bye bye ECI-13

[dwb]

For a lot of people, AFIADL is the barrier.  We haven't gotten good, as an organization, of helping people navigate the registration procedure, ordering the course exam, and getting in to the same room as a TCO to administer the exam.

The ACSC enrollment in e-Services is a great start, I hope they do the same thing for SOS and other ADL courses.

The other big reason is that it's done by correspondence, and some people can't seem to budget their time to do a correspondence course.

Will it help to put the CAP Officer Course online?  It'll help people with basic computer skills and 24/7 access to high speed Internet, which is only a fraction of our membership.

Regardless, there shouldn't be a barrier that stops so many people before they get to Level II.

[Eclipse]

Will it help to put the CAP Officer Course online?  It'll help people with basic computer skills and 24/7 access to high speed Internet, which is only a fraction of our membership.

Considering that internet penetration is over 70% in the US, we need to treat those without access as the anomaly, not the rule:



Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm

Like it or not it is nearly impossible to be a CAP asset anymore without basic connectivity and computer ability.

[dwb]

Like it or not it is nearly impossible to be a CAP asset anymore without basic connectivity and computer ability.

It depends on the capacity in which you serve.  If you're not in to ES, and you just help out at the local squadron, you can get by with irregular access to the Internet.

I'm trying to think of some imaginary users of basic officer course.  If we're going to come up with a back-of-the-envelope approach to redesigning the course, it helps to think of the target audience.

Just for kicks, let's invent some fake people.

Joe is a retired engineer.  He was in the Navy for 20 years, then put in his 20 years at GE.  He joined CAP because his kids are grown up and he wants to help out with the young folks.  He's the squadron safety officer.  He has AOL, and can send E-mail, but has to call his son every time he gets a new picture of the grandkids, because he can't figure out how to print it.

Anna is a former cadet.  She is a recent college graduate and works as an accounting specialist for a local business.  She's on the computer all day long, although she always complains that she can't get it to do what she wants.  She reboots several times a day, because that's the only consistent advice she can ever get from IT.

Ted is a software engineer and a private pilot.  He spends all day at a computer, and writes code in his spare time.  He maintains his squadron's web site, has an iPhone, and complains when the old pilots in his unit can't figure out how to get in to WMIRS.

All three imaginary people want to complete Level II.

Merely having Internet access isn't any sort of guarantee that people will be able to, or want to, complete online courses.  Joe probably wouldn't want to, and it's inevitable that Anna will reboot in the middle of a quiz and have to start over.

Now, can all of them complete the online training?  Probably, but it's not going to be easy in all cases.

There is a strong desire to assume that "most" CAP members check their E-mail regularly and can handle anything e-Services throws at them.  I'm just not convinced this is the case.  I think there are pockets of Internet-savvy members (maybe in more affluent areas?), and there are people like you and I that check CAP Talk and CadetStuff 20 times a day at work.

But I also think we are in the minority.

BTW, I have the same concern about online testing for cadets.  I don't think having an E-mail address in e-Services is a reliable indicator that an individual has the access, time, and knowledge to sit at a computer and take a test online.

We want to assume are young folks are computer savvy, but ask someone like Darin Ninness, who has to deal with college-age kids' personal computers: most of the kids are digital wrecking balls.

Anyway, where was I going with this?  Oh yeah: Making something only available online will leave some people out in the dark.  Maybe not a lot, but some, and that needs to be considered when developing the course.

Who is the target audience?
What percentage of our membership will take this?
How many senior members that join today complete Level II within, say, five years?
What other technical solutions are available?  Can we offer an online version and a CD/DVD version?

Not that my rambling matters, I'm not involved in the rewrite.

[jimmydeanno]

Nothing a set of instructions with screenshots won't fix.  It's exactly what I do with members in my squadron that don't know how to enter their stuff for ES.

1) Open your internet browser, the icon looks like this.
2) In the address bar (the box that says www.whatever.com) type this:
3) The webpage should look like this: (picture of webpage)
4) In this (red arrow pointing) box enter your CAPID number.
5) etc.

[Timothy]

Well I'm sure not going to wait for the new course! I got ECI-13 about a month ago; I want to be mailing my card in a week or two. I'm a new guy, only been in CAP 2 months. I didnt have any problems getting the course... in fact I want to see if I can take the Historian Journeyman AFIADL course as part of my sqdn historian training.

I was surprised and a little disappointed with the Yeager test. I had studied as if I was taking a 100+ question closed book test; the 50 question open book one seemed a little weak, considering it is supposed to be an education milestone with a ribbon. Its so easy to pass as it is now I dont know why every senior doesnt have a Yeager ribbon.

Have any of you guys looked at the other courses that FEMA offers? The IS-100, 200, 700, and 800 courses are a cakewalk, but the leadership, communication, decisionmaking, and volunteer management courses are ~180+ pages of text each! (IS-240, 241, 242, 244) I have plans to try and tackle on of those in the future.

ECI 13 does definitely need to be updated though. The copy is terrible, the pictures are so fuzzy they cannot be recognized, and the slew of errors you have to correct before you begin reading could have been fixed years ago, I'm sure.

[DNall]

Its so easy to pass as it is now I dont know why every senior doesnt have a Yeager ribbon.

1. Most people think you pass the online test & you got a yeager. It actually has to be submitted thru Wing to award.

2. Wing AE has to process it & they suck at doing admin work or anything to do with membership. It'll sit min six months to a year, and then maybe get lost.

3. most members don't have any motivation to do it, and don't realize how easy it is to do.

Have any of you guys looked at the other courses that FEMA offers? The IS-100, 200, 700, and 800 courses are a cakewalk, but the leadership, communication, decisionmaking, and volunteer management courses are ~180+ pages of text each! (IS-240, 241, 242, 244) I have plans to try and tackle on of those in the future.

