Online Learning News

Anglo-Eastern completed the 100th installation of Starlink within its managed fleet last week, mere months after announcing its commitment to the service. The global ship manager has seen an overwhelmingly positive response in respect of both operations and crew wellbeing.Torbjorn Dimblad, Chief Information Officer of Anglo-Eastern, expressed his satisfaction, saying “We now have Starlink-equipped vessels operating in every corner of the world and we are delighted with the service.

Seeking to grow its inland navigation workforce, Germany is offering new programs to train inland waterways boatman/boatwoman and boatmasters."In the light of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the importance of inland navigation for the supply of goods to our society has become once again more than clear. Unfortunately, the sector has been suffering under an extreme lack of young professionals for years," said Oliver Luksic, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Digital and Transport.

Maritime medical and public health specialist Vikand Solutions has launched an online infection control officer training course for the cruise and commercial shipping industries.The course equips crew from differing environments with an opportunity to learn more about infectious disease epidemiology and its application within the maritime sector.Taking approximately 30 hours to complete and consisting of nine modules with a final exam, the online course combines the theories and…

The Hornblower Group is currently in a period of major expansion, now with operations in 111 countries. Hornblower operates a fleet of about 200 vessels in three of those countries, through brands such as NYC Ferry, American Queen Steamboat Company, Alcatraz City Cruises and others. Its vessel operations range from overnight cruise ships, traditional small passenger vessels, high-speed ferries, water taxis, excursion vessels, high-thrill jet boats and even vessels for military contracts.When the COVID-19 pandemic hit…

The endless debate pitting face-to-face learning against online learning rages on and will likely continue to do so for some time. As we entered the pandemic there was a huge and hasty shift in maritime training practices (and in the world as a whole) to online learning. This was both positive and negative. It was positive because we can all be thankful that there was a safe and available alternative to face-to-face training. It was also positive because it accelerated the implementation of digital learning to a point that would have taken years otherwise.

The global seafarers crisis takes center stage at the World Maritime University (WMU), as Dr. Michael Ekow Manuel discusses the importance of seafarers, seafarer training and the MarTID 2021 survey.While many maritime professionals have the theoretical ‘salt in their veins’, a career at sea seemingly predestined by family ties and/or geographic proximity, that is not the case for Dr. Michael Manuel, Professor, WMU. Hailing from Ghana, Dr. Manuel from a young age had a fascination with vehicles and everything that moves, but ships were not his focus, rather airplanes.

As we greet 2021, it seems fitting to address a “big” topic - a topic that is ultimately going to change everything, including (and perhaps especially) training. The topic is “big data”. The goal  of today’s Training Tip for Ships is to get us thinking about big data in training. If we understand it, we can lay the groundwork to take advantage of it.We are in the data age – and this is especially important for training. Everything we do can be done more efficiently and more effectively by understanding it more deeply.

Our COVID-19 maritime world continues to change as our perspectives on education and training with the availability of online learning and conferencing, an increased use of webinars, and the use of simulation technology must evolve if we are to be able to continue to train and maintain skill sets as we navigate the current and predicted restrictions on movement. Changes made now may eventually become fully integrated in to future iterations of training in many industries.An increasing…

On September 30, JRC/Alphatron Marine will roll out its online learning management system, allowing distributors to follow training courses from anywhere in the world. Instead of traveling to a JRC/Alphatron Marine Center of Excellence or other training locations, users can now log in via the Global Training Academy (GTA)-portal on your mobile, tablet, or computer to ensure skills are up-to-date.JRC/Alphatron Marine said the starting point in the development of the Online Training…

Bureau Veritas (BV) says it has launched the BVS eAcademy to provide online learning for marine and offshore energy markets across the globe.Led by BV Solutions Marine & Offshore (BVS M&O), BVS eAcademy offering more than 25 maritime courses developed from BV’s own internal training academy which, since 2016, has delivered more than 20,000 training sessions to more than 1,500 BV staff.Delivered online and on-demand, the course are suitable for maritime professionals, or students looking to develop their awareness and understanding of specific areas of expertise…

Lance Camarena recognized from a young age that he wanted to work in the learning and development arena. But his plans changed while studying in college to become a public school music teacher and a job working a swing shift at Intel led to a new path of study and a career in the IT world.Still, after graduating and securing full-time employment with another IT firm, he knew training was still his calling. “I managed to switch roles and became one of the first people in the U.S. to start training this new software package that was just hitting the market called Microsoft Word.

We must assess our trainees. Yet we have all heard the complaints they raise about assessments: “I am a bad test-writer”, “this test was much more difficult than I expected”, “I know the material but I did not understand the questions”, “I was nervous, and my mind went blank”, etc. These are not the occasional concerns of weak or lazy trainees – they are the norm. And we must listen because our trainees are telling us that we cannot rely on our assessment results as an accurate reflection of what they know.

