During 2010, thirteen courses were offered online via the GPSTC website in Adobe Connect. Students could view the training and download a form which had to be signed by a training officer from their agency and submitted to GA POST for credit.
On May 1, 2012, in an attempt to meet customer’s demands, GPSTC migrated our twenty courses into a new online delivery system powered by Blackboard. Utilizing Blackboard, GPSTC was able to electronically transfer POST credit directly to the GA POST system. As time passed, the list of courses grew to 32. The courses were referred to as “on demand”. On demand courses were basically a combination of power point presentation and handouts totaling 45 – 60 minutes of presentation. On demand courses were a way to address hot topic issues that needed immediate attention such as “Use of Deadly Force”.
On April 5, 2013, as a cost savings measure, GPSTC migrated the online courses from Blackboard to a GPSTC custom-built system. GPSTC’s Technical Services Division was responsible for developing the system.
On Friday, February 28, 2014, GPSTC was informed that an officer had taken 20 online courses during an 8 hour shift. GPSTC was asked how could that happen? What was discovered is that as the popularity of the on demand courses grew, the GPSTC internal server could not handle the volume. This overload created a buffering problem. Once a student logged in, if they experienced a buffering problem, they may have attempted to speed up the system by clicking on other links and inadvertently clicking on the link that asked “Do you want POST credit?” Once the student acknowledged the question, GPSTC’s ability to track the student was lost. This doesn’t mean that the students did not remain in the courses. The students would have 30 days to log in and out to complete the training. The courses were developed in an in-service format without a test. Therefore, no cheating occurred. However, if a student realized this flaw there was the possibility to circumvent the system.
On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 GPSTC upgraded the custom system to include the following;
- Track student activity as they move through the course.
- Show quiz once they have completed all presentations.
- Place a time delay equal to the length of the presentation to prevent advancing to the next stop prior to completion.
- Show an ethics acceptance message at the beginning of each course that requires student acknowledgement.
While GPSTC intended to create a flawless system, there is a learning curve when creating any custom system. During the evolution of our online development, the courses have remained available.
Since we lost the ability to track students for eleven months, we cannot say with certainty that all students attended 100% of the presentations. However, I am confident that not all students were attempting to circumvent presentations for credit. In navigating a new system, there was a learning curve for both developer and user.
On July 1, 2014, GPSTC plans to offer the on demand courses in a new online system powered by Moodle. GPSTC is investing in our server infrastructure in order to create a more robust online system. As a safe guard, GPSTC has contracted with Rackspace to store our online content which should help with the buffering issues.
If an agency notices an officer’s training record as having logged into three or more online courses within an hour, the agency can question that officer to determine how they completed the training. If the agency determines that the officer’s actions were not proper, the agency can report their finding to GA POST.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have created, but to protect the credibility of online learning we have taken the necessary steps to ensure that officers receive the best training.