[COMPLETED][CLASS] Intro to Pathfinder | Wednesday 12 April | 01:00 EVE Time

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Lan Man
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[COMPLETED][CLASS] Intro to Pathfinder | Wednesday 12 April | 01:00 EVE Time

Post by Lan Man »

NOTE: This is a first run of a proposed class for E-UNI adoption. There may be some lingering rough edges in the slides and/or presentation flow. To that end and more-so than usual, I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback on this class both via this thread, and via the post-class feedback form.

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This class is an introduction to the Pathfinder wormhole mapping tool used by EVE University and by many other corporations and alliances across EVE. Pathfinder's feature-richness can be intimidating at first, especially to newfriends who are learning the quirks of Wormhole space at the same time. This class aims to cut through some of that complexity in order to make Pathfinder and E-UNI's Wormhole Community more accessible.

This class will be delivered as a live demo of the tool, with supporting slides if/where necessary. Voice comms will be via the E-UNI Mumble with slides and live demo shared via the E-UNI Discord. Questions are welcome throughout with a dedicated Q&A session at the end of class. There is no in-game, practical session associated with this class.

When: Wednesday 12 April, 01:00 EVE Time
Where: E-UNI Mumble and Discord
Duration: 1.5 hours-ish

Topics Covered:
  • Why is Pathfinder useful?
  • How do I read Pathfinder?
  • How do I update systems, signatures, and connections?
  • What bad Pathfinder habits do I need to avoid?
  • ... and questions answered throughout.
Student requirements:

- E-UNI Alliance Auth registration, and access to E-UNI's instance of Pathfinder.
- A working understanding of wormhole mechanics is strongly recommended commensurate with E-UNI's Introduction to Wormhole Mechanics class.
- Mumble registration and access - make sure you have access to the E-UNI Mumble sorted out well before the class begins. Use this guide for set-up: EVE Uni Mumble
- Access to the EVE Uni Discord Classrooms
Last edited by Lan Man on 2023.04.12 03:06, edited 2 times in total.
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Sagan C Clarke
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Re: [CLASS] Intro to Pathfinder | Wednesday 12 April | 01:00 EVE Time

Post by Sagan C Clarke »

Wow thanks!
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Lan Man
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Re: [COMPLETED][CLASS] Intro to Pathfinder | Wednesday 12 April | 01:00 EVE Time

Post by Lan Man »

Some notes and improvements to the class material following this first session.

1. Presentation flow needs some further optimization.

I think that I bogged down in some detail in the front half of the slide deck, where it should have gone by more quickly. Slides 1-6 cover the class introduction, outline, what is Pathfinder, first time authentication, layout configuration, and a quick primer on why data quality matters in Pathfinder. These dragged longer than I intended, they should really be skated through quickly to get the class to the good stuff: how to read and update Pathfinder.

The data quality slide in particular had teaching notes about twice as long as were necessary. I have pared this back and reworked the slide to more effectively convey that a) high quality data in PF matters so that everyone using the tool has a complete and accurate understanding of the chain, and b) the class needs to approach what is *manually* entered into Pathfinder by the user with the three points on the slide in mind: keeping the data complete, timely, and conforming to standards.

I'm setting myself a personal challenge to get this class entirely under 75 minutes, and ideally at 60, and I think these changes should take a large bite out of the run time.

2. Live demonstration improvements

On the whole, flipping between the slides and live demo of certain functions in Pathfinder seemed to work effectively when we covered the back half of the presentation: Nodes, Connections, Sigs, and Additional Windows. The slides here feel complete enough that if anything is not present in Pathfinder that day for live demo, then static screenshots exist in the slides as a fallback option.

That said, the Useful Features slides I really stumbled on and need to improve for flow. Snapping and Magnetism can easily be shortened and explained as "these help you enforce spacing between nodes which keeps Pathfinder readable." Signature Overlay needed a more clear explanation, particularly that it is useful for understanding at a glance what holes are inbound to e.g. Innuendo, and that this is a useful feature when enforcing hole control. I've reworked both of these slides and my notes accordingly.

3. Intro to Pathfinder is not necessarily Intro to WHC

Alastair Thomas rightly pointed this out via the Discord #teaching-general channel. Significant portions of the class and especially the Q&A were taken up in talking about other WHC functions and features. This is not necessarily a problem once we're into freeform Q&A, but should be held out of the presentation for post-class and any lingering Pathfinder / subject-matter-specific topics in Q&A need to be prioritized. My error.

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If there's any additional feedback on the class, please do share!
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