Wednesday, December 5, 2001

Navy Rewrites Its Course-Writing Software to Enhance Online Distance Education By MICHAEL ARNONE Sailors and officers in the United States Navy will be able to learn technical skills via the Web as the Navy redesigns its course-writing software to embrace new computer standards being developed in part in a laboratory at the University of Wisconsin. The Navy currently trains thousands of sailors and officers each year in courses designed through its Authoring Instructional Materials system, which was developed by the training-systems division at the Naval Air Warfare Center, in Orlando, Fla. The Navy offers more than 400 courses created through the system in classrooms on bases around the world, says Alan D. Litz, manager of the program. The courses primarily cover equipment operation and maintenance, but also handle subjects such as leadership. The redesign effort, code-named Project Red Knot, is revising the AIM program's computer infrastructure to support new technology standards that are being jointly developed by the government, the military services, and academe. The new standards are called the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, or SCORM. The SCORM standards are designed to permit interoperability among the myriad computer systems used in all branches of the United States military. The Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Laboratory is one of three national labs developing the standards. Modifying the AIM system to recognize the new standards will allow the Navy to repackage the information in the AIM database more quickly and easily into a distance-learning format, says William M. Dyas, learning-systems branch head for the Chief of Naval Education and Training in Pensacola, Fla. That is important, he says, because the AIM database is the largest database of training information the Navy has. Switching to SCORM standards will also allow Navy personnel to retrieve more training materials through the Navy's distance-education Web site, Mr. Litz says. Because the new standards are based on a next-generation Web-coding language called Extensible Markup Language, or XML, the Navy will be able to offer some of its courses, such as auto mechanics, to community colleges, says James A. Ferrall, a project manager at Jardon and Howard Technologies, the Navy's prime contractor for the project. Since starting Project Red Knot in July, the Navy has investigated how it can cut costs and improve efficiency of learning by moving part of the training curriculum to the Web, says Mr. Ferrall. The Navy wants to move 50 percent of its training material to the Web for asynchronous delivery over the next five years, he says. Currently, Mr. Litz says, many Navy courses range in length from one week to five months, during which time students must be on a base and incur expenses for housing, meals, and the like. The goal is to repackage some of the courses so students can read up on more theoretical material on the Web while out at sea or before they spend time at a fleet training center for hands-on instruction. That would allow them to train themselves and maintain readiness better, he says. Web-based training would also allow Navy personnel to pick up new skills or refresh unused ones as the situation demands, Mr. Ferrall says. Project Red Knot is a collaboration between the Navy and SkillSoft, a provider of online courses and online-learning software, Mr. Ferrall says. The Navy has spent very little money on trying to convert its current training programs to a distance-education format, he says. The goal of Project Red Knot is to prove that such a conversion could work. The project team said last month that within 90 days it would provide the Navy with information about the feasibility and cost of converting the training program to a Web format, Mr. Litz says. At that point, the team should be able to estimate how much money the conversion will save the Navy. Project Red Knot isn't the only move the Navy is making to switch the training program to distance education. Next January, the Navy is also expected to start comparison-shopping for content-management software, Mr. Litz says Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

State Supreme Court finds sex bias in firing at U. of Northern Colorado Black-college group chooses Florida A&M president as its new leader Career Education Corp. Purchases Culinary Institute in Pittsburgh 8 new chief executives announced South Korea gives its universities the power to set tuition rates U.S. House members seek to raise spending for information-technology research Navy rewrites its course-writing software to enhance online distance education