  This is an informal summary of the main concepts in arXiv:0905.4044, based on
notes of various seminars. It gives constructions of higher and derived stacks
without recourse to the extensive theory developed by Toen, Vezzosi and Lurie.
Explicitly, higher stacks are described in terms of simplicial diagrams of
affine schemes, which are analogous to atlases for manifolds. We also describe
quasi-coherent sheaves and complexes on such objects.
