Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) News

SwRI^® offers web-based homeland defense course for a broad audience

San Antonio -- September 3, 2003 -- Courseware developers at Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI) have developed a web-based course that provides awareness-level training for possible chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological threats from accidents or terrorism.

The course, developed with funding provided by the Institute's internal research program, can substitute for classroom-style instruction and can be taken by a client's employees using computers with Internet access, says Kevin Fiedler, manager within SwRI's Training, Simulation and Performance Improvement Division.

"The course is intended to provide enough awareness so that the first people on the scene know how to recognize a threat and don't become victims themselves," Fiedler said. The first to encounter an event involving chemical, biological or radiological exposure likely may be a local law officer, firefighter, school nurse or utility worker, not a trained hazardous-materials technician or terrorism expert, he said.

"We targeted the course at an awareness level for a very broad audience," Fiedler explained, adding that more detailed modules can be added to the course to meet the needs of doctors, chemists or law enforcement investigators.

Course content elements were provided by Signature Science LLC, an Austin-based subsidiary of SwRI that deals in homeland security training. The response protocol to observe, assess, plan, communicate and respond, was developed by Signature Science and is a part of the course.

In a study comparing one group taking the online instruction with a control group receiving standard classroom-style instruction, the online group scored higher on the final examination while spending less time on the course, according to Fiedler.

SwRI is making the course available to organizations on the Internet on a fee-per-student basis. The cost depends on the number of students in each organization, according to Dr. Katharine C. Golas, Training, Simulation and Performance Improvement Division vice president.

For more information see tspi.swri.org.

For more information , contact Joe Fohn, Communications Department, (210) 522-4630, Fax (210) 522-3547, PO Drawer 28510, San Antonio, TX 78228-0510.