Engineering Rating Roadmaps Update With Rank-recommended Certifications

By Ed Barker, Naval Education and Training Command Public Affairs

PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- The Learning and Development Roadmaps (LaDRs) for engineering ratings feature rank-recommended certification information via Navy Credentialing Opportunities Online (Navy COOL) with the latest updates posted to Navy Knowledge Online (NKO) Aug. 22.

Updated by the Naval Education and Training Command's Center for Naval Engineering, the engineering rating LaDR updates provide the latest Sailor development information and include the linkage of rank-recommended certification information via Navy COOL and the United Services Military Apprenticeship Program (USMAP).

According to the USMAP website, while earning certifications shows supervisors that Sailors are working to improve themselves while in the service, these certifications are also valuable when people leave the service and apply for civilian positions.

"As we get feedback from the fleet and the individual communities make calibrations, LaDRs will reflect the updates and remain the ultimate career reference tool," said Tom Smith, enlisted education coordinator for the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC). "By adding rank-recommended indications to the Navy COOL functionality, Sailors only see the certifications that apply to them."

LaDRs are fleet-focused products that provide guidance to Sailors along a learning and development continuum specific to each rating. These online guides explain in detail what each Sailor needs to succeed at specific points in their career, including information about certifications that can help Sailors demonstrate their professional competency. The most significant change this year is the embedding of certifications and apprenticeships into the appropriate rank category for each rating.

"In addition to breaking out the Navy COOL certifications by rank, we also outlined the required and available warfare qualifications for each of the engineering ratings," said Master Chief Hull Technician (SW) Ronnie Merriman, Center for Naval Engineering staff leading chief petty officer. "[Enlisted] Surface Warfare [Specialist] is a required warfare qualification, but other pins are available depending on where a Sailor is stationed. Additional qualifications help to make a more well-rounded Sailor."

Certifications listed on the Navy COOL website with a "Navy bucks" icon match 80 percent or greater of what a Sailor either learns or performs in their rating, and have also been approved for payment or reimbursement through the Navy's Credentials Program Office. Rank icons were instituted earlier this year and will appear as each rating's LaDR is updated on NKO.

"The engineering ratings will see their certifications associated with a rank icon with the next Navy COOL Web update by the first week of September," said Keith Boring, Navy COOL program manager. "We don't want a Sailor attempting a certification that they are not qualified or prepared for, and the rank icon helps zero-in on what's appropriate for their rank and rating."

Commanders are required to ensure distribution of LaDRs to every enlisted paygrade at all commands. This can be accomplished through Navy Knowledge Online (NKO) at https://wwwa.nko.navy.mil/portal/home/. After accessing the NKO home page, select the Career Management tab, navigate along the blue side banner and select the Enlisted Learning and Development (LaDR) hyperlink. According to Chief of Naval Operations instruction (OPNAVINST) 1500.77, the LaDRs are required to be used during Career Development Boards.

Additional information about LaDRs is detailed in NAVADMIN 258-10, available through the Naval Personnel Command Web site at: http://www.npc.navy.mil/ReferenceLibrary/Messages/.

Online Skills Program Helps 10,000th Sailors with College, Career Change

By Ed Barker, Naval Education and Training Command Public Affairs

PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- The Navy's Online Academic Skills Course (OASC) logged its 10,000th Navy user April 12, less than one year since transitioning to a solely Web-based program.

"Sailors looking at a change of rating should start with their Command Career Counselor," said Master Chief Navy Career Counselor (SW/SCW/AW) Tod Shuls, Naval Education and Training Command force retention program manager. "The OASC is one of the tools that we can use to get Sailors where they need to be career-wise, and counselors review and track individual progress and verify completion of the program."

The OASC is a self-paced academic skills improvement program that evaluates an individual's reading level, vocabulary, and math ability. The program then designs customized individual lessons to increase proficiency in each of these academic areas.

Participants start by taking a pre-test to establish their areas that need improvement. After each module completion, a post-test is given to determine improvement. Participants can choose the length and depth of the courses based on needs and time available, including an abbreviated review with shortened lessons.

"The OASC helped me not only increase my ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) score by nearly 20 points, but also helped me prepare for college placement exams," said Ship's Serviceman 2nd Class (SW/AW) Ashlei Alexander, assistant to the Career Counselor at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola. "I'll be using the OASC again soon for a college math test I'm about to take."

The program gives Sailors 24-hour world-wide access to OASC from any computer with an internet connection. Each lesson is supported by interactive exercises such as drag-and-drop matching, and videogame-style, multiple choice or dynamic flash cards. Quizzes and practice problem sets help students gauge how well they are mastering the material.

"The OASC is accepted as one of the qualifiers that Sailors must have to retake the ASVAB," said Tom Smith, enlisted education coordinator for the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC). "One justification choice is showing that they have improved their educational and academic skills since their initial test, and the OASC online courses are accepted as demonstrating positive improvement in education. The test that current active-duty and Reserve service members take to improve their ASVAB score is the AFCT (Armed Forces Classification Test)."

