access a lesson as part of a course, or you can find lessons individually in the library. When you access the QA Library, you can tell which items are lessons because they say LESSON at the top.

When you click a lesson, a screen appears with the lesson content.

The Contents section on the left has links to sections of the lesson video. You can revisit previous sections by clicking the name of the section you want to see.

The video tools at the bottom of the screen also help you navigate to particular parts of of the video, as well as control the speed, volume, and full-screen mode. See the Video Player Controls article for a tour the of tools available while you watch a video.

The Overview, Transcript, and Lesson Material tabs that appear below the video let you see different kinds of information related to this video:

• The Overview tab shows information like the level of difficulty and duration of the video. You can bookmark the video from here and invite a guest.
• The Transcript tab contains a written transcript of the audio track of this training video. This can be useful to adaptive tools or just if you didn't understand something in the audio. Often you can find links here.
• The Lesson Material tab contains links to additional information. Sometimes these resources were referred to in the video, and this tab gives you an easy place to access them. For some lessons, you can download the slides that were used in the video.

Hands-on Labs

Labs give you the chance to use the product you're learning about directly. QA offers different kinds of labs, including

• Hands-on Labs where you follow steps offered by the lab.
• Lab Challenges where you solve a problem presented by the lab to demonstrate your ability.
• Lab Playgrounds where you can explore the product you're learning about.

See the Labs document for detailed information and links about each kind of lab.

Exams and Related Content Types

Exams, quizzes, and knowledge checks all appear in the training library. For each of these content types, you answer questions to demonstrate your mastery of a topic. However, these content types have different purposes.

• An exam tests your knowledge of a broad topic. Exams can have any number of questions.
• A quiz tests your knowledge of a small subject area. Quizzes are short, with usually only 5 questions.
• A knowledge check tests your knowledge of what you just learned in the previous lesson.

Assessments and Training Plans

Enterprise users also have access to additional kinds of content:

• The Skills Readiness Solution tools include programs and Smart Assessments. These kinds of content work together with your Career Paths and Job Roles to get team members ready for their challenges of their career in a way that is efficient and automated.
• Assessments help the enterprise establish the baseline knowledge of individuals or teams. The administrators or team managers can use this information to choose which Training Plans to assign.
• Training Plans are collections of courses that administrators or team managers can assign to teams to complete. The Training Plan tool helps schedule the training and keep tabs on progress.