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Competition Archives > 2006

In 2006, PacifiCorp ( http://www.pacificorp.com/ ) and the Design and Development Division of AECT were pleased to offer AECT members an opportunity to participate in the third annual PacifiCorp Design and Development Award for promising instructional design research by graduate students working with mentors in the Design and Development Division.

The following three finalist teams advanced to the final round of the competition and presented their solutions at the AECT Conference on Thursday, October 12 th  2006:

Each member of the 3 finalist teams received a competition plaque and team members who won the presentation round received additional ribbons.  In addition, PacifiCorp paid for the student team members' conference registrations and D&D/RTD luncheon tickets for the 6 student team members and the 4 judges.  This year, competition finalists were also given $500.00 to apply towards a general scholarship fund in their departments.

In addition to the students and mentors, several others put in a great deal of hard work to make the 2006 competition possible:

*2006 committee chair.

2006 Problem Statement:

Your role: You are part of an instructional design department at the headquarters for Advanced Systems, Inc. (ASI). Your department designs, develops and deploys instruction to approximately 65 trainers spread among seven division offices around the United States.

Advanced Systems, Inc.
ASI is a national firm with offices in 7 major U.S. cities and an assembly plant located in the Southeastern United States. ASI designs, manufactures, installs and maintains satellite-controlled focus systems for corporate and military use. Typically, systems sold for military use cost about 1.5 times as much as those used for civilian purposes because of more stringent military manufacturing specifications. Some of the equipment designed for the U.S. military is considered ?gsensitive?h for security purposes ? many employees of ASI have gone through security screenings and clearances; they are under injunction not to share information about their work with anyone outside of their own department. Much of the equipment ASI designs and manufactures is unique. Therefore, training clientpersonnel how to operate and maintain this equipment is a necessary and constant part of ASI?fs operations.

The problem the company faces: ASI allocates a significant percentage of its resources to training, particularly to training its training staff (?gtraining the trainers?h), who then train employees in client organizations responsible for the operation and maintenance of the equipment ASI designs and manufactures (hereafter referred to as ?gend-users?h).

Currently, a typical training cycle involves three weeks of train-the-trainers, three weeks of instructional materials development, and between four and six months of trainer time spent providing training sessions at end-user locations. The ASI instructors travel to the home office of each product's design group for instruction on new or updated products and/or maintenance processes before going into the field in their districts to bring the training sessions to the clients.

Here is an example of the present system of instruction. Motors are the newest items that the end-user located in Minnesota is adding. The motors design group is located in Texas. At least one of its master trainers works with the design group as the new motors are being developed. This person becomes a temporary SME on the subject of the new motor design and delivers the train-the-trainer sessions. Because the end-user is headquartered in Minnesota, several Minnesota-based trainers attend the train-the-trainers session in Texas. These, in turn, work directly with the Minnesota based end-user until all the personnel specified by the end-user organization are certified on the new motors. In addition, if the end-user organization has other facilities where training may be required, a trainer from the nearest ASI facilities also attends the train-the-trainer sessions.

Figure 1: The present system of instruction.

ASI has seven divisions based on seven different types of products (please see the Product Training Data Sheet, below). Of the 65 trainers on staff in the seven division offices, 17 are considered master trainers (having advanced degrees and/or more than five years of training experience). The remaining trainers are usually at the beginning of their careers. ASI hires trainers based on their education and experience in instructional design. None of the trainers have previous experiences as end-users. Depending on the product, the end-users range from individuals with backgrounds and degrees in mechanical engineering to military personnel with high school diplomas or GEDs.

The necessary instruction for ASI products ranges from basic material that introduces broad concepts that do not change much over time (e.g. ?gAn Introduction to Satellite Mechanics, what is Geosynchronous Orbit??h), to more specific instruction on new software and hardware that changes approximately every 6 months (e.g. ?gThe Telecommander 4000: Focus Controls and Skew Prevention?h). The split between basic and specific instructional material is roughly 60% basic, re-usable materials and 40% time-sensitive, specific material.

Several top ASI executives find the process of bringing end-user training to the field to be time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, ASI is looking into alternatives to the current training system to improve the speed with which knowledge of procedure is disseminated to clients while simultaneously reducing the overall training costs.

ASI?fs largest client, the U.S. military, is pressuring top management at ASI to bring its training into conformance with military standards for "distributed learning."  However management is not sure what those standards are (for example, they have heard of SCORM, but know little about it). There is a general question in ASI management about how distributed learning actually works. While everyone involved in the current discussion freely use phrases like "e-learning", "distributed learning" (the military?fs preferred term), "learning management systems", and "distance education", ASI management views these terms as poorly defined. This is causing some confusion among the Board of Directors, which is reticent to make a decision until its members have more specific information.

Both the CEO and ASI?fs Board of Directors believe that using alternative technologically-based learning might be a more efficient method of providing training. However, they have a number of concerns and questions about changing their current methods. Their concern is that employees will not take technologically-delivered learning as seriously as they do the live sessions, ultimately not devoting their full attention to the content. Also, there is some confusion about what can and cannot be communicated through technologically-based learning systems. Questions that continually arise in meetings and interoffice correspondence include:

• How will practical demonstrations (particularly those that teach specific skill development) be presented?
• How will distributed learners prove competency with the material?
• How will competency be tracked?
• How can time constraints be properly imposed on the learner? (In other words, how can the learner be prompted to complete training within a specific time period?)
• Can learning required to support ASI products be delivered technologically while security concerns about this knowledge getting to the wrong hands are addressed?
• Does online learning work for both the training of trainers as well as end-users or does it serve one group better than the other?
• Will the speed of developing technologically-based learning compare favorably to the speed of current development?
• What aspects of the system can be put into place to make development of new training more efficient, even on new and unique systems?
• If distributed learning is adopted, what can be done to address skepticism toward distributed learning?

First Phase of the Competition

What the company is asking of you: As the only instructional designers with advanced knowledge of instructional systems, you have been asked by the company's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to investigate alternative approaches to the current training system. The CEO will be meeting with you to discuss the approaches that you recommend. She has asked you to bring to the table a list of alternative approaches and what you consider to be the plusses and minuses of each. Ahead of meeting with you, she has asked you to put into her hands some kind of document that gets her ready to work with you on forming a decision about what she will recommend to the Board of Directors, in other words, to produce a discussion document for your first meeting with her. As you begin this project, the creation of this document is your first task. 

ASI's client representative will be available during the entire month of March to answer your questions about the context/cirsumstances of the problem. He can be contacted at http://asiclientrep.blogspot.com.

Second Phase of the Competition

Once you have agreement that your solutions represent plausible improvements to the overall training system at ASI from an independent learning consultant (a role assigned to your mentor), you will begin to create a vision of ASI's future training program. You will work with her/him to design a different way for ASI to use the resources of the company to get training to the end-users in a more timely and cost-effective manner. You will work with the independent learning consultant on what will become the recommendation to the Board of Directors. What you create will be the model for ASI training, and will need to be explained to the Board of Directors in terms that business people will understand. As much as possible, justifications for the decisions that went into your planned model will need to be provided. The creation of the documents that will be distributed to the members of the Board of Directors is your second task.

Third Phase of the Competition

You've been part of the team that has put together all of the materials about alternative approaches to the current learning distribution system. The CEO has now asked you to make a half-hour presentation to explain and distribute these materials to the Board of Directors. Present your case for your solution.

Advanced Systems, Inc. Product Training Data Sheet