OVERVIEW

We recommend referring to this page frequently. We realize there's a lot to take in here but we wanted to offer enough options so users can pay only for the benefits they need.

In a nutshell there are two Web sites that are important here: Integral Arts Academy and Stanley Jordan's Patreon site , which funds the academy and also provides benefits for fans of Stanley Jordan. We support both the fanclub and the academy with one Patreon site because we felt there was enough overlap to make it simpler for everyone.

Patreon is a crowdfunding site through which "patrons" can fund creative people and projects. Patreon administers benefits through variously-priced "tiers," two of which correspond to tiers of service at Integral Arts. So there are Patron tiers and Integral Arts tiers, just to be clear.

The page you're reading now is at Integral Arts Academy (IAA), which is an online school built using Moodle, which is an open-source Learning Management System. At IAA anyone can log in as a "Guest" or else create a free "Observer" account. These two free tiers of service allow you to view a limited amount of information within the site. The differences between them will be explained later.

Integral Arts Academy also offers two exclusive (paid) tiers of service. In order of increasing benefits they are: "Active Member" and "Interactive Member." Again, the differences will be explained later. They are available by monthly subscription through Stanley's Patreon site.

The Patreon site also offers two fan tiers: Basic and VIP. These are intended for fans of Stanley Jordan, and the benefits are accessed through the Patreon site, including things like free video livestreams.

The Active Member tier includes all the benefits of the Basic Fan tier. And the Interactive Member tier includes all the benefits of the VIP Fan tier.

This flowchart shows how benefits are passed along between tiers. You can see, for example, that the Interactive Member tier inherits the benefits from both the Active Member tier and the VIP Fan tier before adding its own.

Here is a link to a complete table of tiers and their benefits.

FANCLUB TIERS

These two Patreon tiers are for fans of Stanley Jordan. Neither of them confer  benefits at Integral Arts Academy. However, all these fan benefits are included within Integral Arts member tiers as explained below.

Basic ($5/Month)

This tier gives fans access to exclusive song videos: 1 per month. These videos will be informal, generally made at home, and they'll be more about vibe and musicality than complex production. Also fans will get access to exclusive posts only shared on the Patreon site. And patrons at this level will get early access to new songs and videos before they are released to the rest of the world.

VIP ($15/Month)

ACADEMY MEMBER TIERS

These tiers allow you to do things at Integral Arts Academy. The permissions listed here are general and site-wide, but they may be further restricted within particular courses on a case-by-case basis. If so, that will usually be indicated within the course. Additional restrictions, if any, can be applied to individual activities within a course or to sections containing multiple activities.

Also, if you pay for premium courses some restrictions may be relaxed within the course. For example, your membership tier might not be able to do quizzes, but within a premium course that ability is granted. Again, this is on a case-by-case basis.

The tiers of service are abbreviated with "tier numbers" as follows:

Web User (T0)
Guest (T1)
Observer (T2)
Active Member (T3)
Interactive Member (T4)
Premium User (TP)

Items of content may have tier numbers in their titles. For example, a course titled "(T2) Introduction to the Touch Technique" can be viewed by anyone in the Observer tier or higher. This makes it easy to know whether you can access the course, and if not what tier of service you would have to upgrade to.

Web User (T0, Free)

This is the lowest tier of service—all you need is a Web browser. Strictly speaking this is not an Integral Arts Academy tier of service, it's just a World Wide Web tier of service. At this tier you can access open (T0) content, which is explained below. (Note that this is "T-Zero.")

Guest (T1, Free)

This tier allows you to learn about the school. You select the guest login option and you don't need to provide any information. You can look at any courses whose titles start with (T1). And you can view any content within those courses except for items or sections that are labeled (T2) or higher. Note that the amount of (T1) content is very limited.

Observer (T2, Free)

This tier is free to anyone and it allows you to enter any courses and content labeled (T2) or lower and to view the social media exchanges within the site such as blogs and forums. You can read but not write, so you can't enter any text on the site, such as posting comments or contributing to social media. Also, any sections or activities within courses labeled (T3) or higher are not visible.

Active Member (T3, $10/Month)

In this tier you can both read and write, so in addition to everything in the previous tiers you can participate in all the social media, such as posting to forums and blogs, and commenting on content within the site. You can join chats with other logged-in users and you can exchange messages with other users whether or not they are currently logged in. You can access any content labeled (T3) or higher and you can watch videos, as long as they are (T3) or lower.

