Everything you need to know about STEM City USA Ascend KoD™ — the workforce development learning platform behind AI NEXTGEN America. Select your audience below.
Getting Started
KoD stands for Knowledge on Demand. STEM City USA Ascend KoD™ — Ascend KoD for short — is a learning management system, but not the kind built for a campus. A traditional LMS is organized around the school year: you enroll in a term, you move at the term’s pace, and you finish when the term does. Knowledge on Demand is organized around the moment you need the skill. You start when you are ready, you move at your own pace, and the credential is there when the opportunity is.
It combines structured online courses, professional credentialing, corporate cohort programs, and a persistent talent community, all built on a simple principle: people should not have to wait years to prepare for opportunity. Skill pathways are organized into weeks and months rather than semesters. Ascend KoD is the learning platform inside the STEM City USA ecosystem, and it powers programs including AI NEXTGEN America.
The platform is managed by CCG Media Group in partnership with the FEDI Foundation.
The platform offers three program types:
Student accounts are created by a platform administrator. When your account is set up, you will receive a welcome email with your login URL, email address, and a temporary password.
If you were told you have an account but haven't received the welcome email, check your spam or junk folder. If you still don't see it, contact your program coordinator or email intouch@ccgmag.com.
Go to Student Sign In (use the "Sign In" menu at the top of this page or the button in your welcome email). Enter the email address and password from your welcome email.
First login tip: After signing in, go to My Profile → Change Password and set a new password you will remember. Do not continue using the temporary password.
Use the "Forgot password?" link on the Student Sign In page. Enter the email address on your student account and you will be sent a link to set a new password yourself. The link is single-use and expires, so request a fresh one if it has been sitting in your inbox a while.
If the email does not arrive within a few minutes, check your spam or junk folder first. If it still is not there, email intouch@ccgmag.com and an administrator can reset it for you.
Courses & Learning
After signing in, your Student Portal dashboard shows all your enrolled courses. Click on a course card to open the lesson viewer. Lessons appear in the left-hand sidebar inside the viewer — click any lesson to begin.
If you don't see any courses, you may not have been enrolled yet. Contact your program administrator to confirm your enrollment.
Try these steps in order:
Yes. You can retake quizzes. After a failed attempt, review the lesson material and try again. Your most recent score is the one that counts. For PDH/CEU courses, you must reach the minimum passing score (typically 70%) to earn your certificate — so keep studying and retake until you pass.
Inside the lesson viewer, scroll to the bottom of the lesson content and click the green "Mark Complete" button. Once clicked, a green checkmark appears next to the lesson in the sidebar, and your completion percentage updates on your dashboard. For quiz lessons, completing and submitting the quiz automatically marks the lesson complete.
Yes. If a lesson has downloadable files attached (PDFs, slides, worksheets), they appear as download links inside the lesson content area. Click the link to open or save the file. Not all lessons have downloads — some consist only of video content.
On courses where it has been enabled, you will see a Discussion tab alongside the lessons. You can post questions and reply to others in your course.
Discussions are moderated. Your first post in a course is reviewed before it appears — this usually takes a short while. After that first post is approved, everything you write appears straight away.
Not every course has discussions turned on. If you do not see the tab, that course is not using them.
Because workforce requirements change faster than traditional programmes can respond. An employer may identify a new skill need today and want people who have it within months.
Ascend KoD organises learning around specific, measurable competencies you can complete in weeks or months, rather than multi-year preparation. That is not a replacement for a degree or an apprenticeship — it is an additional route for people who need relevant skills sooner.
In the Learning Library, linked from the main menu. It holds material that stands on its own rather than belonging to a single lesson — presentation decks, podcast episodes, recordings, reports and reference documents.
Everything in the library is listed publicly, so you can always see what is there. What you can download depends on the item: some are open to anyone, some need you to be signed in, and some are for learners enrolled in the related course. If an item is locked, the page tells you which of those it is — so you know whether signing in would be enough, or whether you need to enrol.
