SIGNATURE INITIATIVE: National Training & Education Resource

Make educational and training materials available to the public through a new, one-stop resource.

Other Information:

Overview: Building on the National Training & Education Resource (NTER), an open platform developed by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), DOE will make educational and training materials available to the public through a new, one-stop resource. NTER will allow for more effective learning through highly interactive learning resources, crowdsourcing, and a streamlined delivery method. In addition it will serve the public through a powerful search technology that allows users to search disconnected and hard-to-find repositories of educational and training content. Timing: By the end of the December 2012 NTER will provide the first DOE-created courses to the public. Through the remainder of this year DOE will begin to locate and import existing education and training content to improve the offerings for the wide range of customers accessing the site. Overview: The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) created a web-based next-generation learning platform, used to train and certify a new green economy workforce, as part of their mission to “strengthen America’s energy security, environmental quality and economic vitality”. The open source National Training and Education Resource (NTER), now in beta, offers a sub-internet and search engine for education and training. NTER also offers easy-to-use tools to enhance or augment training and workforce development conducted across the country. A number of agencies, community colleges, technical training institutes and graduate schools are using NTER to provide training, share courses and offer portable certifications to a wide range of customers. The multi-media, interactive, self-paced training modules can help educate a wide range of audiences, from elementary school students to prospective employees finishing community college or graduate school. While NTER is not intended to replace the need for formal, hands-on training or instructor-led classes, instructors and teachers can use the content in their classroom settings. As additional courses and educational materials are created from various projects and mission activities they can be added to the NTER system. This will enable the public to access an ever-growing range of science, technology, engineering and math educational content, and vetted technical training curricula to help prepare for energy careers. Impact and Benefits As an open source solution, NTER will expand the Department’s delivery of efficient and effective information and resources. DOE’s NTER permits agencies to utilize a shared investment and leverage the development of shared courses. Executive Order 13571 calls on agencies to identify ways to use innovative technologies to accomplish their customer service activities. An integrated learning environment supports the federal vision for growing our economy and creating jobs, which depends on workers’ ability to maintain skills and competitiveness in a globally interconnected economy, and enables enhanced customer service opportunities. Key Milestones and Timeline: 1. Q4 2011 NTER has launched at www.nterlearning.org as a public beta system. Users are welcome to come to the system and take existing courses, though selection will be limited at this time. 2. Q2 2012 NTER will be released as a finished product (v1.0).

Stakeholder(s):

• DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Objective(s):

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