In a small office on the fourth floor of the FedEx Institute ofTechnology, a four-person team is transforming the way areabusinesses train and educate their employees.
"We want to make learning anytime, anywhere," said EricMatthews, director of the Workforce ADL Co-Lab.
ADL stands for advanced distributed learning, which involvesgiving workers advanced, on-the-spot training via laptops, PDAs,cell phones or any other medium that works. The FedEx Institute'sADL lab is one of only four in the country.
Each lab has its own focus. There's one in Alexandria, Va., thatserves as the main center for the others. Another in Orlando, Fla.,helps the U.S. military, while a third in Madison, Wis., promotesADL in academic environments. The University of Memphis' labfocuses on bringing advanced learning to businesses.
The U of M was picked as a site for an ADL lab because of theFedEx Institute, which is not only a digital hub for the Mid-Southbut also has already established a reputation for interdisciplinaryresearch, according to Dan Rader, an intern for the Co-Lab.
"Memphis will become a worldwide leader in workforce trainingand education," Rader said.
The Defense Acquisition University gained significant savingsfrom working with The U of M's ADL lab.
The DAU provides assignment-specific training and continuingeducation for more than 140,000 acquisition personnel for theDepartment of Defense.
With an investment of $500,000 and help from The U of M's ADLlab, the DAU turned a nine-day class into a 25-hour online course,saving $4.6 million a year.
This "training transformation," as Matthews calls it, helped theDAU increase the number of its graduates from 3,700 to more than10,000.
The ADL lab provides businesses with a collection ofspecifications called SCORM, or Sharable Content Object ReferenceModel, that allow e-learning material and systems to interactseamlessly.
"We're building consensus among all of these companies,"Matthews said.
The co-lab is a non-profit company, but it does charge companiesit partners with in order to recover costs.
"We don't want to price ourselves out of the market," Matthewssaid. The costs depend on the level of involvement the companywants from the lab. "If (the company) wants us to hold their handthe whole way, then they will have more cost."
Though the ADL lab makes no money, Matthews said businesses cansell their training developments to other businesses that may needthat type of training.
