Page 12: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2021)

Training Tips for Ships

Tip #27

Maritime Training and the Pandemic. © Brazhyk/AdobeStock

NOW WHAT?

he endless debate pitting face-to-face learning against increase in the use of elearning as we have in the cruise lines.

online learning rages on and will likely continue to Given that our company serves a large percentage of the do so for some time. As we entered the pandemic world cruise lines, this increase is very close to home. In ana-

T there was a huge and hasty shift in maritime train- lyzing our operations dashboards, in one example we saw peak ing practices (and in the world as a whole) to online learning. elearning usage (measured by the number of exams being tak-

This was both positive and negative. It was positive because en) spike recently by over 1,200% compared to the same pe- we can all be thankful that there was a safe and available al- riod pre-pandemic. To put this in perspective, this was nearly ternative to face-to-face training. It was also positive because 150,000 exams in a one-week period for one cruise line. This it accelerated the implementation of digital learning to a point large increase was a result of the retraining needed as crew that would have taken years otherwise. On the negative side, return to service, plus the increase in the overall amount of the emergency nature of the training implementation did not training crew are receiving as the industry continues to push allow for the optimal amount of consideration and planning. the envelope further in terms of a more highly trained, profes-

Thus, many implementations produced poorer outcomes and sional mariner. So, I believe that there is little argument that experiences than would otherwise have been available. the pandemic has advanced the use of digital learning many

Now the world is beginning to emerge from the pandemic. It years forward. The question is, what now?

is not over, but we are seeing the signs all over the industry. No- Broadly, the advancement in the use of elearning generally is where in the industry is this more apparent than in cruise lines. going to create additional pressures for organizations that have

Cruise lines were arguably the hardest hit segment of the indus- not yet begun the move to online or blended training. An exten- try (possibly with training centers coming in a close second), sive body of research shows that online learning is as (or slightly and interestingly nowhere else in the industry have we seen an more) effective than face-to-face learning. Additionally, on-line 12 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • August 2021

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