Interactive Member (T4, $20/Month)

This tier includes all the benefits of the previous tiers, plus you can interact with apps on the site, such as quizzes and adaptive lessons. Optionally you can receive grades and evaluations where available. And you can upload or download content. You can earn badges, which are symbols of achievement or merit. You can record audio and video which can be very useful, for example, if you want to share musical ideas with others on the site. You can also manage your own private storage area. Yes, this is a real school in the making!

Premium User (TP, premium fee $)

Premium User is a temporary classification for a user who has paid an enrollment fee for a premium course, as will be explained later.

CONTENT HIERARCHY

Courses are the primary unit of content at Integral Arts Academy. Courses are contained within categories, which themselves may be contained within other categories. Also courses are divided into sections, and sections contain activities. Activities include such things as Web pages, videos, lessons and quizzes. See the list of the Moodle activity types.

This chart shows the hierarchy:

CONTENT AVAILABILITY

Content titles may also include words that indicate how available or restricted the content is. These terms roughly correspond to tier numbers because in general the higher your tier of service, the more exclusive the content you can access. However it's not a 1 to 1 relationship.

Pieces of content at any level of the content hierarchy can have restrictions on their availability, and are generally labeled if they are more restrictive than their parent. In other words if a piece of content is not labeled it can be assumed to inherit its availability from its parent. The default availability is public (T2). So if an item's availability is not labeled and none of its ancestors have their availability labeled, you can assume the availability is public (T2). The way items are labeled is explained below.

Example

Imagine an active member who enrolls in a (T3) course that includes a (T4) activity. They can enroll in the course because active members can access content up to (T3). But they can't do the (T4) activity within the course. They would have to upgrade their tier of service to an interactive member (T4) in order to do the activity.

The following chart shows all the content availability types and how they're related. You can see, for example, that there are two types of exclusive content: subscription and premium.

Here are descriptions of these terms and, where applicable, which tier numbers can access them:

Public Content (T0-T1)

This is content that can be accessed free of charge and without the need to create a user account at Integral Arts. Guests can access any public content.

Open Content (T0)

This is public content that can be accessed by anyone, including those who are not logged in to Integral Arts Academy. These are any pages that can be viewed using a Web browser with no login required—not even a guest login. This includes the home pages at Integral Arts Academy. It also includes many pages at stanleyjordan.com, such as the huge Chord Type Library and the massive P4 Guitar Chord Chart Library . These repositories total about 600,000 Web pages.

Veiled Content (T1)

This is content that can be accessed free of charge and without the need to create a user account at Integral Arts. It's called "veiled" because you do have to log in as a guest.

Private Content (T2-T4)

This is content that can only be accessed by those who have user accounts and are logged in to the site. It's called "private" because you have to have a membership at IAA to see it. Guests cannot access private content. Observers (with a free account) can access private content as long as it's not exclusive.

Exclusive Content (T3-T4)

This is content that can only be accessed by those who have a paid membership at Integral Arts (active members or interactive members), or who have paid for premium content. Exclusive content is also private of course.

Subscription Content (T3-T4)

This is the default subtype for exclusive content. It's any content that your monthly subscription allows you to access.

Premium Content (T2+$)

Premium content is paid for separately on a case by case basis. Premium courses can only be accessed by members who have paid an enrollment fee. This is analogous to a typical cable TV account, where you pay a monthly free + you can pay extra for premium content.

To enroll in a premium course you'll need to already have at least a free Observer (T2) account in order to get to the enrollment page. This is so we can know who's enrolled. Note that the heading of this section ends with (T2+$), meaning it requires at least a free (T2) account + an enrollment fee.

Premium courses often override the normal access restrictions. For example, as of this writing the course (W-TP) Stanley Jordan 101 Guitar Workshop is currently open for enrollment. This is priced separately, and if you pay the enrollment fee you will be able to enroll and do every activity in the course regardless of your normal tier of service.

COURSE FORMATS

There are three types of courses at Integral Arts Academy—topic, weekly and social. As of this writing most of the courses at IAA are topic format, which means that the information is organized logically and can be accessed at any time. Weekly format courses are divided into weekly sections. These may be scheduled in particular calendar weeks, such as with the upcoming course (W-TP) Stanley Jordan 101 Guitar Workshop course which begins July 18, 2020, or they could be any consecutive weeks starting with the week when you enroll in the course. They could also be social format, where the course is organized around discussion forums.

CONTENT TITLES

Course titles begin with a prefix in parentheses that tells their format and tier number separated by a dash. For example (W-TP) Stanley Jordan 101 Guitar Workshop has the prefix (W-TP), which means that it's a weekly course and it's premium content.

Titles of content at various levels may also be label with availability terms such as "exclusive" or "premium." If so, you now know precisely how to interpret those terms based on the definitions above!