In thinking about the panel on the future of cloud and mobility at December’s Federal Cloud Computing Summit, I saw some clear connections between the advancements described by the representatives from academia and the needs of the federal agencies when it comes to employee education.
The advancements that have occurred and the ones about to occur in the area of online education have some real potential for the public sector. New capabilities in Massive Online Open Courses (an online course without participation limits) have brought on the ability for individuals to easily access specialized, advanced education.
Adam Porter, a panelist and Computer Science professor at the University of Maryland, spoke of redefining who we consider to be “learners.” No longer will employees have to travel out of town or spend a large amount of agency money to acquire new knowledge; now they potentially could enroll in a course that focuses on a specific topic with well-defined standards of success.
If the government turns to more advanced e-learning, as academia has, it might be a forcing mechanism to provide new training within an organization or “shared learning” across government organizations. For instance, DHS launched an enterprise e-learning system late last year – providing capabilities across the agency to manage, track and offer a single e-learning platform.
But now take that a step farther and imagine a future where agencies can lead certain training and share it more easily to other agencies. DHS may develop an expertise in security awareness, DOJ may have an expertise in ethics, and OPM might have an excellent training program on human resource management.
Technology can help with this now – and open up even more doors related to mission learning. Beyond the low hanging fruit of standard required training, eLearning related to mission is the future.
Today, there are government agencies with related missions, it makes sense that someone from EPA or DOI who needs a course on watershed management could have access to the same courses, no matter what agency is providing. Technology, especially with the use of cloud, is no longer the barrier to eLearning but open minds up to shared government training may be the biggest impairment.
