New Navy E-Learning Improves Efficiency

GREAT LAKES (NNS) -- Students at Center for Surface Combat Systems Unit (CSCSU) and Surface Warfare Officer School Command Unit (SWOSCU), Great Lakes, have begun utilizing a modernized Learning Management System (LMS) that allows them to navigate through their online lessons with greater ease.

The new system was developed under a modernization effort called the Enterprise Training Management Delivery System (ETMDS) and uses AtlasPro as the replacement technology for the current LMS that is at its end-of-life. The LMS is the technology backbone of Navy e-Learning (NEL), enabling the delivery, administration, documentation, tracking and reporting of online educational courses and training programs.

"The students say they've actually found that it's a lot easier to get directly to the content," said Electronics Technician 1st Class (SW) Scott Alway, student coordinator, CSCSU. "They don't have to click on so many different tabs to get where they want to go as everything is a bit cleaner and more direct."

The new NEL system is role-based and uses a modern tabs-and-gadgets design that can be customized by the user. This allows to them to navigate within the application and view their customized options at a glance.

A tab is a set of related functionalities presented to the user that contains one or more gadgets. A gadget is a snapshot of the most commonly used information and actions related by functionality.

"With the new system, anything that's been added to their lesson plan pops up on one side of the screen, and from there they can click "enroll" and then it redirects it to the other side of the screen. It's a more efficient interface," said Alway.

For the student coordinators, they now have an easier time of enrolling the new students into their courses.
"This is a way for us to take every new student, enroll them, create a learning plan specific to their rate, and then they go through the entire training process and simply follow that," said Lt. David Andrews, executive officer, SWOSCU. Our instructors provide the students with an internet link, they log into a Tranet computer, they enter the link, it brings up their Navy e-learning plan and then they click on item 1."

Another plus to AtlasPro is that the system allows the instructors to see up to the millisecond how long the students have been in a particular module.

"We could get that information from the old system but it was difficult as there were numerous levels we would have to drill down to. With the new system, it's much easier to get to that," said Senior Chief Fire Controlman (SW) William Ball, director of training and leading chief petty officer, CSCSU.

Students have easily adapted to the new system with no interruption in their training.

"It's a bit more streamlined and although it was a little bit awkward getting used to at first, we immediately realized it's more clear cut and much easier to see what we're actually doing," said Electronics Technician Seaman Apprentice Alex Fanning, a current student.

A five-phased rollout of the new NEL began in February and will continue through July.

For more news from Training Support Center, Great Lakes, visit www.navy.mil/local/tscgl/.