Audio plays in the browser without downloading, so you can listen to a podcast episode without filling up your phone.
Both. Many courses are entirely self-paced. Some add live sessions — a seminar, a question-and-answer with the instructor, a cohort meeting — and where a course has one, the join link and the start and end times appear in the course itself, alongside the recorded material.
Check the course page for times ahead of the day. If you miss a session, ask your instructor whether it was recorded; that varies by programme.
Certificates & Credentials
Certificates are issued automatically when you meet the completion requirements:
Once issued, your certificate appears on your Student Portal dashboard under My Courses. Click "View Certificate" to open or print it.
First, sign out and sign back in — your portal sometimes needs a refresh to display a newly issued certificate. If it still doesn't appear after signing back in, verify that all lessons are marked complete and that your quiz score meets the minimum passing threshold. If everything looks correct and the certificate is still missing, email intouch@ccgmag.com with your name, email, and the course name.
The platform issues certificates with the completion date recorded. Whether those credits expire or have a time limit depends on the rules of your professional licensing board or employer — not the platform. Check with your licensing body or HR department for specific continuing education requirements. The certificate itself never expires on our end.
Your certificate is the document you can print or share. Your badge is the same achievement in a portable, machine-readable form (Open Badges 2.0) that other systems can verify automatically.
Badges are issued for you at the same time as the certificate — there is nothing extra to request. Each one carries a public verification link, so an employer can confirm it is genuine without contacting anyone.
Open your certificate and click Add to LinkedIn. LinkedIn opens with the credential name, issue date, verification link, and credential ID already filled in. Review it and save.
The issuing organisation is recorded as STEM City USA.
Contact hours are the instructional hours a course is expected to take you. Ten contact hours equal one CEU — the standard definition used by IACET and by most licensing boards and university continuing-education offices. A 15-hour course is 1.5 CEU.
A course shows its contact hours whether or not it has been through credit review, because the hours are a fact about the course either way. A course is only described as approved for continuing-education credit once that review is complete, and the framework it was measured against is named alongside it.
Whether a particular board, employer or institution accepts that credit is their decision, not ours. If you are taking a course specifically to satisfy a licence requirement, confirm with them first — it is a short email and it saves a great deal of trouble later.
Where a course has been mapped to published education standards, the standards are listed on the course — each one named specifically, with the version it was measured against. A course aligned to ISTE 2024 is not automatically aligned to a later revision, so the version is always shown rather than just the framework name.
Alignment means the course was mapped to that standard by the person who built it. It is a statement about what the course covers, not an endorsement by the organisation that publishes the standard.
Account & Profile
Sign in to your Student Portal, click the My Profile tab, scroll down to the Change Password section, enter your current password and your new password (twice to confirm), then click Update Password. If you can't remember your current password, contact intouch@ccgmag.com for a reset.
Click the Messages tab in your Student Portal. Use the Compose button to send a message to the platform administrator or your instructor. You can also email intouch@ccgmag.com directly for any urgent questions.
Every newsletter and announcement we send carries an unsubscribe link at the bottom, and most mail apps — Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook — also show an Unsubscribe control at the top, next to our name. Either one works, takes effect immediately, and needs no sign-in.
Unsubscribing stops newsletters and announcements. It does not close your account or remove you from a course, and it does not stop messages about an account you hold — a password reset, or a notice about a course you are enrolled in, still reaches you. Those are not marketing, and suppressing them would lock you out of your own account.
Changed your mind? The confirmation page has a link to put you back. If you have lost it, email info@ccgmag.com and ask.
Our team is happy to help. Reach out and we'll respond within one business day.
Contact Us Sign In to Your PortalUser & Account Management
Go to Admin Panel → People → User Management → "+ Add User." Fill in the first name, last name, email address, and select the appropriate role (Student, Teacher, Course Creator, Reviewer, or Administrator). Enable "Send Welcome Email" to automatically deliver login credentials to the new user. Click Create User.
The platform creates the login record and, if the email option is checked, sends the user their temporary password. Staff accounts use the Staff Login; student accounts use the Student Portal Login.
