FAQs

Microsoft Virtual Academy – MVA is a fully cloud-based learning experience focusing on Microsoft Cloud Technologies. You can access a variety of training content online and become one of the renowned experts in the IT Pro community around the world. MVA provides its users with a virtual university experience: the student can select a track and study the material and then do the self-assessment. By doing so, he will collect points that will promote him to a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum Level. Students on MVA can get access to all the information, statistics and advancements of their training career, allowing them to maintain a long-term relationship with Microsoft. Learning through MVA is free of charge, and you can study the contents at any time and at your own pace.

The MVA platform is hosted on the latest Microsoft Azure technology, which guarantees that your learning experience will flow uninterruptedly for the best online learning experience ever!

Anybody interested in growing professionally and to follow along in a training environment completely free of charge can take part in the MVA. The only thing the interested user needs to do to participate is to register on the platform with a Windows Live ID to get access to the training resources. There is no minimum level of technical expertise required.

• Build the necessary skills to grow in your IT role and career with Microsoft Cloud technologies.
• Learn for free and at your own pace.
• Make a name for yourself within the community of IT Pros worldwide, by climbing the ladder all the way to Platinum Level.
• Benefit from promotions and initiatives published at the MVA.

A course within the MVA is a set of modules that contain all the study material (learning paths) necessary for cloud technology training. Depending on the course, there will be a self-assessment at the end of each module.

The courses are made up of modules, and usually contain one self-assessment per module. In order to receive credit for the course, the corresponding material needs to be studied and the self-assessment passed.

Tracks are completed when you study the material and pass the self-assessments assigned to each. You will receive points for downloading and studying the materials and passing the self-assessment, which will help you climb to the next level within the Academy, all the way up to Platinum.

The subjects of the tracks range from technologies and products to different solutions, each of which contributes to contextualizing and/or updating the knowledge acquired.

Self-assessments can come in single answer, multiple choice, or true and false modalities.

As often as you like, for as long as you like, until you have reached your objective.

The Microsoft Virtual Academy will help you improve your IT Skill set and help advance in your career with a free, easy to access training portal. You can learn at your own pace, focusing on Microsoft technologies, gain points and get recognition. In the near future we will implement a recognition model that will enable you to share your training progress with your friends on Facebook etc. or print out a student diploma for each successfully finished track. Make sure to check in the future for more details.

A membership Level is the level obtained by a user depending on how much material has been studied via the MVA. A membership is the result of the sum of points the student has accumulated by downloading material, taking and passing the self-assessments and completing the programs for a career, a course and/or a specialization.

Membership levels at MVA are classified as follows: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum.
The number of points required for each of the membership levels is the following:
Bronze: 0 to 99 points.
Silver: 100 to 499 points.
Gold: 500 to 2999 points.
Platinum: 3000 points or more.

Once the necessary points have been accumulated, the platform automatically updates the membership on the user’s Dashboard. These memberships allow the user to participate in promotions and special discounts that are only applicable to MVA students. Remember that to gain benefits, there are special conditions and restrictions according to the level of membership and the country of the student’s account.

The MVA allows you to record your achievements and they can be viewed anytime on the Dashboard.

Yes, students can enroll in several tracks at a time, depending on availability. However, it is important that you only register for the contents that are most important to you, otherwise you might overextend yourself and this could affect your yield and average.

No, there is no cost for this service. Students can use any of the resources available on the cloud without restrictions.

Students may make all the changes they need to keep their data up-to-date regarding company, job or personal information.

When you share your Profile, your name is displayed in the MVA Top Students List. Other users will see your name and can display additional information when they click on it.

You have full control over what information other users can view about you. In the “My Profile” Section you can decide which piece of information you want to make available publicly by clicking the “share” checkbox. To display your Name in the Top Student List, you need to at least share your Name.

During these first two months we have gotten a lot of feedback regarding the point system from our users and also multiple requests to accelerate the release of new course content. As a result we will update the points scale and the number of points each student receives per course to simplify things and account for the intense release cycle.

We will follow 4 main principles to make this move easy for our students:

1)No student will loose his status (if you are bronze or Silver already, the new scale will keep you there). Some Students might even be promoted to Silver as the entry level to silver has changed

2)Progress will stay the same, but the scale of points (how many points needed to reach a specific level) will change.

3)Your Rankings in the worldwide and local Top Student lists might change as we will award bonus points to students who finalized a course before the Bonus Point Feature had been implemented on May 5.

4)Distribution of Points per content type in a course will be simplified as follows:

a.Article / Whitepapers: 1 Point

b.Videos: 2-3 Points (depending on length)

c.Assessments: up to 5 points

Due to the tremendous great response and feedback we decided to change the point value and the points needed for each level. These are the new levels

Bronze: 0 – 99 points

Silver: 100 – 499 points

Gold: 500 – 2999 points

No user will be downgraded from Silver to Bronze due to this change. We will continue adding courses and giving you opportunities to get higher in the ranking every week, so stay tuned by following us on Twitter.

Bonus points are awarded every time you successfully complete all requirements for a course. This means you will have to have viewed all content and passed all self-assessments related to that course. We implemented the bonus point system a few weeks after the launch of MVA. Therefore, all users who had successfully completed a course prior to the Bonus Point System being implemented will receive these automatically on May 31 in line with a bigger change in the point scaling logic.

The MVA Team is constantly striving to optimize the study experience of its students: Effectively June 23rd, new students are now able to register for MVA using their Windows Live credentials only. They will no longer be asked to provide additional information during the registration process.

In line with this migration it is important to link your existing MVA profile to the updated registration system. This will ensure your account is migrated to the new system together with your study progress, your accumulated points, your ranking and of course your status (i.e. bronze or silver).

The migration of your account to this new technology is very easy:
You have received an email from MVADean@e-mail.microsoft.com on June 23rd. Simply click the link to MVA within this email and log in using the same Windows Live credentials you have always used when logging into the MVA. Everything else will happen automatically and all your training achievements will be migrated.

It is important to note that until you click the above link, your previously achieved progress will be saved in our system but will not be reflected in your profile until you follow the instructions mentioned above.

If you have not received your migration email or have any other question, just send an email to TellTheDean@microsoft.com and request your individual migration link.