IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY OF
ADVANCED DISTRIBUTED LEARNING
IN ROMANIAN ARMED FORCES
Cristea DUMITRU
*
The implementation of an Advanced Distributed Learning system is a much elaborated
activity that has to be accomplished according to a realistic and sound vision. The present
state has to be taken into consideration, as well as the resources available, following the final
goal.
Building an integrated system for distance learning must take into account
the national legislation as well as the NATO regulations on this issue. At
national level Romanian government issued Government Ordinance no.
1011/2001 regarding the organization and function of distance learning. The
standards were issued by ROMANIAN AGENCY FOR QUALITY
ASSURANCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION.
We believe that creating an Advanced Distributed Learning System has to
be made at two levels:
1.
Education level. This level will comprise all military higher
education institutions which function based on the national laws regarding
education, and that have to offer the students the digital content of the courses
that are presented in Education Plans and Programs. Within these institutions
new, specialized structures will be founded (“Carol I” National Defence
University has already had such a structure) which will be in charge with the
academic evaluation and accreditation and which will offer courses needed by
the professional development of the personnel of the Romanian Armed Forces.
The standards for the professional development will be stated by each structure
together with the Direction for Human Resources Management. (These types of
courses has to be public and found over the Internet, but also controlled through
different measures of security regarding the access to the information offered by
the distance learning departments form each institution).
2.
Level of Instruction. This level will be oriented to the creation and
dissemination of the digital content for refreshed courses in order to improve the
training of different categories of military personnel for various and specific
missions. The content of these courses, according to the level of classification,
can be offered exclusively in INTRAMAN and/or Internet network.
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The first step in designing a pilot program for Advanced Distributed
Learning in military education will be to establish a list of objectives that
mainly, has to contain the following:
•
To demonstrate that by using the Advanced Distributed Learning
all the requirements regarding the training of the military students are
accomplished;
•
To make a comparative analysis regarding the curricula that are to
be used, according to the necessities in a certain domain;
•
To find the best suited location in order to better conduct, develop
and monitor the instruction programs;
•
To learn how to use the program;
•
To evaluate the human resources, and their characteristics, as well
as to create a data base;
•
To establish the costs, the benefices and the way to recuperate the
investments.
In order to be effective, the pilot programs for Advanced Distributed
Learning should firstly identify the forms of instruction, the requirements for
each form of education and field of study. The costs, the work period, the level
of technical knowledge of the students should be also established. If other needs
or requirement should appear while developing the program, they should also be
included in the program.
The General Staff, through the designated structures, will require the list
with the established goals of the application school and it will also discuss the
content with the programs managers that deal with education using Advanced
Distributed Learning.
Moreover, the application schools commandants will offer information
regarding the way in which they evaluate the software. The information should
be forwarded to the pilot program manager, who, together with the application
schools should create a test that would be used to select the students that are to
take part in the Advanced Distributed Learning program.
The education content of the Advanced Distributed Learning pilot
program should offer a prototype of collaboration between the course
programmers, designers and professors. The development should be oriented to
the creation of interactive and informative study objects that present a challenge
to the student and that may be reused by the professors, taking into account the
organizing and the functioning of the coursed based on object of study that are
agreed upon by the students. A standard protocol is needed in order to establish
the direction of action.
Amongst other measures that have to be taken we can mention the
selection of the program manager, of the didactical specialists and of the project
specialist so that they can supervise the pilot program. These steps should be
known, because other experimental pilot programs already exist.
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No matters how difficult are the conditions and the terms for application;
the general directions of the responsibilities should be established for the
authorized persons for monitoring the personnel that takes part in the education
system. The course programmers should be selected among the experts in this
domain, both those with a technical training, as well as those that are able to
teach. The Instruction regime for instructors and professors should be coded for
a future use.
The selection of the students should take into account their needs and
desire to accept ADL program. For starters it is preferred to begin with a group
of 50 students, and with grades between lieutenant and captain. Five to eight
professors will work with them.
The evaluation of an ADL program should use a cyclic model, thus the
costs may be planned in time. For example, if a pilot program has good results
for five months, it should be repeated, because only one cycle of functioning is
not enough to establish if the program is a success of a failure.
The successful application of the pilot program is the responsibility of all
implied factors, beginning with the project designing, curricula, establishing the
courses taking into account the domains, training the IT experts, of the teaching
staff. The military structure has to establish a didactic norm, the needs of
instruction, the agencies that will offer the personnel, the courses.
Most of the courses can be taught online. The best suited domains for
online courses are those with a clear contend and that have a standardized
technology (i.e. IT and technical courses). This is the case of the courses
organized by Communications and Information Technology Directorate (DCI),
courses (of introduction, specialization and refresher courses in computer
science) that belong to the Military Technical Academy, the Center for training
in Communication and Computer Science, the Agency for Military IT Systems
and Services, and “Carol I” National Defence University. The portfolio of
courses may be established by each structure that coordinates training centers. A
great part of the courses belonging to the technical education may be adapted for
this kind of training (usage/administration of operating system, data bases and
networks, the usage of software in project management, and so on).
