The NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency has developed a new training course to help staff from the Agency, NATO Nations and Commands prepare for their role more quickly, without travelling to a training location.
The blended training course, which combines online training with peer-to-peer coaching, was developed through a collaboration between the Network Services and IT Infrastructure (NSII) Service Line, and the Education and Training (E&T) Service Line. It is designed to train the 500+ operators in more than 45 sites who support NATO's Recognized Air Picture capability, a common picture of NATO's airspace.
The online solution allows them to access the training anytime and anywhere they might need it – even on the job.
The Agency began training the operators in 2014 with a more traditional in-person approach, said Claudiu Rebrean, Principal Technical Lead for Networks, Voice and Video at the Agency.
Through that effort, the Agency saw the importance of providing such training, particularly in helping to reduce the time to resolve a fault within the network. But over time the demand for training increased, and last year, the NSII Service Line decided another solution was needed.
“A strong advantage of this blended approach is that we're not just teaching people how to fix problems on a certain device in their building. We teach them what the end-to-end process looks like in monitoring NATO's airspace. We show them what their specific role is in the bigger picture, and how they can work together with other entities to solve problems quicker," said Sebastiaan Tampinongkol, Head of Learning Innovation and Development for the E&T Service Line.
The training teaches operators some more general technical principles, and how to troubleshoot the specific system.
“In the future if something changes, we can be more agile based on those principles in changing and supporting any new service," Rebrean said.