XplanaZine

The Army launched eArmyU in 2001 with the goal of giving enlisted soldiers the opportunity to take college-level courses (undergraduate and graduate) courses and work toward a degree from any place in the world where they could obtain Internet access. Instead of having to go to the on-base Education Center (usually open only during regular working hours) to make an appointment to have forms filled out for tuition assistance, and to take courses offered either in traditional face-to-face settings on base, or through distance methods offered through the universities represented on base, the Army decided to remove the gauntlet of onsite appointments, counseling, rigid course schedules.

By reducing the barriers and allowing soldiers to have 24-7 access to information, support services, counseling, and later, the courses themselves, the Army hoped to be able to continue to help develop human resources and better prepare enlisted soldiers – many with no higher education at all – for a career in a military that is increasingly technological, and where basic literacy, computer literacy, problem-solving skills, technical trainability are a must.

This highly visionary program was developed to accommodate a flexible, more rapidly-deploying Army where soldiers would be likely to be in the field, traveling to remote locations, and working from new “forward” bases and stations. In the new, leaner, more flexible Army, enlisted soldiers would not have easy or consistent access to the education centers with their highly wired classrooms, conference rooms, testing centers, and batteries of counselors, advisors, and education support staff. Yet, the need to be able to offer education to soldiers was viewed as more vital than ever. Further, “money for college” and “access to a college degree” were and continue to be some of the Army’s most powerful recruiting incentives.

In 2001, the Army opened eArmyU for soldiers’ enrollment. It was, by all accounts, a ragged launch. There were ugly initial problems, many made in the attempt to have service providers (the universities) standardize their offerings. eArmyU, working with the prime contractor, Price Waterhouse Coopers (later acquired by IBM), had decided to try to make Blackboard the standard learning management software. The decision was made, partly because Blackboard appeared to be completely SCORM compliant. Needless to say, not only was Blackboard not sufficiently robust (especially in 2000 and 2001), it was impossible to impose it on universities who had already invested in their own systems. At that time, most included WebCT, Lotus Learning Space, Prometheus, Desire2Learn, and University of Maryland University College’s proprietary WebTycho. In addition, universities often had their own home-grown open-source solution, including Michigan’s CHEF.

What was originally envisioned as a seamless one-stop sign-in at the eArmyU portal, collapsed into what one commentator called a “tower of CMS babel” http://www.edpath.com/earmyu.htm. The obsession with standardization just could not be accommodated in the way that the Army had envisioned. Soldiers had to log in separately with their universities to access the course management system (or learning management system).

In addition to learning management system challenges, the 29 education providers who had competed and won slots in the eArmyU pantheon of education providers were often in no way capable of providing a seamless interface to the relational databases developed by Price Waterhouse. Further, procedures for providing basics, such as catalogue entries, course descriptions, book lists, course dates, were not clear. Instead of providing an online wizard or form, complicated procedures for sending via FTP certain forms were developed. For the average university employee entrusted with this task, the procedures were often impenetrably complicated.

A further complication involved that of scalability. It was one thing to launch with 29 programs and a finite number of students. How could universities accommodate increased volume? How could the central integrating entity (Price Waterhouse Coopers, then bought by IBM), accommodate an increasingly complex world of increasing enrollments as well as upgrades to all elements of their system – including the learning management systems?

Despite the rough first few years, which were complicated by IBM’s buy-out of Price Waterhouse Cooper, not to mention the multi-front war that was being fought, the “work in progress” that was eArmyU had demonstrated enough success to encourage the Army. By late 2004, more than 46,000 soldiers had taken courses through the program, and thousands had cited eArmyU as their chief reason for deciding to re-enlist. This fact alone was cited often by the Army as vitally important, and a preferable alternative to more forceful “stop-loss” programs. Keeping morale high, and giving the valuable, experienced enlisted personnel a reason to stay committed to the Army are critical. Further encouragement came from the soldier students themselves, who completed courses at a better rate than their stateside counterparts who were attempting to take face-to-face and traditional distance courses.

Nevertheless, serious issues have arisen in terms of student success in a virtual environmetn. Soldiers enrolled in early versions of eArmyU encountered challenges, not only with access but with the laptops themselves. Not only was access limited due to portal issues, there were frequent communication breakdowns, leading in soldiers unable to make progress in their academic endeavors. The prime contractor, IBM, was often to blame, simply because their role did not always facilitate, but instead, as middlemen, they often complicated the process. The universities themselves did not always develop programs with the real needs of soldiers in mind. Further, the instructional strategies, interface designs, and approaches did not reflect the realities of a deployed soldier’s life. An additional complication involved all the aspects of best practices identified by Sloan-C’s 2002 report on quality, the famed “Five Pillars” publication, downloadable here http://www.sloan-c.org/effective/pillarreport1.pdf, which is fairly out of date and sometimes overly general, but still applicable in universal terms.

IBM is seeking to improve its performance and is working closely with the 29 educational partners to become more responsive, and to address issues of retention to allow soldiers successfully complete courses and graduate. Despite the rough start, however, the eArmyU experiment has succeeded. The next phase will involve improving support processes, coordination between education partners and prime contract (IBM and the colleges), as well as improving the online courses themselves.