FifthDomain's courses are a type of event on the platform allowing participants to learn cyber security concepts.

A FifthDomain course consists of lessons. These are bite-sized pieces of learning content that a participant completes to progress through their course.

Each lesson is mapped to the FifthDomain Cynaptic Adaptor, which maps lessons to the following three components - Professional Specialties, Skills, and Proficiencies.

When you complete a lesson, you showcase ability in the lesson's mapped Professional Specialty and Skill (at the set Proficiency level).

Professional Specialties (also called Specialties) group all cyber skills demonstrable on the platform to overarching high-level cyber work specialisations. Each lesson on the platform is mapped to one of six Specialties.

Each Specialty consists of 5-6 skills. Skills are more granular sets of abilities and knowledge related to a more specific area of cybersecurity. For example, the Log Analysis (LA) Skill is mapped to the Detection Specialty. There are approximately 30 skills demonstrable on the platform. Each skill sits within one of the six Specialties.

Each lesson is mapped to 1-3 skills within its set Specialty. For example, a Detection lesson may be mapped to the Log Analysis (LA) and Traffic Analysis (TA) skills. However, it can't be mapped to skills outside of the Detection Specialty.

Proficiencies determine a participant's level of ability in a particular skill on the platform. There are five proficiency levels that participants can demonstrate. These are modelled from the Dreyfus Model of Skills Acquisition, described below:

Each lesson is mapped to one of the five proficiency levels.

You can access courses on the FifthDomain platform by invite only. When you're invited to a course, it'll appear on your Home page. Simply click Enter to start completing the lessons within a course of your choosing.

In the Events section on your Home page, the Latest Assigned tab will show your five most recently assigned events. The Latest Active tab will show the five events you've most recently interacted with.

Note that if you've completed a course, it won't show up on your Home page - you'll need to navigate to the My Events page to see completed events.

When you enter a course for the first time, you'll first be taken to a course entry page, where you'll be able to see the number of lessons [1] in the course, as well as the course introduction [2].

You'll also be able to see any course resources (if any have been added). There are three types of course resources that you may see:

Note that to actually view course resources [3], you'll first need to enter the course. You can do this by clicking Enter Course [4].

When you've entered a course, you will be directed to the Lessons tab by default. On this page, you'll be able to access and complete all lessons in the course.

Each lesson includes an exercise - this is the main component of a lesson. Course progress is based on the completion of lesson exercises.

Each exercise in a lesson will be one of the following four types:

If you're completing an exercise that is a markdown or PDF, you'll be able to read the file directly on the page. Similarly, if an exercise is a video, you'll be able to access a video player directly on the page.

For lab exercises, you'll see a Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) on the page, but you'll first need to first click Start Lab to boot up a lab instance.

Once your lab has started up, you'll be able to interact with the VDI on the page. If you wish, you can also open your started lab VDI in a new tab [1].

Each lab has a default duration of 2 hours. After the 2 hours, your lab instance will end (unless you extend the instance before the lab timer reaches 0). Once you have started your lab, expand the top section to view your lab's status, lab time remaining, and lab control buttons. The Extend Lab [2] button allows you to reset the timer in your current lab instance back to 2 hours, retaining all progress made. The Reset Lab [3] button deploys a new lab instance, deleting all progress, and resetting your remaining lab time back to 2 hours.

Once you're ready, you'll need to manually mark a lesson as complete by clicking the Mark Complete button. This will update your lesson completion status and your overall course progress.

Note that after you mark a lesson as complete, you will still be able to interact with the lesson normally if you need. This includes interacting with labs.

Each lesson will come with instructions to aid in completion of the lesson's exercise. To access instructions, simply click the Instructions [1] button.

All lessons will come with written instructions. However, some may also include video instructions. If a lesson has video instructions, you'll be able to access them by clicking Open Video Instructions [2].

Some lessons will include supplementary resources. If a lesson has resources, you'll be able to click a Resources button to access these. Similarly to course resources, there are three types of lesson resources that you may see:

PDF resources can be accessed as downloadable files. Markdowns are downloadable, and also visible directly on the page. Video resources can be played by clicking Open Video Player.

Some lessons will include an quiz. If a lesson has a quiz, you'll be able to click a Quiz [1] button to access quiz questions. Once you're on the Quiz tab, you'll be able to see and attempt all quiz questions.

Click Submit [2] when you're ready to submit your quiz. Note that because quizzes are optional, you don't need to answer every question before you submit a quiz. Once you have submitted a quiz, you'll receive feedback on whether your answer was correct or incorrect. You can re-attempt quizzes as many times as you like, although only your most recent submission will be saved into the system.

Note that quizzes are optional and meant to supplement learning. You don't need to attempt a quiz for a lesson to be completed.

Your access to courses and lessons is untimed - you can complete your course in as many sessions as you like, at your own pace. If you plan to come back to a lesson, you can use the Notes tab to keep notes to come back to later.

Your notes are not visible to your course administrators.

You can navigate between the lessons in your course using the arrows at the top of the screen. You can also open the navigation drawer from the bottom of the page.

The navigation drawer will show you a more detailed view of the lessons in your course, as well as your overall course completion progress. You can use the arrows in the drawer to see all lessons in your course. Click the tab to close the drawer.

If you wish to go to a different lesson, simply click to navigate to a lesson of your choosing. Note that if you're navigating away from a lesson that is incomplete, and you have a running lab within that lesson, you'll need to confirm that you do want to leave to another lesson. You'll receive a similar confirmation window if you're navigating away from a lesson where you have inputted but not submitted quiz answers.

At any time, you can also navigate to the Overview tab. This will show you the course introduction and course resources that you saw on the course entry page when you first entered the course.

From the Overview tab, you'll be able to view and/or download the course resources. Similar to lesson resources, PDF course resources can be accessed as downloadable files. Markdowns are downloadable, and also visible directly on the page. Video resources can be played by clicking Open Video Player.

As you complete your course, you can also click on the Chat tab on the sidebar to talk to your course mentors.

Scroll to see all existing messages between you and your course mentors, and type and send new messages using the input box. You can upload up to 3 images (PNG, JPG, or JPEG) at a time in each message. Each image can be up to 5MB, with a total limit of 15MB for all 3 images.

You can edit your own messages by clicking on the pen icon. You can also delete your messages using the bin icon.

Note that chat messages you send will be visible to all course mentors. You can't send messages to a specific mentor of your choosing. Additionally, note that your chat will not be visible to other participants in the course.