In addition to around-the-clock access from any Internet connection, the OASC is also available to Department of Defense family members and government civilians at no charge.

OASC is available at www.nko.navy.mil via the NKO Learning Tab and on the Navy College Website under the academic skills link. Navigation to OASC is also available at: http://www.nelnetsolutions.com/dantes/.

Distributed Learning Initiative Delivers Training Anywhere, Any Time

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

April 24, 2008 - Every seven seconds, someone within the Defense Department completes an online training course through a program that's become the gold standard for delivering education and training anywhere, any time. The Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, ADL for short, has grown by leaps and bounds since defense planners proposed the concept in the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review.

"We are some of the best-trained forces in the world, but they wanted to know how we can do it more effectively and more efficiently," said Paul Jesukiewicz, deputy director for the ADL Initiative. "The Office of Personnel Readiness had the vision to put this initiative together to answer that QDR question."

The military services have long used the Internet to deliver individual training and education to their members. They developed electronic courseware that troops could access regardless of where they happened to be in the world or the hour of the day.

"This is bringing the training to the servicemember and civilian, rather than them having to go to the training," said Robert A. Wisher, who directs the effort.

That saves travel time and costs and reduces time away from the student's home station. And because instruction is self-paced, Wisher said, it also tends to be more effective.

Studies of distributed learning describe the phenomenon as the "rule of thirds."

"You can save money by a third, and then either improve performance by a third or reduce time by a third -- either one, but not both," Wisher explained.

The Defense Acquisition University at Fort Belvoir, Va., for example, spent $500,000 to convert its traditional defense acquisition course to a self-paced course offered through ADL. Instead of spending nine days in a resident course, plus two travel days getting to and from Fort Belvoir, students take a 25-hour online course "on their time, when they can do it," Jesukiewicz said.

The conversion offered other payoffs, too, he said. The course can now accommodate 14,000 to 15,000 students a year, not the previous 3,000. And it's cheaper for the Defense Department to maintain the course -- $1.5 million a year vs. $6 million for traditional training.

Wisher doesn't predict any end to traditional resident military training, but said ADL offers a promising alternative or addition.

"ADL is not appropriate for everything, particularly for teaching hands-on tasks like jumping out of an airplane ... or some live-fire activities," he said. "But for much of the knowledge you need to know, with step-by-step procedures and factual information, it is a really good way to go."

Sometimes a "blended solution" is the best option, Jesukiewicz said. Students can get the basics through an online course to prepare for follow-on resident training. "The idea is, what can they do ahead of time that reduces time spent in the classroom course while maximizing its effectiveness?" he said.

As the Defense Department began promoting online training, it encountered a big problem: All the services were developing their own courses independently and couldn't share them with each other. For example, even if the Army and Navy both offered online courses about electronics that covered many of the same topics, they both create their own courses, Jesukiewicz said.

"They realized that all this content was out there, but they couldn't talk to each other," Jesukiewicz said.

The Defense Department adopted one standard and issued an instruction requiring the services to use it when developing new courses. The standard, called SCORM -- for shareable content object reference model -- provides universal, internationally recognizable guidelines for development software content that promotes sharing.

"Specifications and standards make things work together," Wisher said. "So a course that was developed by one service can be used by another service. This allows reuse and reinvention, and repurposing of content for other uses."

That means the military doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every time it needs a new course, explained Dan Gardner, who is leading the department's training transformation initiative. If the Marine Corps has a computer-based course on close-combat skills and the Army wants to develop one, the Army can adapt the Marines' course to its own needs. A course delivered to generals and flag officers at the National Defense University can be tailored for delivery to junior officers or noncommissioned officers.

Another advantage, Wisher said, is that students can tap into parts of courses when that's all they need.

The department is building a repository of what Gardner estimated could be tens of thousands of advanced distributed learning courses and modules, many already SCORM-compliant.

"We are basically at first base right now," Wisher said. "We have a model that brings us all together, but now it's a matter of populating the content and making that accessible, ... all through the Internet."

"We're providing virtual learning virtually anywhere," Jesukiewicz said. "This is revolutionizing the way we train people."

The effort is winning acclaim beyond the Defense Department. Other countries and government agencies are adopting SCORM standards for their online coursework.

Earlier this week, the United States Distance Learning Association honored U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Knowledge Online effort for exemplary work advancing the field of distance learning.

Joint Knowledge Development and Distribution's JKO received the association's 2008 "21st Century Best Practice" award, the highest honor it awards an organization in the industry.

The award came on the brink of JKO's one-year anniversary since it was made available to joint warfighters. In the last year, it has grown from 100 to 185 courses online, with more than 2,000 hours of online instruction.