MoD enlists e-learning

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has called on BT to help it in an ambitious project to deliver e-learning to more than 300,000 users.

Under the 10-year contract to provide the MoD's Defence e-Learning Delivery and Management Capability, BT will roll out online training facilities through a Defence Learning Portal accessible by all three armed services as well as civilian MoD staff.

The MoD is the UK's largest training organisation and Rear Admiral Simon Goodall, director general of training and education at the Ministry, said the move would have a considerable positive impact on the government's skills initiative.

"The MoD recruits and trains around 25,000 people a year and returns a similar number to society. Training is critical to what we do. While most organisations say their people are key to their success, we definitely mean it," he told vnunet.com.

"The main issue for us is that as a large, distributed organisation it's very apparent we need a distributed learning system. The schoolhouse approach has its place, but given we've got people all round the world it's important to take learning to them wherever we can."

Goodall anticipates the system will be able to support 50,000 users in the first year. One key aim for this period is to train 14,000 personnel to use the Army's new digital radio communication system.

"We believe using e-learning in this way will excite people about its capabilities," he said.

"It'll take time to build up, but the material we're planning to put on the system is very sophisticated - rotating 3D models showing very complex bits of kit working, and so forth."

Goodall added that the MoD plans to develop plenty of rich multimedia course content and interactive e-learning elements to keep users stimulated.

"We're aiming to excite the 'thumbs' generation. If our e-learning is just a book translated to the screen then we're not going to excite anybody," he said.

"So we're investing in courseware that makes best use of live streaming, video and interactivity. You have to excite the imagination in learning and it's our intention to do just that."