Go to User Management, find the user, and click View. In the user detail drawer, click Reset Password. Enter a new password manually or click Generate to create a random one. Check "Email new password to user" if you want them notified automatically. Click Save Password. The change takes effect immediately.
Role permissions can be reviewed and adjusted at Analytics → Roles & Permissions.
Courses & Content
Go to Main → Courses → "+ New Course." Fill in the title, description, category, difficulty, and set the Course Type (Seminar, PDH/CEU, or Full-Time Class — this determines the certificate type and assessment rules). Upload a thumbnail image, then click Save Course. The course saves as Draft.
After saving, go to Lesson Builder, select the course from the dropdown, and click "+ Add Lesson" to build content. Change the course status to Published when ready for students.
Yes. Go to Lesson Builder, select the course, and click any lesson to edit. You can update descriptions, swap video URLs, replace file attachments, and add or remove quiz questions at any time — even after publishing. Changes take effect immediately. Student completion records are not affected when lesson content is updated.
Go to People → Cohorts → "+ New Cohort." Enter the cohort name (include the semester/date, e.g., "Spring 2026 — AI Workforce"), the start date, and select the course it is linked to. Save the cohort. Then go to People → Students, open each student's profile, and assign them to the new cohort. Alternatively, use the enrollment import tool for bulk assignments.
There are three routes, depending on how the course is set up:
Each course has an enrollment mode and an optional seat capacity. When a course is full, further requests are waitlisted automatically; promote someone from the waitlist when a seat frees up.
Email & Communications
Welcome emails go out through Mailgun, not SMTP. Configure it once in Admin → Settings → Mailgun & Mailbox Settings: enter the API key, sending domain, and From address, then click Test Mailgun Connection.
Once that test passes, ticking "Send Welcome Email" when you create a user will deliver their credentials automatically.
Do not use the old Email Setup screen under People → User Management. This host blocks outbound SMTP, so entering a Gmail or Yahoo app password there will not make mail work.
Go to People → Messages and click New Message. In the recipient field, select the cohort name to message all students in that cohort at once. Write your subject and message body, then send. Each student receives the message in their Student Portal inbox and, if email is configured, as an email notification.
No — do not configure SMTP. This host blocks outbound SMTP, so the platform sends everything through the Mailgun API instead. This includes password resets, notifications, and bulk broadcasts.
Configure it in Admin → Settings → Mailgun & Mailbox Settings, then click Test Mailgun Connection. The legacy Email Server Setup screen no longer sends mail; filling it in will not help.
No. Large sends are batched and each recipient’s message is addressed individually, so no one sees the rest of the distribution list.
Yes, two ways. If you have a SCORM 1.2 package, upload it in the Lesson Builder and it plays inside the platform with progress tracked.
If the course exists as a document or outline, use the Course Importer instead: download the Excel template, fill in modules, lessons, quizzes, and questions, and import the whole course in one pass. A preview step shows exactly what will be created before anything is saved.
Yes. The platform includes xAPI activity reporting, which records lesson completions, quiz submissions, enrollments, and certificate awards as standard learning statements.
It is off by default and is enabled per course, so tracking applies only where there is a reason for it. Note that switching it on does not backfill — statements begin from that point forward.
Yes, and automatically. Every broadcast carries the headers that make Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook show a one-press Unsubscribe control beside the sender name, and pressing it removes that person at once — no page to visit, no sign-in. Gmail and Yahoo now require this of bulk senders; without it a sender gets filtered, and a large first send into a single corporate domain is how a sender gets blocked across that whole organisation.
Anyone who unsubscribes is dropped from every future broadcast automatically, including one already in progress. Administrators can see who has left, how and when, add an address by hand on request, and put someone back if they ask.
It applies to marketing only. Password resets and course notices still reach the person, because those are about an account they hold.
Yes. A designed HTML email is sent as written, without the platform wrapper around it, so a layout built at its own width survives rather than being squeezed into a bordered box. The postal address and unsubscribe link are still added, because those are not optional.
