On Thursday 10 April 2008, Martin Bowman, Sales Director at Gael Ltd, hosted an online webinar to discuss Gael's new online training service, the Academy, which is due to go live at the end of April. The webinar was designed to introduce the Academy to our customer base and to answer any questions customers had. The webinar was fully subscribed and over 100 customers logged in to listen to Martin's presentation.
Part 1 details Martin's overview of the Academy, including its purpose, how it can help organisations and licensing.
What is the Academy?
The Academy is a web-based Q-Pulse training centre that provides its users with 24/7 access to professional Q-Pulse training courses.
Key features of the Academy include:
- online access to professional Q-Pulse courses;
- ability to generate personal Q-Pulse training plans;
- course assessments at the end of each course;
- site administrators can view courses taken and pass rates; and
- no limit on the number of users created within your organisation.
Why have the Academy?
The Academy is designed to help break down the barriers to adoption of compliance management within an organisation and to allow members to take greater ownership of their own training and knowledge of the compliance management system.
What issues does the Academy address?
Increased pressure on system administrators to perform end user training
The Academy will take some of the responsibility of training fellow staff away from system administrators. This means that system administrators have more time to focus on making sure Q-Pulse meeting organisational requirements and system users continue to receive excellent training when it suits them.
Lack of professionally trained Q-Pulse users within the organisation
High staff turnover and trained staff moving to new positions can cause a lack of trained Q-Pulse users. The Academy provides professional training courses that are available whenever a user wants to take them, resulting in employees that are fully proficient in interacting with Q-Pulse and completing compliance actions.
Professionally trained staff do not remember all the product capabilities of Q-Pulse Without continual refreshment and re-enforcement, staff may struggle to remember all points of information transferred during training. The Academy enables continual refresher training to be performed that will re-enforce the capabilities of Q-Pulse.
Increasingly difficult to coordinate diaries for internal Q-Pulse training courses
Staff members have different job commitments and project delivery expectations and it often requires multiple emails, phone calls and conversations before a date is finally agreed. The Academy eliminates the need for training calendar coordination by providing an always-on training centre.
Lack of time during office hours for learning
Often, core job activities take precedence over personal learning and ongoing organisational distractions and interruptions can upset internal training. The Academy enables staff to access professional Q-Pulse training at any point in time including from home and outside office hours.
Will the Academy replace onsite Professional Services?
No. Professional Services typically deal with system customisation and implementation and typically train administrators and "super" users - not end users. Academy is aimed at training end users beyond the implementation team as well as for refresher training and new staff introduction training.
What is the vision for Academy?
Our vision is to extend Academy beyond Q-Pulse to wider compliance training. We plan to offer training on ISO 9001, internal auditing, root cause analysis techniques and EFQM overview. We also plan to develop market-specific training courses, for example, Q-Pulse for Healthcare, Q-Pulse for Aviation, Q-Pulse for Manufacturing, etc.
How is the Academy licensed?
The Academy is a flat rate fee - there is no cost per course taken and no limit on the number of users created within Academy. It is licensed as a yearly subscription and the cost is based on the number of Power licenses you have for your Q-Pulse installation.
Can I
try before I buy?
Yes, we
will be offering an initial free short trial from 1 May 2008. Register your
interest in the trial by emailing us at academy@gaelquality.com
or calling on +44 (0) 1355 593 400.
Sounds great! How much does it cost and when is it available?
The Academy will be available from 1 May 2008 and will launch with 34 online courses, with another batch of online courses due by the end of June 2008. The Academy is available as a yearly subscription and the cost is a flat rate which varies depending on how many users you have for your Q-Pulse license. For more information or to register your interest contact us:
for UK customers - email Gregor McCall at gregorm@gaelquality.com
for non-UK customers - email Alan Hiddleston at alanh@gaelquality.com
or call us on +44 (0) 1355 593 400.
If you were unable to attend the webinar or if you have any further questions, you can view a recording of it and view the corresponding mindmap by visiting the downloads section. Alternatively, you can put forward any questions you may have about the Academy by posting in the pre-release questions forum.
Add www.gaelacademy.com to your bookmarks to stay up to date on the progress of the Academy!