Yeah, I haven't taken any, but some are supposed to be real good.

I t would be nice if NHQ developed a page they kept updated with a catalog of courses avail to membership. Which of course covers AFIADL, FEMA, and maybe some other stuff.

[DNall]

got an email back from the guy saying they'd be in touch, looking forward to working together toward this important goal, yada yada. Hopefully that works out to actual involvement. We'll see.

[SarDragon]

Its so easy to pass as it is now I dont know why every senior doesnt have a Yeager ribbon.

1. Most people think you pass the online test & you got a yeager. It actually has to be submitted thru Wing to award.

2. Wing AE has to process it & they suck at doing admin work or anything to do with membership. It'll sit min six months to a year, and then maybe get lost.

3. most members don't have any motivation to do it, and don't realize how easy it is to do.

#2 is a bad generalization. Not all wings are like that. If yours is, I'm sorry to hear that, but let's not try to give the idea that all wings perform in a similar manner.

[Short Field]

1. Most people think you pass the online test & you got a yeager. It actually has to be submitted thru Wing to award.

Actually, that is the way you get the Yeager now.  You take the test, it automatically updates your record on e-services, and you can print out your certificate.  Seems like it changed late last year.

[DNall]

You can pass the test, and print a certificate showing that. BUT, you need to send that certificate to Wg so an actual yeager award certificate can be printed (much nicer). They also send it forward to NHQ, which is when it's supposed to get posted. The logic is actually so the Wg AE can track yeager completion, not to be a hinderence to members. However, wgAEOs don't have a whole lot of duties. They tend to just do these things in batches a couple times a year, which assumes they sit there in a pile waiting on them.

While I'm sure there are a few Wg AEOs that hang around the place waiting for stuff to show up, that's not the norm. There's a thread around here somewhere from a while back documenting people's experiences from around the country on the issue.

[Short Field]

Sorry, but I can't find the source for the following but that is how it works now.  You take the Yeager on-line and it automatically updates on e-services.  If you want a certificate, you print out the on-line version.   National does not send out Yeager Certificates anymore.  Your wing may have some old certificates left over they are still using.

I print out the certficates on parchment paper for the people getting them.  We were back-log over a year before they made the change.

Yes, I know this is not how the regs spell it out but there was a notice sent out last year - I just can't find it.

[Short Field]

Bugs the heck out of me that I can't find documentation for the AEPSM change.  Of course, they still talk about the PDR.  However, I did check back on some records.

  I completed the Yeager on-line in Sept 2006.  The entry in my eServices record says  "Open Book" in the "how completed" column.  It took months and months and multiple e-mails and faxes to get it finally through wing to national and updated.  I never got the "big" certificate.  I was working about six Yeagers as one package - most older than mine.  I created all the certifcates using the web site.

Another member completed the AEPSM in Aug 2007.  The "how completed" column says "On-Line" .  I monitored the test and it was updated in eServices within minutes.

[DNall]

okay, my mistake, that's good to know. Thanks for the correction. 

[mikeylikey]

Back to ECI-13 disappearing........

could this spell the beginning of the end of Cap's access to AFIADL??

[dwb]

Considering they just rolled out a special ACSC enrollment application in e-Services... I would have to say no.

However, I could understand if they wanted to shift away from managing the CAP-specific courses through AFIADL.  There are benefits to using or not using AFIADL for those courses.

[Short Field]

Any correspondence course can be converted into a on-line course.  Testing can be done anyway you desire - on-line proctored test to on-line open book.  The only question is how well it is converted.  Do you get a nice re-write that takes advantage of new muli-media capabiites or is it just a black and white scan of the old test book?

However you decide to put it on-line is a plus over sending it via snail mail.

[DNall]

Considering they just rolled out a special ACSC enrollment application in e-Services... I would have to say no.

However, I could understand if they wanted to shift away from managing the CAP-specific courses through AFIADL.  There are benefits to using or not using AFIADL for those courses.

SOS, ACSC, & AWC are the ones we're actually worried about. We've already seen access to those tighten up recently. With the new proctoring reqs it seems likely not as many people will take advantage of these.

If you add to that that there will no longer be a mandatory course (ECI13) offered through AFIADL, then it does become a possibility that we'd lose access to AFIADL at some future point, and that would really be unfortunate when we should be taking further advantage of them. It's a legitimate concern.

[RiverAux]

I don't think I'm too worried about losing access entirely and its our own fault that access to the other courses have tightened up.  But, given the current rules, I don't think they'll get any more difficult. 

[mikeylikey]

^Not my fault.  Is it your fault.....are you taking blame?  We know very well where the blame lies here. 

[DNall]

^ 

I don't think I'm too worried about losing access entirely and its our own fault that access to the other courses have tightened up.  But, given the current rules, I don't think they'll get any more difficult. 

It's not that they'd get more difficult. It's that if we don't HAVE to use AFIADL for anything, AND it's a hassle, AND we're putting stuff online... then it becomes an issue that maybe we can just do away with it, or they can do away with our access either way. It's more of a fade away issue than major policy shift.

AFIADL is in the middle of an extremely long process of bring their DL courses up to the 21st century. Anyone that's done SOS of late can attest that while far from perfect, that online module format is a LOT better than paper in the mail. I'm all for making our courses better & more accessible, but I'd hate to lose that link to AFIADL. I'm in favor of moving our OBC to our own website, but I'd like to get the instructor course along with the PAO, ES, & other items updated to an online program overseen by AFIADL. We can host the bandwidth on the CAP side, even do the enrollment, etc, but it would be nice if AFIADL could be the registrar for that stuff. It still gives the possibility of college credit, and it shows up when I pull those transcripts to my Army side. That's nice to have.