Large lists are sent in slices rather than in one request, and the platform records exactly who was reached on each pass. If a send is interrupted, it resumes rather than starting over, and nobody receives the message twice.
Reports & Certificates
Go to Analytics → Reports. Select the course and cohort from the filter dropdowns. The report shows each student's completion percentage, individual lesson status, quiz scores, and certificate status. Use the Export CSV button to download a spreadsheet version for record-keeping or submission to accreditation bodies.
Yes. Open the student's profile from People → Students, scroll to the Certificates section, and use the manual issue or revoke controls there. This is useful when a student completed equivalent work outside the platform, or if a certificate was issued in error. All manual actions are logged with a timestamp and the admin username.
Contact the platform support team for technical assistance.
Email Admin Support Go to Admin PanelAbout the Platform
The platform is developed and operated by CCG Media Group in partnership with the FEDI Foundation (a Baltimore-based nonprofit focused on economic development and inclusion). STEM City USA is the flagship workforce program under this partnership.
Yes. We can produce a current catalog on request, generated directly from the platform rather than maintained by hand — so it reflects what is actually published on the day it is produced, not what was published when somebody last updated a brochure.
It lists every published course grouped by track, with its description, instructor, duration, prerequisites and certificate level. Where a course carries them, it also shows contact hours and the CEU equivalent, the learning objectives, and the published standards the course has been mapped to.
Courses still in development are not included. If you are looking for something you do not see, ask — it may be in build.
Alignment is recorded against a specific published standard and the version of it — ISTE Standards for Educators 2024 4.02, for instance, rather than "ISTE". A later revision is treated as a separate framework, so a claim made against one edition never silently becomes a claim against another.
Where possible, an alignment names the individual lesson that covers the standard rather than the course as a whole. A claim that names a lesson is evidence somebody can check; a claim that names nothing is an assertion.
Alignments appear on the course, in the generated catalog, and can be exported for reporting. To be clear about what the claim is: it means the course has been mapped to that standard by the person who built it. It is not an endorsement by the body that publishes the standard, and we do not present it as one.
Corporate & Organizational Partnerships
Yes. Organizations can sponsor a corporate cohort — a closed, private group of employees or members who take a designated course together on a defined timeline. The organization works with CCG Media Group to set up the cohort, enroll participants, and receive completion reports. Contact us at the contact page to begin the partnership conversation.
Yes. Organizations that want to contribute content — seminars, PDH/CEU courses, or full-length curricula — can be onboarded as Content Providers. Your subject-matter experts receive Teacher or Course Creator access and can upload video, documents, and build assessments using the Lesson Builder. All content goes through a review process before publishing. See the Content Provider & Instructional Design Manual for the full process.
The platform issues certificates that specify the number of PDH or CEU hours earned. Whether those hours are accepted by a specific licensing board depends on that board's approval process. Organizations and course developers are responsible for confirming accreditation with their relevant professional bodies before marketing courses as approved PDH/CEU credit. We can provide documentation to support accreditation applications — contact us for details.
Yes. The platform supports virtual seminars and live events. Your speakers are given Panelist access through the Teacher Portal. The seminar is published as a course — participants register and receive a certificate of attendance. Live streaming integration (YouTube Live, Zoom, Teams, LinkedIn Live) can be embedded directly into the seminar lesson. Contact us to schedule.
Academies & Custom Programs
An Academy is a branded, organization-specific learning environment built on top of the STEM City USA platform. Organizations like corporations, HBCUs, professional associations, and government agencies can launch their own named Academy — with custom branding, course catalogs, and cohorts — while leveraging the full platform infrastructure. Learn more about Corporate Academies.
The best first step is to reach out through our contact page. Tell us about your organization, the type of training or event you want to host, and the size of your audience. Our team will schedule a discovery call, walk you through the platform, and outline a partnership structure that fits your goals.
Let's talk about how STEM City USA Ascend KoD can power your workforce training program.
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