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Overview
FlexTraining is a web-based training solution for building
and delivering education over an Intranet or the Internet. It is a complete
framework for structuring and conducting training classes of virtually any
length or substance.
FlexTraining gets its name from its high level of
adaptability. It may be configured in a variety of ways. Instructors are
optional, Discussion Forums are optional, and each course can have a
user-defined number of Sections, Tests, Assignments, and Course Guide chapters.
Use of the Virtual Document Libraries feature is also optional.
FlexTraining is built on the concept of customer-defined
training content. It provides a framework for constructing and administering
training classes of almost any type. For example, if your users all have video
plug-ins in their web browsers and fast network connections, your content can
be loaded with video. If all students will have Audio or Shockwave plug-ins,
these types of content are allowed as well.
If, on the other hand, your audience will access the
training facility through modem connections over the public Internet, you might
choose to use HTML and images only, for faster response time and greater
compatibility.
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Training
Following this development process, and based on the nature of the standards, FuturEd has designed a two-pronged utilization process:
1. a quality audit process for providers of training to assess their services against the national standards, and
2. a consumer’s guide process for individuals to use when making choices between providers of training.
Fundamentally, the concept is based on the power of consumers to bring about change and increase quality by refusing to pay for less than excellence . Related to this is the producer’s
need to plan for and/or market product excellence that meets the consumers’ requirements. In the case of training, few consumers are aware of the many and varied components that combine to create
quality training. This is the gap that the Training Standards fill!
This combined process — consensus-based national standards, quality audit and consumer’s guide — is the easiest and most appropriate means of developing and implementing national standards aimed at improving
quality in any product or service! The process of development and utlization of national standards can be replicated in other jurisdictions, and FuturEd is expert in that process.
The second way, then, is the actual tools based on the Training Standards and created by FuturEd.
Under a contract with the CLFDB, FuturEd has created a quality audit and is researching a consumer’s guide based on the Training Standards. Similarly, a PLAR Quality Audit is being developed and researched
for the CLFDB by FuturEd. It is likely that the SKP Standards and the LMI Standards will lead to quality audits and consumer’s guides as well. FuturEd is in the business of developing Transformation Tools
that help change learning systems for the future!
The FuturEd Training Quality Audit, and the FuturEd Consumer’s Guide to Training are two such Transformation Tools. The first is a workbook and workshops that help training providers assess how well
they meet the recommended national standards. They could, of course, ignore the Training Standards if not for the fact that a Consumer’s Guide, currently being researched with funding from HRDC, will
be made available to all consumers very soon. This Guide, available in both hardcopy and via the Internet, gives potential students the questions to ask to determine if, in fact, the providers they have
in mind deliver quality services. Presumably, they will select the providing institutions or agencies that best meet the recommended national standards. The Quality Audit is a money-making venture for FuturEd.
The Consumer’s Guide is intended as a service to students and those who help them make decisions about where to make their training investment.
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