PILOT CENTERS FOR ADL
The pilot centers will be the vital point from which the advanced
distributed learning may be projected, extended to other locations or users form
the Romanian Armed Forces. After a long period of time, according to the
existing requests and possibilities, all the established objectives can be
accomplished, thus reducing the significant difference between Romanian and
NATO member states or partners, which have already made a lot of progress in
advanced distributed learning domain. The pilot program had to facilitate the
growth and permit a modular development.
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Taking into account the accumulated experience of the three centers
belonging to the “Carol I” National Defence University, Military Technical
Academy, and the Land Forces Academy, analyzing the present situation, but
also future needs, it is better for these pilot centers to represent models for the
other military education institutions.
The pilot centers will contribute to:
•
Forming of the teaching staff and students what will work in a new
didactical system;
•
Forming the technical personnel that will work directly at the
ulterior development of the system;
•
Convincing the decision factors form the armed forces that this is
the new way of training, because it is very efficient, and it had to be supported
with necessary resources;
•
The personnel should know and understand the advantages of this
new form of instruction;
•
The development of a favorable domain to the participation to
NATO programs in this domain.
Designed, equipped and correctly used, these may offer a large spectrum
of possibilities and opportunities to accomplish the goal of education.
In the first stage it is necessary to establish the training centers where eLearning systems can be developed, as well as tutorial zone centers for each
domain of activity. For each component of an e-Learning system it is necessary
to take some measures like:
•
Hardware elements and communication infrastructure;
•
E-Learning platform (Learning Management System/ LMS);
•
Educational content (for E-Learning platform).
MAJOR OBJECTIVES OF THE PILOT CENTERS
•
Testing new IT technologies to create an educational content;
•
Testing IT technologies to create and administrate the library of
educational objects that can be re-used (LCMS – learning content management
system);
•
Testing IT technologies to offer an educational content (local, in
laboratories connected to INTRANET and distributed to any potential user, that
has an INTERNET connection, and analyzing the technical characteristics of
the types of connection: modem, ISDN, ADSL);
•
Establishing the operational standards and their interoperability in
SIMIL;
•
Testing the pedagogy methods and of associated didactical
scenarios (virtual class, videoconference, and so on) used for this form of
education;
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•
Evaluating the obtained educational performances;
•
Establishing the standards for accreditation of the courses in this
modern system of education.
SHORT AND MEDIUM TERM ACTIONS
•
Accreditation according to SCORM standards;
•
The designing of a knowledge management portal;
•
Launching online masters studies;
•
The development of technical endowment for interconnection with
the military INTRANET, in order to prepare and to post the courses that have
the level of classification :secret;
•
The evaluation of the portfolio of courses and the development of
the educational content for some of the courses;
•
Generating the electronic format ( in common by the students in
terminal years and a collective which will be founded and will specialize so that
they can help the pilot center) for these courses and posting them on the LMS
server of the pilot center);
•
These courses will have an experimental character using the
infrastructure of the pilot center and the resources of the beneficiaries ( distance
network connections);
•
Experiments. Technical, didactical and institutional conclusions.
As a result of this stage, the necessary experience will be accumulated in
order to develop the next stages. The activity will be concentrated on drawing
the specific requests to develop an Advanced Distributed Learning System,
which will be very performing.
CREATING THE DIRECTOR COMITEE AND THE WORK
GROUPS TO IMPLEMENT THE CONCEPTION REGARDING THE
ADVANCED DISTRIBUTED LEARNING
The director committee will be made up by specialists belonging to the
structures of the Ministry of Defence that have responsibilities in the field of
military education. This committee will be established through an order of the
Minister of Defence and it will ensure the command and the management of the
implementation of the advanced distributed learning in the Romanian armed
forces.
Three workgroups (teams of experts) will be constituted to study, analyze
the following fields: technical, instructional and educational, content
development, and courses. The workgroups will concentrate on:
•
The analysis of the results obtained during the experiment;
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•
Establishing standards that will constitute the base in finding
technical solutions;
•
Identifying the problems regarding the legal frame;
•
Establishing the domains that can be used with the new system;
•
Analyzing the training needs of the personnel that is to deal with
this activity;
•
Establishing the locations (training centers) where the advanced
distributed learning will be implemented;
•
Drawing up the operational requests;
•
Establishing the system configuration;
•
Planning the stages of implementation;
•
Establishing the technical and technological solutions of
implementation.
DRAWING UP THE TECHNICAL PROJECT
The drawing up of the technical project will take into account the needs
and the levels of training from the Romanian armed forces and it will be
structured into two hierarchical segments: a general one at the level of the
Ministry of Defence and an institutional one at the level of educational
institutions. The technical project will be generated in the first stage in order to
create the pilot centers and it will comprise all the components of hardware
infrastructure and communications, as well as the software and authorizing tool
to develop the digital content.
At the level of the Communications and Information Technology
Directorate will name a team of technical experts responsible for drawing up the
technical project. It will supervise the activity of implementation, according to
the technical standards, standards of communication and security and to the
strategy in this fields promoted by the Ministry of Defence. In order to elaborate
the institutional technical projects, the team of experts will work together with
the team of experts from those institutions both for defining the general
architecture, as well as for drawing up technical specifications for equipments
and software. The technical team from DCI will participate at their installation
and testing at general and institutional level.
The Director Committee, the Communications and Information
Technology Directorate, as structures responsible for designing, implementing
and managing the system, will continuously supervise and coordinate each stage
of this project.
*
PhD, Communication and Information Technology Directorate
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