Security Assistance Management On Line update

DISAM Journal, Winter, 2003 by Ed McFarland, Richard Rempes

Security Assistance Management On Line (SAM-OC) is the Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management's (DISAM) first distance learning course that was developed in 2001. In this article we will attempt to identify the target audience for the SAM-OC course, provide a progress report on SAM-OC, and describe the outlook for SAM-OC in 2004.

Is the SAM-OC course for you? SAM-OC is an entry-level course designed primarily for personnel who are new to the security assistance field, or who perform security assistance duties on a part-time basis. It provides an overview of the full range of security assistance activities, to include legislation, policy, foreign military sales (FMS) process, logistics, finance, and training management. The course offers the advantage of immediate training for employees as soon as they are assigned to a security assistance position, rather than waiting for the next scheduled DISAM resident course. SAM-OC should not be considered a substitute for a DISAM resident course, but it can be used as a precursor to any appropriate DISAM course (i.e., CONUS, Overseas, Executive, or Foreign Purchaser). If you spend more than 50 percent of your work time in security assistance, it is highly encouraged that you contact your military department's security assistance training activity to enroll in a resident course.

How successful has the course been? SAM-OC has been available since January 2002 and we have had over 260 students successfully complete the course. As mentioned in a recent article in The Daily Record in Baltimore, Maryland,

   The emergence of electronically mediated instruction and
   particularly of internet-based, asynchronous learning (anytime,
   anywhere) stands out as the single most important development in
   higher education in the last decade.

Currently more than 90 percent of public universities and 50 percent of private universities are offering fully on line classes. On line education is the wave of the future and many government agencies are aligning with civilian institutions in offering on line education as well. The US Navy has its Navy Knowledge On line (https://wwwa.nko.navy.mil), the US Army has its Army University Access On line http://www.eArmyU.com and there are many other Department of Defense organizations with websites where eligible students can enroll in courses to attain personal and professional success. In a press release by Sloan Consortium, a consortium of institutions and organizations committed to quality on line education, it stated that from Ivy League to tiny community colleges, a majority of institutes or higher education say on line learning is just as good as traditional, face-to-face classroom instruction. SAM-OC has been a successful tool at providing just-in-time training for personnel new to the security cooperation community.

Though we see SAM-OC as an excellent tool for our target audience, we would like to decrease the amount of students withdrawing from the course due to their related workload. Since we have offered this course, our attrition rate has hovered around 50 percent. Most of those who withdraw from this course say that it is too difficult to balance their job related workload with the on line course requirements. SAM-OC takes approximately thirty hours to complete. For those who have never taken an on line course, it takes a lot of self discipline and persistence to get through an on line course. Over 70 percent of the students who successfully complete our course say that they spend over an hour on line during a session.

Currently, most of our presentations have the look and feel of a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. We are in the process of updating our curriculum and presentation media to reflect a more visually oriented and interactive product. We are incorporating more graphics and animation to make the course more appealing to visual learners; re-recording audio narration with one narrator, and reducing or re-allocating text to eliminate the need for scrolling text boxes. We hope to have this new iteration of SAM-OC completely deployed by the summer of 2004.

Below is a screen shot from our current course:

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This is an ideal refresher course for personnel who are returning to the security cooperation community. Students can request to be enrolled as an audit student, which alleviates the requirement to take the quizzes, but also means that the student will not receive a certificate of completion. As an audit student, one can view lessons and course material on an as needed basis.

In the past year we have had questions in both our resident courses and on line course on whether SAM-OC counts toward the International Affairs certification. It depends! Probably not, except in special circumstances and each service has its unique requirements, below is a listing of military department points of contact for clarification:

* USAF: Patrick Leddin (407) 566-1662/1661;

* USN/USMC: John Hoefling (202) 764-2494 (DSN) 764-2494;