Spot studying - Mentys Internet-based training system for IT professionals - Internet/Web/Online Service Information

Communications News, August, 1997

David Neil, a fiber-optic technician for Expertech-Bell Canada, sits in his living room in Ottawa sipping tea in front of the family's home computer. Neil navigates to Mentys, the Internet Computer Institute, to study C programming and TCP/IP. He is using his new skills to customize a new breed of software that will revolutionize workgroups and collaboration.

"There's a lot of experimental software that is looking at these issues," says Neil, who describes his studies as part work, part personal enrichment. "Mentys has allowed me to get to the point that I need quickly and concisely. From there I'll see where I need to study in depth."

Unlike traditional classroom training programs, Mentys takes little toll on Neil's personal and professional lives. Mentys involves no driving, no fixed class schedules, no one dictating the pace, no separation from family, no high tuition fees, no lost wages, and no lost productivity for employers.

Neil is one of about 700 pilot users of Mentys, which is part of an effort in Canada to address a projected IT skills crisis that leaves 12,000 software jobs open today and a projected 20,000 vacancies in 1999.

The skills crisis is rooted in the move from legacy technologies to client/ server systems and the rapid evolution of software. This evolution leaves many of those who occupy IT jobs increasingly undertrained, especially the swelling numbers of contract workers who don't receive the training support of typical corporate IS managers.

"If the people aren't trained, and they don't stay current and don't stay competent, then we'll lose our technological edge in being able to compete globally." Paul Swinwood, president of Canada's Software Human Resource Council. The non-profit organization has collaborated with the world's largest independent IT training company, Global Knowledge Network, to offer Mentys.

Mentys is an Internet-based training system that provides courses in the latest technology to a growing number of IT professionals in Canada in their homes whenever they want to take a lesson.

Under this year's field test, registrants paid $50 for 20 hours of classroom time, or the equivalent of four or five courses. Typical lessons last 30 minutes. Users automatically retrieve lessons from the Mentys server using a special viewer. When the user exits a completed lesson, it disappears from the hard drive.

Mentys offers courses in:

* Client/server architecture and systems configuration

* Windows operating systems

* Design/development/testing

* Networking

* Programming tools

Users see uncluttered graphical interfaces with doors and arrows on their computer screens. Some courses, like Windows NT, provide a simulated Windows environment. Each lesson includes a test that points users back to key information if they miss an answer.

Lola Beckley, a software consultant in Newfoundland, has used Mentys to learn C , Java, and TCP/IP networking, and she plans to take Windows NT 4.0. Mentys helps her meet the challenge of being a busy IT professional in a dynamic industry.

"You can't know it all," she says, "but you can't afford not to know what you should know."

She says Mentys keeps course-ware up to date, presents information professionally, and sets the stage for deeper self-study. "It puts you right where you should be," she says. "For my purposes, I find what I need."

Calgary instrumentation analyst Doug Dmytryk is using Mentys to understand the microprocessor-based gas analyzing equipment he tests for a living. The equipment is programmed in C .

Dmytryk has taken Mentys courses in C , advanced C , TCP/ IP, and windows NT. He has seen a steady progression in the power of the Mentys teaching software, culminating in the NT course.

"Once you've been introduced to the concept, the program would let you walk through the procedure in a simulated Windows NT environment," Dmytryk says. "It took longer to down-load the NT lessons, but the total effect was excellent. It will be very interesting to see the next development or generation of this software."

Busy lives, high training costs, the proliferation if small software consulting outfits, and rapidly evolving software are driving demand for Mentys, according to its creators.

"More and more people are going to be forced to accept distance learning as a way of life because of the cost per day's training to the companies or to themselves," says Swinwood, of the Software Human Resource Council.

"The people who have adopted distance education and computer-based training (CBT) more than anyone else are the independent consultants. Going away on a day's training means they lose a day's income as well as having to pay for the course.

"As a result, they're looking at Mentys and saying, `After my spouse is in bed, the kids are quiet and the news is over, I will sit down, dial in to Mentys, take the 25 minutes of what I need of just-in-time training, and I'm all set for tomorrow.' We're seeing more of that, where they take Mentys training in small gulps for the competencies they need to be current at the time."