Frequently Asked Questions

The Code of Conduct can be found here, please read it; it contains important information. However, the short version is:

• Don’t bully or harass; spam; post racist, defamatory, sexist or homophobic content, etc.
• Don’t advertise or post inappropriate links with any of the above.
• Don’t post anything derogatory about blood status or House or encourage people to block or attack others.
• Don’t plagiarize your assignments.
• In public areas (school feed, forums, Great Hall chats, comments, etc) don’t curse or post sexually explicit, graphic or violent content.
• Keep it clean for minors.

Unfortunately, we cannot recommend a place to buy a real wand. As much as we would like it, the spells, potions, and other bits of magic you’ll learn on Hogwarts is Here won’t work in our world. The magic comes from connecting with other Harry Potter fans and immersing yourself in the world. If you’d like to learn about your wand, you can check out Pottermore, or you can do a little research and find out which wand is right for you. You also won’t be able to buy a wand, a pet or other items on the site. If you’d like to buy a wand to practice with, there are several good wandmakers online, or you can use a stick, a chopstick, a drumstick, that sort of thing.

There is no on-site method for buying equipment. The only thing you may need beside the lessons are textbooks, which you can find in the library.

House points are earned through completing homework assignments. You will receive 1 house point for every 10% you complete in an assignment, but there are no partial points. For example, a 100% is 10 house points while a  79% is only 7 house points.

Of course, you are welcome here at Hogwarts! Each course handles these two situations a little differently, but in most classes you don't lose points for grammar or spelling, or similar things. Most professors request that you put the tags [LD] or [NES] at the top of your essay assignments, or in the "Additional Notes" section. In any case, the assignments are graded anonymously and privately. Please check the course to see what the professor's specific rules are; they are usually listed right in the first lesson. You can also owl them (see "How can I send and owl?") or their PAs with questions.

Not technically. However, there's a good possibility you might be lost if you don't first complete previous years' courses before attempting the higher levels. Most professors structure their courses so that each year builds on the previous one, or incorporates information from another class. Therefore, it's highly recommended that you complete the courses in order starting with Year One and moving up to the current year.

Click on ‘Courses’ in the header bar at the top of the page or ‘Explore Courses’ below if on your home feed to be take to the course catalogue.

Select the course year you want to explore using the button on the right. It’s highly recommended that you take classes in order (starting with Year One and going up) because most classes not only build off one another, they may reference content from other courses in previous years. You can take any courses you’d like, but again, there’s no guarantee that there won’t be any material you were expected to know from beforehand.

Select a course, then click the ‘Enroll’ button on the right to join.

After enrolling you can begin the lessons.  Click on the title of a lesson in the table to open a dropdown with a small preview, then click ‘Open this Lesson.’ Read the lesson, then check out the assignments for the lesson located on the right side of the page.

You can also change lessons by clicking the ‘[Class] Lessons’ tab, where [Class] is the name of the course (for example, ‘HERB-101 Lessons’ for Herbology Year One).

Some classes may require a textbook. All textbooks can be found by going to' Library' at the top, then Textbooks.

You do not! You are free to create an adult character and participate in the forums, read books in the library (or write your own), participate in Groups & Roleplays, and most other features on the site. However, if you want to advance to Second Year, earn house points, or become a Professor's Assistant (PA), you will have to complete the coursework.

These are fun, temporary activity classes. You don’t need to do them to advance years and they don’t count as electives. They just get you extra house points and are a fun way to learn something extra.

"Head Boy" and "Head Girl" are titles given to one or two very hardworking Professors' Assistants in a particular course. They go above and beyond normal PA duties and are trusted enough to handle extra responsibilities. There are many Head Boys and Head Girls on the site since each course is allowed to nominate two individuals.

Professors' Assistants, or PAs, are students on the site that help professors with some of their daily tasks, most notably grading. When you submit an assignment it is sent anonymously to a queue of assignments that the Professors' Assistants for that course have access to. They go through the list reading the assignments and checking to ensure that everything that is required for the assignment is there, whether that is a simple short answer or an entire essay.

Professors will typically announce and send out an application when they're looking for more PAs for their course. Don't be discouraged if you don't make it the first time you apply. Usually there are a lot of applicants for only a few spots and the professor is looking for someone who understand the material the way they do and grades the way they wish. Your best bet is being very familiar with the course! Open PA applications can be found at https://www.hogwartsishere.com/news/hogwarts-is-here/PA-Apps/ or via the Volunteer dropdown under PA Applications.

Of course, professors may ask their PAs to complete some other tasks to help them out, but this is different from one professor to the next.

