NSA Technology Based Training Budget Code:  
NSA considers lifelong access to education and training for all employees to be highly crucial in order to maintain and enhance their skills. NSA must ensure its viability in a world of rapidly changing technology. Traditional training approaches take too long and are too expensive. Consequently, NSA is developing a skill-based assessment and training model that will use emerging communications and computer techniques to sustain each employee's abilities at the levels required in today's constantly changing workplace. The key ingredient in this approach will be on-demand access to Technology Based Training (TBT) of known quality and relevance delivered directly to the workplace. Delivery over corporate LANs and the INTERNET, and the possible use of ISDN technology, will be addressed. Although initial offerings would consist largely of text-based TBT courseware, digital video and other media will be accommodated as they become available.

Placing existing TBT courseware on the network is something that can be accomplished quickly, but there are various conceptual, technical and procedural issues that must be addressed before it can be made generally accessible. Foremost among these issues are:
  1. Definition of the skills needed to perform specific jobs and a process for certifying the efficacy of training modules that address those skills;
  2. Storage, access, and maintenance of large numbers of TBT courses;
  3. Cataloging of available courseware in a manner that minimizes the difficulty of identifying suitable courses or training modules;
  4. Identifying and resolving the interoperability problems in delivering TBT courses over a network to a wide variety of computer terminals;
  5. Defining and selecting appropriate user interfaces (special effort will be focused on interfaces for home-computer configurations);
  6. Developing an EDI-based business model bringing market forces to bear on the availability and costs of Technology Based Training.
Budget ($ M)
FY 95 Act 0.23
FY 96 Pres 0.23
FY 96 Est 0.15
FY 97 Rqst  
Program Component Areas
  FY 96 FY 97
HECC    
LSN    
HCS    
HuCS    
ETHR 0.15  
Agency Ties
DARPA  
NSF  
DOE  
NASA  
NIH  
NSA  
NIST  
NOAA  
EPA  
ED  
AHCPR  
VA  
Milestone Changes  
FY 1995 Actual Milestones FY 1996 Estimated Milestones FY 1997 Agency Requested Milestones
Perform skill-based certification of approximately 100 existing training modules.

Build user-friendly catalog of available certified courses.

Established`digital warehouses` of TBT on-line via INTERNET and the NSA corporate network.

Implement pilot of Electronic Payment business model for purchase/delivery of COTS TBT over the INTERNET. 		Evaluate, modify, and extend Electronic Payment business model for online training modules.

Complete formal guidelines and procedures for creation of certified skill-based training modules.

Design and pilot Individual Development Plan (IDP) database and management software.