The UK offshore industry recognised that a key component to achieving a reduction in offshore hazards and incidents was to improve basic safety training for all personnel. OE looks at the e-learning programme designed to achieve that goal and now ready for roll out internationally.
The Minimum Industry Safety Training (MIST) programme, developed by learning and skills provider Atlas Interactive working through skills body OPITO and the Step Change in Safety initiative, offers standards-based content delivered consistently across the industry and focused on nine subject areas including risk assessment, asset integrity, the use of hazardous substances, working at height and mechanical lifting.
Atlas Interactive was tasked with designing and delivering a cost-effective adaptive learning solution which would maximise the effectiveness and compliance of health and safety training for the offshore workforce. In the two years since its launch, more than 48,000 experienced offshore workers have undergone assessment and training via the MIST refresher course.
‘In the past, courses of a similar complexity have been carried out in the classroom over two days, at a typical cost of around £300 per person," says Atlas' chief executive John Rowley. ‘Experienced workers had to go through the entire course content, with no account taken of their existing skills base or knowledge of the subject matter which, to them, was both time consuming and uninteresting.
‘It was vital that in developing the course, we not only helped the UK offshore industry meet its safety initiative targets but looked at the perceived barriers which may inhibit its uptake.'
Among the key concerns was the sheer logistics of targeting a high volume of existing employees in multiple remote sites, each of whom would require accessto the system. It was feared too that some existing employees and employers might object to undertaking 14 hours of training in subjects with which they were already familiar.
Another issue was anticipated resistance from experienced workers concerned about failing the course and not being permitted to travel offshore, with implications in terms of their employment contract. And it was necessary to ensure consistency between the training course provided for new employees and that given to experienced personnel.
Using an interactive e-learning model, Atlas developed the courseware to be deployed via the internet, intranet or, to cater for low bandwidth locations, via CD-Rom with results stored in a central database. The technology underpinning MIST is Atlas Fast Track, a diagnostic tool which works by assessing a learner's knowledge under time bound conditions.
Based on the results of a pre-assessment, Fast Track dynamically selects the learning outcomes that are required to satisfy these gaps and rebuilds the course accordingly.
‘By utilising an iterative process that diagnoses the individual's knowledge gaps and dynamically personalises the course for each participant, the pass mark can be set at 100% and we can ensure that the workforce has understood all of the topics covered,' explains Rowley. 'This reduces 14 hours of classroom based content down to approximately two hours of e-learning content. Learners can take the course at any location - home, office or learning centre – at any time, therefore reducing the burden of travel time and associated costs.'
To ensure flexibility, workers not currently employed are able to selfregister while employers can also purchase blocks of licences for their staff.
A key component of the MIST solution is the gathering and reporting on course and learner data, which provides the industry feedback that is vital for continuous improvement of system, assessment and content. Rowley says a lot of time and effort was devoted to ensuring that electronic feedback questionnaire was easy to complete and provided real insight into both the positives and negatives, which is then conveyed back in the form of a monthly report.
‘It is necessary to understand if there are any usability issues and to ensure that the content meets the required standard for the learners,' notes Rowley. ‘Evaluation looks at learner demographics, training locations and course content.'
OPITO managing director David Binnie said: ‘The biggest benefit is a safer workforce and ultimately a safer workplace. Supplementary to this is the reduced costs, more consistent, effective and transferable training and a single central, quality assured, verification that personnel that have been trained to the MIST requirements.
‘Indeed the success of MIST to date in the UK is testament to the continued commitment within the industry towards ensuring the highest possible safety standards among its workforce.' OE
Global campaign
MIST is now going global following last month's award of a contract to Atlas Interactive to develop and deliver an international version in partnership with OPITO. It is thought that this will open up an opportunity to train in excess of 1.5 million direct workers in oil & gas E&P worldwide over the next two years.
MIST will be launched in the Middle East in July, then rolled out to the US and 30 other countries across Asia and Africa. The e-learning materials will be tailored to meet each region's specific workforce, language and geographic needs, says Atlas, which expects the deal to deliver revenues upwards of $5 million in its first year.