Providing online training with a bang

Cranfield’s Learning Services and Technology Enabled Business Solutions (TEBS) teams, based at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham, have recently worked together to upgrade the SAFEX International e-learning portal and learning content.

The portal hosts the e-learning programmes that learning organisation SAFEX International provides for its members to promote explosives competence, focusing on sustainable manufacturing and operations.

Learning Services has been working with SAFEX International for a number of years. The release of the updated e-learning portal coincides with the completion of a substantial number of assessed courses for SAFEX members in the area of explosives safety management, brokered by the Centre for Defence Chemistry and featuring a number of translated products for different world regions.

TEBS developed the securely hosted service and assessment engine which supports multiple language variants of the courses developed by Learning Services all on a single platform (English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian).

Early courses were originally created using Adobe Flash Player. With support for Adobe Flash Player by all modern web browsers now dropped, all of the more recent e-learning course materials have been developed ground-up in HTML5 using Learning Services’ in-house e-learning content framework, and legacy materials converted accordingly.

Each programme has its own objective and may be made up of different modules. Member organisations are granted devolved permissions to enable them to manage their users and participants can then access the modules of their choice.

The portal manages and provides history of learning progress via the e-assessments (pass / fail / date of last attempt). After a successful assessment attempt the user receives a print quality certificate of achievement.

TEBS also provided a seamless migration of all user, organisation and assessment data from the old portal into the new portal.

The new portal is built to ensure GDPR compliance and will provide a leading service for many years to come.

The client’s perspective

Dr Pieter S J Halliday, Secretary General SAFEX International, said:

“SAFEX International selected Cranfield University’s Learning Services and Technology Enabled Business Solutions (TEBS) after very careful consideration of available options in the industry, and we have not looked back!

The primary objective of SAFEX is to serve industry working with hazardous chemicals and products, in order to preserve lives and infrastructure. We achieve this by ensuring our membership has highly trained management and staff. The new SAFEX portal has ensured this objective has been met with a high level of success – currently 31 companies globally with nearly 700 users are using it.

The system is managed by individual companies and support and technical issues are promptly dealt with by the Cranfield team. Using a partner that regularly upgrades the service, such as with the last set of HTML5 content, makes the portal more flexible and allows better dissemination through companies with different software protocols .Having the expert TEBS team backing the system up is worth every penny (or pound).”

TEBS is always on the lookout for new projects and opportunities. If you’re looking for innovative products, solutions and consultancy that address complex training requirements, TEBS may be able to help.

Learn more about TEBS here.