– The Simple Secret to Making Randomized Exams Fair  – In last month’s Training Tips for Ships, we made the important point that we must never give different people the same exam. If we use an exam over and over, our trainees will very quickly learn what questions are on the exam and share the answers with their friends. Suddenly exam scores begin going up, and time spent learning goes down – both for the wrong reasons. There are few better ways to destroy a training program.The remedy is to always provide different exams.

As survey responses continue to role in, the deadline for the 2019 Maritime Insights Database (MarTID) annual survey of maritime training practices has been extended to February 28, 2019. Ship owners, Maritime Training institutions and mariners all have a stake in participation, as Murray Goldberg explains.Take the SurveyFor operators: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019MarTIDOperatorFor training institutions: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019MarTIDMETIFor seafarers: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2019MarTIDSeafarerThe…

The 2019 Maritime Insights Database (MarTID) survey has just been launched. This annual survey and the resulting annual reports (available freely at www.MarTID.org) provide critical data on maritime training practices and trends useful to every segment of the maritime industry. As such, it is important that every seafarer, maritime trainer and maritime administrator working at a vessel operator or training center complete the survey (also available at www.MarTID.org) and ask their colleagues to do the same.Now that the 2019 survey has been launched…

SSI CEO Darren Larkins, together with President & CTO Denis Morais, acquired ownership of the shipbuilding software development company from founder Rolf Oetter effective March 1, 2018. The two longtime employees have been managing SSI for the past seven years and have been entrenched in all aspects of the company’s day-to-day operations for even longer. Larkins, SSI’s fifth employee in 1999, said that through the years he and Morais have done “pretty much everything that SSI does at some point.” He added…

Never easy, but always a critically important task. It is critically important that we assess the ability of our mariners to perform the skills required to safely and efficiently do their jobs. It happens to also be very difficult to do so objectively and at the level of detail necessary to ensure safe operations and continuous improvement. This is especially true in dynamic, team-based scenarios such as drills and complicated safety-critical activities. This article covers a novel initiative by one of the world’s largest cruise lines and its partners to provide a solution to this problem.

The emerging technology tool is embraced by award winning West Kentucky Community & Technical College’s Inland Logistics and Marine Institute and its students. Years ago, it was not uncommon for a deckhand on a towboat with no higher education to work his way up the ladder to become a Captain or Chief Engineer. Today as technologies are added and new U.S. Coast Guard regulations are put into place, individuals are finding that working on America’s Inland Waterways requires not only a love of the waterways, but also a commitment to continuous learning.

It’s time to put that question behind us. Once a question has been carefully analyzed and a reliable answer has been found, it is time to use this new knowledge to help answer the next series of important questions. This is the current situation in some parts of the maritime industry surrounding the question of whether eLearning works. To illustrate, some months ago there was a familiar discussion on an online maritime group debating whether eLearning works. Arguments on both sides cited anecdotes and conjecture on topics for which we already have solid answers informed by real research.

A new online learning portal including a free e-learning course on the Operational Aspects of Ballast Water Management (BWM) was launched today by the GEF-UNDP-IMO GloBallast Partnerships Program and the Global Industry Alliance (GIA). The online tools have been developed by the GloBallast project, with financial support from the GIA to assist with the wider implementation of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments, 2004 (BWM Convention).

Businesses are operating in tough economic times, with budgets being significantly cut during the current industry downturn. Unfortunately, when lowering costs is a key priority, learning and development budgets have historically been one of the first areas to take the hit, yet projects still need to be completed and delivered to the highest possible standard. It’s well-proven that investing in learning and staff development is essential to ensure immediate and long-term business objectives are met…

The State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College has selected Dr. Richard Burke and Dr. Christopher Clott as its inaugural ABS chairs following a comprehensive search that drew an expansive range of applicants, the college announced today. Made possible through the financial support of ABS (formerly the American Bureau of Shipping), which provided an endowment of $3 million dollars, the positions aim to allow SUNY Maritime to remain “first and foremost” in the maritime education and training field.

AVO Training Institute released its new complete nine-module online course series entitled “Arc Flash Electrical Safety”, a complete electrical safety awareness series that includes the latest NFPA 2015 updates. Available for purchase per individual module at $49 or the complete series bundle price of $379 (bundled savings of over $60), these self-paced, online courses are designed to help individuals who may otherwise find it difficult to attend classes through a more traditional method. Online learning also provides a way for those with part of full-time jobs to continue their studies while keeping their regular work schedule. Developed by AVO’s team of electrical safety instructors as subject matter experts and instructional designers…