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Figure 2. Production Manager Course Outline Example
Defining the number of students per course can be one of
the most difficult items to determine. There are at least
four major roles of users to consider: the system
manager and assistants, the programmer, the application
manager and assistants, and the workstation operators.
Each of these roles requires a unique sequence of
courses which may start and finish at different times.
Eventually, at least one operator per workstation per shift
needs training. Also, each production shift needs
application and system managers. To cover potential
course drop outs, employment attrition, vacations, and
other absences, we added at least ten percent per job
category above the production requirements. Other
factors to consider are the desirable number of students
per workstation during lab exercises, the number of
available instructors, lab assistants, and workstations
available for training. Sometimes two students per
workstation is very effective and lightens the load on the
lab attendants. However, since a second student can not
easily observe what is going we found stereoplotters
practically demand one student per workstation.
DEVELOPING THE CONTENT
Initially, selecting the subject matter for each lesson may
seem obvious; simply follow the production worksteps.
Basically, the students must learn how to handle their
equipment and get started using the software. They must
learn how to interpret the inputs, and how to create, edit,
and manipulate the output data. They must manage the
progress, recover from errors, and assess the quality of
the results. In addition, the developers of courses for
cartographic systems must also address a number of
other problems. The length of the course must be
realistic. The order and depth of presenting the topics to
a novice can be quite different from how an experienced
operator may use the functions. Creating a balance
between the duration of lectures and labs is an art and will
also alter the topic sequence.
There are numerous techniques to keep the students
alert, the course duration reasonable, and to develop
decision making skills. For example: •
• Provide as much lab time as possible.
• Have optional and more difficult exercises for
those who complete their work rapidly.
• Create lectures that concentrate on concepts and
lab exercises that develop decision making skills.
• Promote self-reliance by incorporating reference
review for lab answers.
• Cover functions used frequently in detail and
only mention others.
• Promote local 'experts' by assigning simple functions
to individual students to exercise and demonstrate.
Determining the ratio of time between lab and lecture is
not an easy task. Most everyone has strong feelings
about this subject for operators and production system
users. The phrase, "Too much lecture, not enough lab'
can actually become a chant of complaint. Lengthy
lectures loaded with new technical jargon, concepts, and
processes can be stupefying. Other things that make
lectures difficult are inappropriate facilities. Production
facilities may not have comfortable lecture rooms or there
may be distractions. Presenters may be forced to
conduct lectures in hot narrow bowling alley rooms or
near loudly humming machinery, or the students may be
perched atop high chairs with notebooks in their laps. In
any case, a lecture should cover the concepts and
anticipate the questions that all the students will ask in
lab. A ratio of less than three lecture hours per five hours
lab makes a significant difference. Special
demonstrations of difficult lab exercises are very useful,
however more than four people around a large
workstation can exceed the ability of the demonstrator to
keep their attention.
There are other people who don't operate the production
system who also need training. These people are often
overlooked when preparing for the new production
system. They may be representatives from other
agencies or planners who prepare project directives.
They could be specialists (such as photogrammetrists)
who need to understand the equipment, the algorithms,
and software capabilities. Examples of alternative
approaches for addressing their needs would be to have
them audit courses or to create unique workshops with
the system developers. In our case, we presented a
photogrammetry workshop and arranged auditor seating
for course lectures.