Creating the International Training Management Web Site: A Corporate University Portal That Shares Best Practices

DISAM Journal, Spring, 2001 by Charles E. Collins

Identify an Informational Need and Publish It

Unfortunately there are many areas in the management and administration of the security assistance training program where adequate procedural instructions have not been prepared or have not been provided to all who need them. Now, with the existence of the ITM web page, documenting and publishing them for all via the internet makes a lot of sense. Following are a few of the latest examples of accomplishing this.

Recently a guest speaker from the Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILS) was present at DISAM to give a human rights awareness presentation. After collaborating with this subject matter expect, it was decided to create a human rights web page as a part of the overall ITM web page. The first result of this collaboration was a page that provided human rights references, Power Point presentations, links to various human rights web sites, etc. This page was created within a thirty minute period, including being published on the internet. It was done entirely by the DISAM training faculty member in collaboration with the DIILS subject matter expert. The DIILS instructor was obviously surprised at the ease with which this was accomplished.

Following the December 2000 Army IMSO conference, a visit was made to the IMSO office at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC). The purpose of this visit was to explore the development of a Model IMSO Web Site. Prior to this visit, the DISAM training faculty member developed a draft model web site for IMSOs using existing HTML documents from several good examples of IMSO web pages. By simply putting these documents together under the Model IMSO Web Page and indicating in red those items that need to be entered for the particular school, a model web page was developed. An interested IMSO can simply save the HTML files concerned to his/her computer, open them in MS Word, and make any desired changes. The resulting HTML files can then be given to the school web master to be hosted on the school web server and linked through the school web page. The folks at the CGSC IMSO office have developed an incredible web page, probably one of the most advanced in use today. Following this visit, a separat e Model IMSO web page will probably be developed and tailored for each military service.

In the October 2000 training policy meeting we were asked to work with DLIELC and the U.S. Army Communications Electronics Command which is responsible for the acquisition of English language laboratories. The objective was to better document the procedures for the procurement, shipment, and installation of language laboratories and the ordering and shipment of DLIELC provided materials needed for the labs. Again a web page was created within the overall ITM web page to fulfill this need. Thus, following the visit to DLIELC with the Army CECOM representative, a web page was created to provide guidance and required information for this acquisition process. The following information is now available in two web pages dedicated to the overall in-country English language training program, language laboratories, and materials for the labs. Information provided on language labs includes, point of contact information, technical information on types of labs available, how to add a language lab to a training program, a sample message to request requisitioning of the language lab, a sample message to request installation of the lab, current status of all language lab orders, current status of orders for language lab materials, and links to related web sites. This is a wealth of information that previously was only provided to SAO training managers at the annual training program management reviews. Today, that information is available on the internet at the ITM web site.