Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
Issue link: http://elmezine.epubxp.com/i/48330
learning!100 Cross-Domaining Helps O.P.M. Cater to Employees "Instead of creating a course and giving Thanks in part to its Cross-Domain Communications program, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (O.P.M.) has been awarded a prominent place on the Learning! 100 list of the most progressive and efficient learning programs in the country. With federal employees in every state, averaging 750 per state, O.P.M. considers it essential to collaborate across geograph- ic and inter-agency borders. It been so successful that Elearning! magazine has honored it in the category of "Excellence in Collaboration." The effort has been made easier by President Barack Obama's "open govern- ment" initiative, which preaches inter- agency cooperation and transparency. "Open government has taken away bar- riers and parameters we had before, so now there's nothing to stop employees from getting a seamless delivery of cours- es," says Reginald Brown, the O.P.M.'s deputy associate director for Emerging Solutions and HR Innovations. "We're proud of the open, collaborative and trust- ing partnerships we've been able to estab- lish with agencies. They recognize us as being able to cut through the red tape and deliver services in a very expedited man- ner. Agencies in the past have struggled for months or even years, but we now can provide solutions within days or weeks." The Cross-Domain Communications program is the brainchild of Will Peratino, director of innovations for Emerging Solutions at O.P.M. "What we've done is to open up the landscape across the government enter- prise so that we can actually share content now," he says. "Instead of every agency creating its version of a course, every agency that signs into our knowledge por- tal — even if it has its own LMS — can access standard courses. 20 May / June 2011 everybody a version to stick in their LMS, we've got one knowledge repository for everything. Agencies can access the con- tent universally, but all the recording requirements are being complied with by virtue of the architecture. Sharing of con- tent is a huge cost savings across the gov- ernment landscape." The Emerging Solutions department, established in January, 2010, has burst from the starting line. "O.P.M. realizes that exploration by multi- ple agencies dilutes the effort and is not effi- cient," observes Brown. "Focusing on new and emerging technologies can enhance our ability to deliver learning to the community. conversations in a social network or what- ever — is agnostic. It'll play anywhere. "This isn't conceptual. This is real. Thousands of training events occur every quarter using this environment." Other learning innovations that O.P.M. has established include: >>Its own internal learning management system (LMS) that is run by O.P.M.'s Human Resources Department. >>GoLearn, which is a shared LMS. "We're still running GoLearn's envi- ronment to provide LMS and LCMS support services to all the agencies that aren't necessarily Cabinet level," says Peratino. "They can't afford to buy their own systems, but they still have the same training requirements." Reginald Brown of the O.P.M., Catherine Upton of We're exploring devices and system architec- tures to allow us to capture knowledge and reuse it in a more efficient manner." One of the advantages of the O.P.M.'s learn- ing network is that knowledge can be dissemi- nated across a variety of electronic gadgets. "It's a totally different technical approach to content tagging and discoverability," says Peratino. "The beauty is that content can be part of a Website, part of an online course, or it can be pushed out onto a PDA. We've created a universal environment where content — whether it's mobile learning, >>Virtual University, a learning connection for all O.P.M. employees. "Instead of being a typical LMS, it's an HR knowl- edge repository that's object-oriented," says Peratino. "O.P.M. employees can sign on to their LMS, see the table of contents in the LMS, click on one and — invisible to user — they are linked to where the course is delivered from. When they finish the course, instead of writing the completion data at O.P.M., it writes it back in the LMS at the origina- tion agency, which is what the agencies have wanted all along." Adds Brown: "It is a capability that enables employees to have electronic access to a variety of courses and content to help further their professional development. Employees like the speed with which they can get the training, and managers like that they don't have to go through all the paper- work and bureaucracy normally associ- ated with the training." What Brown calls "open learning" has had a positive effect on O.P.M.'s approach and success. "Being able to provide learning through an iPad, computer or whichever format the actual user prefers, is a step forward. Now, we can tailor and customize information for various audiences at the drop of a hat." Government Elearning! Elearning!