Agencies improve online training systems

Federal agencies are leveraging technology to build more sophisticated learning management systems for their employees.

"There's never enough training," said Wendy Frederick, chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' learning technologies branch. "There are limited training dollars, and you have to make the best use of those possible, so I think skill-gap assessment and competency assessment is critical to make sure you're spending what money you have most effectively."

Frederick has overseen the development of learnATF -- the bureau's Web-based portal for online training, an electronic library, individual development plans and competency assessments -- since its creation in 2002. At that time, Frederick said, the bureau depended on the vendor to provide hardware, software and support, and the platform was not customized to meet ATF specifications.

Now ATF uses a system from technology company Plateau to support its learning management efforts. It is the second version of a platform the agency first rolled out in 2005; the older model didn't have the ability to design individual training plans for employees. The newer system, which can design competency profiles for different job functions, is so advanced that Frederick said the bureau had asked for only a handful of changes to customize its system. Fewer modifications means migrating ATF data and programs to the next generation system will be easier, she said.

While Frederick is happy with learnATF's systems, some challenges have arisen, she noted, from the division of labor between the bureau's Office of Training and Professional Development and its human resources department. Because they operate separately and each has some responsibility for training and competency management, officials from the two divisions have formed a committee to coordinate their efforts.

Nevertheless, learnATF has been recognized as a model program. Plateau recognized the bureau with an award in October for the program's marketing campaign. The Justice Department, ATF's parent agency, is launching the system in stages.

"They've been able to leverage everything we've done, and that's made that whole rollout much quicker and easier because they were able to borrow much of the structure and management," Frederick said. "Just [like] when we started and said, let's focus on the online piece, because if we bite off too much, it's going to take much longer and you're not going to see the results."

The Agriculture Department, which also uses a Plateau system, won an award from the company for best overall use of product, but the department's experience demonstrates the other challenges associated with learning management systems. Unlike ATF, which had to bridge a divide between its HR and training offices, USDA had to find a way to make learning management technology work for 140,000 users, including 12,000 local government employees, many of whom had different computers with separate software installed.

If employees had problems with the USDA system, AgLearn, "they'd blame us, not knowing that their local IT office wasn't up to speed," said Stan Gray, the program manager for AgLearn.

The solution, he said, has been a bottom-up marketing campaign and efforts to increase the training available through AgLearn so USDA employees would have more opportunities to visit the site and become more comfortable with it. AgLearn now has almost 1,000 videos available in its leadership development track and a library of 12,000 reference books. The portal suggests courses for users based on applications and classes they have logged on to in the past, and tailors suggestions to their professions for more user-friendly recommendations.

"The chief financial officer supported a policy that before someone at USDA takes training they have to check to make sure it's not already available on AgLearn," to save money and training hours, Gray said. "We're briefing the senior political and career top-level officials on the wealth of training that we have…we're bringing it top-down, too."