If you get below a 70 (or a professor happens to have marked a particular assignment as retakeable no matter what the grade) and you did not receive a 1% for plagiarism, you can resubmit an assignment.

To do so, open up your grade book for the desired course. Next to the grade lower than a 70, the words "resubmit assignment" will be present in black text. If you click this text, your assignment will be reset and you may take it again. However, be sure to make improvements based on the feedback you received or reach out to PAs for help!

The grades for every assignment you complete in a course can be found in the gradebook for that course. After clicking on a class that you have enrolled in, click on the ‘My [Class] Gradebook’ button on the right-hand side. [Class] refers to the catalog code for the course, and the button will say, for example, ’My HERB-101 Gradebook.’

The gradebook also gives your average for each class. Keep in mind that only grades from mandatory, not extra credit, assignments count towards your average.

Extra credit assignments are not required, though you may complete them if you wish. They will earn you more house points but will not contribute to your grade.

You can always come back later and complete extra credit assignments after completing the course. You just have to re-enroll.

The Additional Notes section after an assignment is an opportunity for you to note any questions you might have with the assignment or provide other feedback for PAs and the professor.

HOWEVER - if you are confused about a question or the possible answer, owl the PAs or the professor first. Once you have submitted your assignment, your answer is stuck and cannot be changed.

Discussion boards were removed, but at one time they were a set of single forums that accompanied each lesson. If the assignment requires you to post on a discussion board, you can just select 'true' when it asks if you have completed that task. These lessons will be updated in the future to match the new system.

You can withdraw from a course by using the ‘Withdraw from Course’ button that’s just below the assignments and lessons box on the right-hand side of the main course page. You can pick up where you left off in a course by re-enrolling in the course later.

To submit an image, first upload the image to an image-sharing site (such as tinypic, tumblr, photobucket, postimage, etc.) if you have not done so. Then, provide a link to the image in the essay textbox.

If the assignment allows and you would like to create a presentation, two recommended sites are Google Presentations and Prezi. Both sites allow you to create PowerPoint-like presentations that can be easily submitted for grading. You are free to use any site that allows people to access the project publicly.

If you have a document you wish to submit, you can upload it to Google Drive and share the link. Make sure the link is publicly viewable so that the professor or PA for the course can see your submission.

Send them an owl or post on their wall, depending on the level of privacy your question requires. To learn how to send an owl, read ‘How do I send an owl?’

Quizzes without short answer questions are marked automatically. Essays and quizzes with short answer questions are marked by Professor’s Assistants (PAs). The time it takes to have your assignment graded may vary, but PAs work to grade assignments daily. Sometimes there are just too many assignments and not enough PAs available that day! You should receive a notification when the assignment is graded, and you can continue on in the course while you wait. Once the assignment is submitted, you can see it’s place in the queue from the gradebook. It may take a week or two to get an assignment back, depending on traffic. If, after a week you see that your assignment hasn't moved up any places in the queue, feel free to contact a professor!

The library houses the textbooks and fan-fiction of Hogwarts is Here professors and members. You can access the textbooks you need for a course from here for free, read the books published by other site members, and write your own if you’d like!

You can access the library by clicking 'Library' in the header at the top. From there you can select from several categories.

Any textbooks required for class will be listed in lessons.

You can write a new book by clicking on ‘Write Book’, or edit a book you’ve already created by selecting first the ‘Books I’ve Written’ button and then clicking the ‘Edit’ link for the desired book.

You can also view the most popular books or search for a specific book by title or author using the search function.

Dormitories are an area of the site where you can meet and hang out with members of your house. You can find them by clicking on 'Hogwarts' on the top bar and then 'Dormitories'. You can look through the list of dormitories, join a random dormitory, or create your own.

Dormitories contain a feed area (similar to the main site feed) and a chat room. Only dorm members can see the feed or chat.

Leaderboards are a board that keeps track of the students with the highest number of house points. Right now there is a problem where people’s points don’t reset after every year, so some of these may be incorrect!

Hover over ‘Hogwarts’ in the header at the top of the page. These options can be found in the drop-down menu.

You can also find the leaderboard for your house in the dormitories section.

The system requires that you earn at least an Acceptable (70%) in the seven core courses (Astronomy, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, History of Magic, Potions and Transfiguration) to move on to Year Two. This means that you must have finished all non extra credit assignments, and all of your grades must be returned to you first.

When you have finished a course, be sure to ‘Mark Course as Complete.’ You will need to mark all required classes as complete before the ‘Advance Years’ button will appear.

Starting in Year Two, electives become available, and you must complete two of them in addition to the seven core courses. Theme weeks such as the Creature Feature and Games Week do not count as electives.

