Page 9: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (October 2020)

The Author fortunately new technologies are starting to close the gap. The ? rst example I am

Goldberg aware of for the maritime industry is the

Murray Goldberg is CEO of Marine Learning Systems which “SkillGrader”.

provides software and services to optimize knowledge, skills

The Skill Grader was initially devel- and behavior in maritime operators. [email protected] oped as a collaboration between Ma- rine Learning Systems and the training and assessment experts at our largest customer, the Carnival Group of cruise lines. The original goal was to support a sophisticated competency framework and performance-related training. This required a way to simply, objectively and deeply assess skills for teams and individuals, and to generate skill per- formance metrics for the workforce as a whole. The use of early prototypes at

Carnival proved that obtaining deep and objective metrics on skill performance was indeed possible. Simplifying the process also greatly expanded oppor- tunities for assessment helping to shed light on what is arguably the most impor- tant question of safety and performance: does our workforce perform their duties according to company best-practice?

The end result is a tablet-based app that is used to simply and objectively as- sess the performance of skills by teams and individuals. It can be used to assess simulation training, drills, or on-the-job performance. It reports on the pro? cien- cy of the team (for team-based skills) and each individual’s contribution to the team performance. All results are stored in a database providing access to broad workforce skill insights as assessment data accumulates over time. Overall, it is meant to greatly increase opportuni- ties for the assessment of skills, and to produce both immediate and long-term actionable reports.

There is no question that the maritime industry is deeply dependant on the skills of our of? cers and crew. Therefore, whether it is using technologies like the

SkillGrader or using more traditional techniques such as paper-based forms, it is time to get serious about making skill assessment a central part of our training.

Until next time, keep healthy and sail safely.

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