Adobe Success Story

State law enforcement agency saves hundreds of thousands of dollars per year while meeting mandatory training requirements with Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro software

Growing demands, shrinking resources
With shrinking budgets and an ever-increasing roster of mandatory training requirements, law enforcement agencies are under tremendous pressure to provide comprehensive training for officers, while reducing costs. Integral to cost-effective training are eLearning solutions that eliminate travel costs and enhance public safety by allowing officers to complete courses at their convenience, without having to leave their local facility.

Benefits

• Saved $100,000 in travel costs in first six months
• Increased training capacity and efficiency
• Delivered training to more officers in less time with on-demand courses
• Improved tracking and audit capabilities of mandatory training requirements for all officers

Project Details

Traditionally, keeping officers up to date with mandatory training has required extensive travel budgets, costly administration, and large time commitments from staff developing the training as well as officers who must travel to be trained.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) is a classic case of an organization challenged with keeping pace with educational needs. Local and state departments in Florida—with a total of 80,000 law enforcement staff, correction officers, and probation officers—look to FDLE to provide the required training resources. Constantly seeking more effective ways to support its law enforcement constituency throughout the state, the FDLE is using an innovative, leading-edge solution: eLearning delivered on-demand with Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro software.

“Most law enforcement offices in Florida have small budgets, staffs of 25 people or less, and minimal training resources and expertise,” says Steve Casey, director of Florida Criminal Justice Executive Institute and chief of FDLE’s Bureau of Professional Development. “When we tell departments they can access the required training on our website at no charge, it’s a real plus.”

Many initiatives, constantly in flux
FDLE must support numerous training initiatives mandated by the Florida Criminal Justice Standards & Training Commission (CJSTC). In addition to basic law enforcement training required by all police officers—a 770-hour curriculum—FDLE is charged with continuing education for police chiefs and sheriffs who must be retrained and recertified every four years.

Curriculums for all law enforcement personnel are constantly in flux based on changing standards issued by CJSTC and input from special interest groups. “Whether it is changes to our ethics course, or a new module on elder abuse investigations, we are constantly updating our materials,” explains Casey.

An effective alternative to the classroom
A major ongoing challenge is delivering the 40-hour curriculum for mandatory retraining of the state’s 67 sheriffs and 350 police chiefs. Previously, FDLE training staff traveled around the state to deliver the courses, a process that involved substantial travel time and costs and required that officers take time out from serving the community.

The training curriculum requires officers to update their certification in certain areas every four years. It was often difficult for officers to meet the required four-year deadline. As a result, they frequently had to make last-minute arrangements to take the next course, wherever it was being offered. Depending on the location, it would cost between $100 and $240 per day for the officer’s travel and per diem expenses, plus course fees and officer time away from the field.

In 2008, the FDLE began investigating the use of eLearning to support the continuing education initiative. The aim was not only to reduce training costs, but also to provide a more convenient alternative for busy officers. The FDLE chose Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, hosted by Adobe, to deliver online training due to its ease of use and ability to push large, media-rich files out to users via the department’s existing network infrastructure.

To support continuing education and other training efforts, the FDLE has so far created nine eLearning courses. The courses are available through Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro and the ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player enables easy access to courses from any computer or location. With the training offered on-demand, officers can be trained at their convenience. They do not need to leave the local facility, a significant benefit to public safety.

Once a course is completed, Acrobat Connect Pro tracks the officer’s score. The training officer within the local department can access the information and then submit the appropriate paperwork back to the FDLE to receive the officer’s recertification. The resulting information is then loaded into a learning management system. The entire process is documented and auditable helping to ensure that officers meet compliance requirements and are trained properly, with passing scores and within deadlines.

Exponential savings
The Adobe solution is cutting expenses for local departments as well as for the FDLE. Casey and his team can save resources and more easily keep pace with mandatory curriculum changes by creating the training content centrally. Adobe tools make it easy to rapidly create eLearning courses from Microsoft PowerPoint files and add narration, interactivity, quizzes, and other rich content to maximize learning and retention.

Conservatively, Casey estimates that the use of Acrobat Connect Pro has already saved Florida law enforcement agencies $100,000, and that savings is expected to grow substantially once more courses are developed and made available online. “With Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, we saved more than $100,000 in the first six months by eliminating travel costs for officers,” says Casey. “With a training audience of 80,000, we see the potential for exponential cost savings and greater efficiencies.”

A blend for the future
Casey doesn’t view eLearning as a replacement for traditional in-classroom training; instead, he sees it as the perfect complement. Academically oriented portions of a curriculum can be presented online, while hands-on training topics such as building evacuation, firearms, or CPR can be delivered in person.

“With Acrobat Connect Pro, we can offer suitable topics in a virtually cost-free environment to gain efficiencies and leave move funds for hands-on training, or for training more officers,” says Casey. “We view the blended training model as the future for law enforcement.”

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