SkillSoft Corporation, recently announced its research and development partnership with the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD). Dubbed Project Red Knot, this cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) between the two organizations is designed to explore the feasibility of automating repurposing of selected training content in the U.S. Navy's Authoring Instructional Materials (AIM) system -- approximately 8,000 weeks of training -- to web-based, asynchronous instruction over the next three to five years. Project Red Knot is also
assessing metrics for time and cost, as well as any technical issues that would require resolution.

SkillSoft will demonstrate early project results at the
Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC)in Orlando this week.

"The AIM database contains a vast amount of valuable training information.Obviously, the benefits of finding a way to efficiently convert this knowledge to a format that allows our personnel to access it anytime and from virtually
any location are significant," said Benn Aaronson, program manager, Electronic Training Environment, NAWCTSD. "This proof of concept supports our goal of efficiently repurposing existing instructor-led training materials to web-accessible training."

Specifically, Project Red Knot is designed to:
-- Explore the technical and instructional design implications for repurposing portions of AIM training content to asynchronous web-based training.
-- Map specific data elements from the AIM database to SkillSoft's SnowBird templates.
-- Automate the process of moving selected AIM content into the SnowBird tool, using XML as the medium of data exchange and leveraging the existing XML-based AIM-to-SCORM output developed by NAWCTSD under a grant from the ADL Joint CoLab.
-- Develop preliminary metrics on how automatic conversion can impact time and cost, as compared to complete redevelopment of content or manual input of AIM data into a WBT authoring tool.

"SkillSoft has long been committed to the standards developed for the e-learning market. Project Red Knot is a real-life example of why standards are so important - without them it would not be remotely possible to efficiently leverage thousands of hours of quality classroom-based instruction into newerforms of delivery," said Chuck Moran, president and CEO of SkillSoft.