BC Ferries has just been honored with an international award for creating an effective learning environment through the use of technology. This article provides an overview of how BC Ferries uses a combination of on-line and face-to-face training techniques (known as blended learning) to create a training experience that is more effective than either on-line or face-to-face training alone.

Mentoring in the maritime industry is a long-held and incredibly valuable tradition. However, due to the unique nature of the maritime working environment, the opportunities to form and sustain mentoring relationships are actually very limited. Fortunately, these limitations can be overcome through web-based mentoring. This article discusses the potential for web-based mentoring in the maritime industry: what it is, whether it can work, and what its benefits are.

There are very few forms of learning as effective and personal as mentoring. This article looks at mentoring in the maritime community. It discusses the impediments to mentoring, what mentoring is and is not, and the characteristics of healthy mentoring relationships.

Last week I called for experienced mariners (and other maritime workers) to volunteer as mentors for a proposed on-line maritime mentoring site. I have been humbled by the outpouring of positive comments and offers of help. At the time of writing we have well over 100 mentor volunteers, and the number continues to grow. This article provides an update, discusses the mentorship initiative a little more deeply and provides a sampling of the responses recieved.

Would you be willing to act as a mentor to new maritime workers and trainees? This article discusses mentorship in the maritime industry. In short, I think it is a critical activity, yet one which is vastly under-utilized. This post is a call to action. There are concrete steps we can take now which will benefit the entire industry.

Assessment Case Study in the Maritime Industry: This is the third and final part of a case study of assessment practices at BC Ferries. This article looks at how BC Ferries separates training from assessment, how it supports its trainers with an on-line trainer community, and how BC Ferries has planned for continuous improvement in assessment.

British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. (BC Ferries) is one of the largest ferry systems in the world. It has one of the most advanced and successful maritime training and assessment programs in existence. This is part two of a case study of assessment practices at BC Ferries.

This article presents a case study of assessment practices employed by British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. (BC Ferries) - one of the largest ferry systems in the world. BC Ferries has, arguably, one of the most advanced and successful maritime training and assessment programs in existence.

This second-last article of the series on maritime assessment presents a list of techniques and practices (along with supporting arguments) that contribute to valid and reliable assessment in the maritime industry.

This is the fifth article in my series on officer and crewmember assessment in the maritime industry. This article is intended to “put it all together” and present a list of techniques and practices (along with supporting arguments) that contribute to valid and reliable assessment in the maritime industry.

Skills and knowledge are requirements. You can’t be safe and efficient without them. However, a mariner may have all the required skills and knowledge, but still be a very poor, unsafe mariner if his or her attitude or ethics are poor. But how can we assess attitude? There are ways.

This is a continuation of a series of articles on assessment in the maritime industry. This article looks at one of the most basic aspects of creating effective assessments: the differentiation between skills and knowledge and the relative importance of each in maritime industry assessment.

Assessment is a critical part of maritime safety. Although we tend to focus a great deal on training, assessment sometimes takes a back seat. It shouldn't. This article covers some assessment basics and provides an example of how BC Ferries combines techniques to improve objectivity in their assessment of candidates.

This is the first in a series of articles discussing current and best-practice assessment methods in maritime job training and familiarization. This first article discusses the limits and purpose of assessment. Subsequent articles will look at assessment reliability and validity, professional judgement, the goals and topics of assessments, and the merits of specific assessment practices in the maritime industry.

This is the fifth and final installment of a series of articles intended to cover eLearning in the maritime industry - what it is, its strengths and its limitations. This last installment highlights some of the limitations of eLearning in the maritime training environment.

This is the fourth installment in a series of five articles intended to cover eLearning in the maritime industry - what it is, what are its strengths and what are its limitations. This installment (part 4) covers the second half of the practical strengths of eLearning including: Trainee peer and mentorship communities, The potential for cost reduction (or not!) , Maintenance and currency of learning materials, and Standardization and objectivity.

This is the third installment of a series of articles intended to cover eLearning in the maritime industry - what it is, what are its strengths and what are its limitations. In this installment I will cover some of the practical strengths of eLearning for vessel operators including anywhere/anytime learning, training reports and metrics, trainee-centered learning, and objective trainee assessments.

In this installment, part 2, I will cover what the research has to say about the strengths of eLearning, and then talk about the implications for eLearning implementation in the maritime industry. In subsequents parts, I will discuss the practical strengths, and then the limitations of eLearning.

There is no doubt in my mind that eLearning is an important topic for the maritime industry. All of us involved in maritime education, whatever our views on eLearning, are going to have to come to terms with it. This is the first installment in a series of articles where I take a step back and talk more deeply about what eLearning is, and what its strengths and limitations are in the maritime training environment.

How we think about and how we conduct maritime training has the potential to change the course of the maritime industry now, for all, and forever. Do we give it the respect it deserves? How SHOULD we think about it?

The accelerating availability of onboard internet is heralding new opportunities for mariners in terms of anywhere/anytime learning, informal education, professional advancement, and the establishment and maintenance of virtual maritime learning communities.

Continuous Improvement (or CI for short) is the process of continually analysing the performance of some aspect of operations, and then applying changes intended to improve that performance. This is the third and final installment in a series of articles intended to introduce you to CI, and to give some practical tips for using CI in your maritime organization to improve training effectiveness and efficiency.

This is the second in a series of articles intended to introduce you to Continuous Improvement (CI), and give some practical tips for using CI in your maritime organization to improve training effectiveness and efficiency.

This series of articles is a “how to” primer for implementing continuous improvement in maritime familiarization training. Even a modest program can yield significant results.

Most people find that an established professional community is one of their most critical and often used professional resources. In my last two blog posts I introduced the idea of using a "Private Professional Network" (or PPC for short) within your organization to create a community for your trainers. In this blog, I complete this thread by talking a bit about how to "bootstrap" the community or get it off the ground.

This is part 2 of a post which discusses the use of a private, online trainer community for the trainers in your maritime organization. Over the last year or so I have been involved in helping create one for the British Columbia Ferry Services and I believe it is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve training outcomes and standardization in your company.

This blog discusses the use of a private, online trainer community for the trainers in your maritime organization. Over the last year or so I have been involved in helping create one for the British Columbia Ferry Services and I believe it is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve training outcomes and standardization in your company.

In this post, I discuss the strengths and (severe) limitations of job shadowing as a training and familiarization technique. Because of the place job shadowing holds as a traditional and common familiarization practice, I am not sure how many friends I am going to make with this post. However, while working with the British Columbia Ferry Services I have seen the evidence first hand how a move away from job shadowing and toward a more formal educational process can improve familiarization experiences and outcomes.

In past articles I have blogged about the value of self-study as a powerful component of a job and familiarization training program. But the question that always arises is “can a person really learn as well via self-study as they can in a class or with a trainer”? This blog post addresses that question.

Every company in the world is (or at least had better be) continuously on the lookout for ways to improve the outcomes or products they generate while maintaining or reducing costs. For familiarization training in the marine industry, self-study is one way to do both. In this blog I will talk about the benefits of self study and give some tips on how to “do it right”.