Aberdeen (UK), June 2012 - Atlas, an international learning and skills provider, has announced the launch of its Atlas Knowledge Centre, delivering a cloud-based learning solution to the oil and gas industry to support employee learning and knowledge acquisition and so improve work performance.
Being deployed via the cloud, The Knowledge Centre is a truly mobile learning platform, accessible anytime and anywhere across a wide variety of media devices, from laptops to mobile phones.
Atlas, which has its headquarters in Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, has one of the world's largest portfolios of eLearning content focused on the oil and gas industry. Its programmes cover health, safety, environment, compliance, risk and technical subjects for upstream and downstream, and office and shore-based operations - a total of more than 200 industry-focused courses.
The Knowledge Centre is aimed at employees in the oil and gas industry who need anything from a concentrated, deep-dive study of a subject to a quick reference or reminder of how a particular process or equipment works. The value of the system is that both new and experienced employees can refresh and grow their knowledge in relation to the job they are about to perform, which is proven to enhance retention and embedding in the long-term memory.
The Knowledge Centre has recently undergone a successful trial with a leading North Sea operator, and both the feedback and results have been impressive. The company has now signed up for roll out across the UK to hundreds of personnel, with potential global expansion to its workforce worldwide.
Unlike the structure of a formal eLearning course (just in case), the Knowledge Centre is aligned to the informal learning model (just in time), where employees can access information specific to their immediate need. This is achieved by searching context-related terms, which incrementally returns real-time suggestions (similar to that used by Google and Amazon), and is carried out online via the desktop, laptop, smart phone, tablet, and other mobile devices.
John Rowley, chief executive officer of Atlas, says, "Senior managers I have talked to recognise their employees are accustomed to quick reference and search-driven activities as a way of acquiring knowledge at the point of need. This, in turn, demands new technologies and delivery platforms that cannot currently be met by traditional formal learning methods alone."
"The Atlas Knowledge Centre, which can flexibly be deployed on any device, holds the promise of increasing access to knowledge and learning, multiplying training opportunities in what would otherwise be staff downtime, catering for the specific needs and learning style of the new generation of learners, and providing just-in-time learning delivered in an engaging and media-rich fashion at the point of need."
