Welcome to SolidProfessor, your go-to online platform for continuous engineering learning. We're here to help you reach your goals with our vast array of video lessons, exercises, and certification prep courses. From CAD, CAM, to BIM software, and engineering methods, we've got you covered.
Your SolidProfessor dashboard is personalized to your viewing history and is accessible from any library section via the top banner. It's designed to help you swiftly resume your recent work.
The top section, "Pick up where you left off", will link directly to your most recently accessed courses or Groups.
Below your recent courses and Groups, you can access the SolidProfessor Learning Paths. Beneath the Learning Path toggle, you can access any lessons you have bookmarked, as well as an overview of recently viewed lessons in the History tab.
The dashboard's right side has links to different platform sections.
'Work on your assignments' will lead you to assigned Groups. 'Explore the course library' offers an overview of all library content. Selecting 'View your test results' directs you to your Profile in which you can view results for any tests you have taken.
Selecting the "Download the SOLIDWORKS Add-In" icon will do just that. Learn more about the SOLIDWORKS Add-in at the article below:
Below, the News tab updates with new SolidProfessor blog posts, filterable by category for your interests.
The Resources tab includes direct links to the SolidProfessor website, our Knowledge Base, as well as SolidProfessor contact information.
SolidProfessor's Library allows you to search for courses and lessons by typing the software name or keyword you want to study.
First, locate the Library Search Bar at the top of your screen.
Here you will enter any keywords. As an example, we will enter in the keyword 'SOLIDWORKS'.
Once a keyword has been entered into the search bar, a list of courses and lessons appear for this software.
Afterward, click 'Filter Results' to refine your search by software, version (year), and type.
You can also access content from the 'Explore the course library' button on the right.
Here you can view all top-level topics displayed as individual tiles and sorted by popularity.
The tiles display the number of courses and hours available for each topic.
Clicking a software tile reveals courses in increasing complexity, guiding your learning path. For instance, let's explore SOLIDWORKS.
Selecting a topic displays all courses and versions. You can also use the filters to refine your selection.
Here we will select 'Version: 2023' and 'Type: Courses'. You can view all of your applied filters at the top of the page, along with the number of search results.
In the next step of our 'Getting Started as a Learner' Guide, we will be selecting SolidProfessor's '2023: SOLIDWORKS Beginner to Certification Course.'
Begin by clicking into any course you're interested in. In this example, we will explore SolidProfessor's 2023: SOLIDWORKS Beginner to Certification.
Here, you'll notice the course description at the top, with the lesson player and course overview directly below.
The lesson player for video lessons offers playback options like the pop-out player, plus a rewind option of 10 seconds on the left side.
Clicking the Next Lesson button will progress you through the course. If there is a lesson file associated with the course, you can download it by clicking the icon on the left side.
The layout button on the right expands the video player for more detail without going into full-screen mode.
The options below the lesson player may vary by course but allow quick switching to match your software version or year.
The right side of the page features the course outline, which is broken up by sections and lessons. Viewed lessons will display in gray with a viewed icon.
Please note: Views in the library do not count towards views in assigned groups - even if they're the same content. In order to get credit towards your assignment, you'll need to access the content directly from the groups page.
To bookmark a lesson for later reference, click the bookmark icon next to the lesson title.
You can also sort the course by clicking the vertical ellipsis in the top right.
Now that we've covered locating assigned material and navigating the library, let's explore additional learning resources.
Our first additional learning resource are SolidProfessor's alternative course types. You can find these courses by selecting the program of your interest. For this example we will select SOLIDWORKS from the topic library.
Next, select 'Case Studies' under the Type filter.
Unlike our standard library courses that aim to teach a toolset, these courses take a different approach to learning. For example, the 3D Model Mayhem course provides a large pool of models at various difficulty levels for you to test your skills on.
Each lesson is an interactive challenge designed to encourage novel modeling approaches and test your skills against the estimated completion time.
Next, let's take a look at Inside the Design.
Each section in this course takes a look at a real-world design, and breaks it down using 3D modeling tools and techniques.
Assembly or model designs as well as reference sheets are available for download to encourage an understanding of the tools and techniques used in the real-world designs.