Click on a person’s name to go to their profile or wall. Underneath their picture you’ll see the option ‘Send Message’ next to an envelope. Click on it and it will automatically open the owl menu.

If you want to receive notifications for a post, click the gear icon in the top right of the post and click ‘Enable Notifications’. To disable notifications for a post, click the gear in the top right of the post and click ‘Disable Notifications’. If the link says ‘Enable Notifications’, this indicates that you are not currently receiving notifications for that post. If it says ‘Disable Notifications’, this indicates that you are receiving notifications for the post.

Picture links must end in .jpg, .png, or .gif. There’s also a size limit. If the image is too large (either in terms of screen size or file size) you can shrink it using a program such as Microsoft Paint and save it as a .jpg (JPEG) to make it smaller. However, editing a .gif file will remove any animation it might have.
Also, make sure you give credit to an artist if you post their work, otherwise you are stealing the work. If you don’t know the artist, you can look them up using a reverse image search on Google.

To follow someone, click on their name to go to their profile. Under their name is a button that says ‘Follow [username]’. Click it to follow them.

To unfollow someone, you just click that button again (it will say ‘Unfollow’).

You can see who you’re following by clicking the link on your profile page, or by clicking your name from the top bar and then clicking ‘My friends’.

Blocking someone prevents both you and the blocked user from seeing each other's posts on the feed or wall or seeing each other's owl messages. It also prevents the users from visiting each other's pages. It's useful if someone is posting content you find objectionable, posting excessive messages, bothering you, or other reasons.

There are two easy ways to do this. If you see a feed post by them, you can click the gear icon and then click ‘Block This Person.’ You can also click on their name to navigate to their profile and then click ‘Block This Person’ in the lower left under their biography.

To unblock someone, click your name at the top right of the screen , then click 'Settings'. Under the 'Edit Settings' list select 'Blocked Users'. You can see a list of users you have blocked, and unblock one or more of them by clicking '(unblock)' under their image. To see their name you can hover over the image. The user is unblocked as soon as you click '(unblock)', the ‘Save Settings’ button isn't actually useful for this menu.

Users are not allowed to use canon names due to a legal agreement with Warner Brothers. This means you cannot be Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, etc. You are allowed to mix and match half-names (like Ginny Malfoy or Jessica Black) but a misspelled name (like Herry Potter or D. Malfoy) or some other work around to avoid this rule is not allowed and will be flagged. This is for legal reasons, so don’t be upset when this rule is enforced.

On the right side of the bar at the top, click your name to open a dropdown menu. Click ‘Edit Profile’. Then click ‘Email Preferences’ in the left-hand menu. To stop receiving one or more types of emails, uncheck the box for that type. Click ‘Save Settings’ to save your selection.

Groups are where users with shared interests can hang out and discuss topics and ideas related to the group (such as books in a book club). Roleplays are where users primarily step into character and make posts about the things their character does. Since they both have the same features, the FAQ will refer to both of them as clubs.

Clubs have some of the same features as dormitories, including a feed and chatroom only accessible to members, but clubs are available to users of any house. Clubs can be set to public (meaning you can immediately join) or private (meaning that the administrator of the group must approve you first).

To join a club, first click 'Groups & Roleplays' in the header bar at the top. If you have joined one or more clubs previously, you will see them listed here. You can sort through the different groups and roleplays using the 'More Groups' dropdown menu or search for a particular club using the search bar. If you find a group you are interested in joining you can click on the name of the club or the image above it. Depending on whether or not the club is public or private, you will see a link to join the club or request access.

To leave a club, access the club's home page (by clicking on its name or the image above it). Then click on 'Leave This Group' on the lower right side of the page

That number refers to the number of house points you have earned so far.

When an official professor position becomes available, an announcement is posted on Headmistress Oshiro's profile and in the Newsroom at https://www.hogwartsishere.com/news/hogwarts-is-here/Professor-Apps/. You can also find this page from the Volunteer dropdown under Professor Applications. Note that not all open positions will have an application, as the staff has full discretion to hire however they please.

Nope. The labels for character information are for role-playing purposes only! Only an official Hogwarts is Here professor can add lessons or assignments, hire and manage PAs, and do other staff-related things on the site. Claiming to be the Minister of Magic or a professor does not give anyone any authority over other users. If someone is claiming to be a professor in a course, you can click on their name to see if they have a graduation cap next to their name when they post

Keith D. Cardin at http://hogwartsishere.com/keith/ and Kimmi Cranes at http://hogwartsishere.com/kimmi/ are the two other official site administrators (and official staff members).