Jira Fundamentals Updates are Live! Q&A with the Course Designer
New courses get lots of attention around Atlassian University, but that doesn't mean the team isn't also hard at work making sure our existing courses still suit the needs of our learners and reflect current Atlassian product offerings and brand standards. We sat down with @Becky Mueller, Atlassian Learning Content Developer, to ask her about the recent updates she completed for Jira Fundamentals.
Read on—or go straight to the course to check them out for yourself!
Hi, Becky! We’re excited to hear that there are updates to our Jira Fundamentals course now live. First off, can you remind us — who is Jira Fundamentals for, and what does it cover?
Hi, Jaime! I’m excited to tell you all about the latest updates to Jira Fundamentals. This course is for new Jira users, or teams using Jira. Experienced Jira users looking to grow their skills or validate their knowledge may also find this course useful. It covers key Jira concepts, navigation, best practices, and an assessment—all designed to get you up and running in Jira in about 90 minutes.
Awesome. So why an update to the course? What was the impetus for this project?
It’s been about a year since we first released Jira Fundamentals (can you believe it??). This felt like a good time to review the course and see what updates were needed. First, I created a maintenance plan on a Confluence page and divided it into Critical and Non-Critical updates. I reviewed the entire course, as well as customer feedback, and noted anything that stood out. Were there any errors in the content? Has the UI changed? Are there any interesting things we could do to enhance the course? I recorded everything and included a priority level and effort level for each item. While I wanted to tackle every item on my list, we only had so much time dedicated to this update. I decided to prioritize some of the most critical items and saved the rest for a future update.
(live footage of @Becky Mueller hard at work)
Tell us about what we can expect to find.
Many of these updates are “behind-the-scenes” updates that you might not even notice! Much of the focus in this update was making this course more accessible. Some of the lesson names were updated to make them more searchable in the catalog. Links to related documentation were added in a few sections, and certain graphics were updated for clarity. Oh, and audio narration was added to every lesson, which has been a big hit with the Atlassian Community!
What about accessibility — we heard you had a specific focus on accessibility in your course revisions!
You heard right! We're working on meeting accessibility standards with our courses. Things like checking the contrast between the text color and background color, adding alt-text to images and GIFs, and creating closed captions for our videos.
Should someone who has already taken the course take it again, or is that not necessary?
No new content was added in this update, so I would say it’s not necessary if you’ve already completed the course. However, I always like to encourage folks to retake any part of the course (or all of it!) if they want to refresh their knowledge.
And finally: what’s your favorite NEW part of Jira Fundamentals?
The accessibility updates! I’m excited that we’re making this a focus on our updates, and it aligns with our core value Don’t F*@k the Customer.
Thanks, @Becky Mueller for your hard work in keeping this course fresh, accessible and relevant!