Courseware Work Effort Collection System (CW WECS) -

The CW WECS component was designed and developed based upon the Instructional Systems Development (ISD) foundational elements contain within MIL-STD-1379 and MIL-STD-29612. More specifically the objective of the CW WECS is to extend and enhance the accomplishment of the basic objectives contained in MIL-STD-29612-5 Advanced Distributive Learning (ADL) Products and Systems. The CW WECS is a web based set of tools that integrates into your ISD courseware development processes. The CW WECS consists of two integral parts; a courseware Work Effort Collection (WEC) and a courseware Development Estimating Factors (DEF) part.

The WEC is aligned with the work steps within your courseware development and modification process and has two objectives. First the WEC is used to capture an identification of the various work effort activities that are accomplished for both, new courseware development and courseware modifications or updates. The second objective is to capture the amount of time expended to accomplish each work effort activity by the various labor skill resources used to accomplish the work effort activity. The WEC is not a replacement for your time or labor accounting system but can interface with your labor accounting system to provide supplemental information about courseware development and modification activities.

The DEF component uses the WEC data to constantly formulate parametric estimating factors and automatically feed these factors into a courseware development / modification estimating tool. The DEF factors can be setup to formulate / reformulate or adjust based upon the conclusion of a courseware development / modification project or to formulate a real-time set of factors based on both completed courseware projects and currently in-work projects. The DEF provides an ability to continuously adjust the applicable parametric estimating factors needed to estimated or predict the amount of labor time for development or modifications of various courseware by type (IBT verses CBT, etc.) and type complexity. This data can then be made available to the Change Management System (CHMS) for use in estimating the cost of developing new or making modifications to existing courseware with some level of accuracy based on passed actual courseware work efforts.

In addition to providing a more accurate estimate for courseware development or modifications; the CW WECS can provide the underlying rationale and justifications for your courseware development or modification bids. Additionally the CW WECS interfaces with the DCARS (Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting System) to provide operational performance and process metrics reports for the courseware system and with the TSCOPT (Training System Cost of Ownership Tool) to provide courseware estimates integrated with other training system elements. The CW WECS interfaces with both the Courseware Management System (CMS) and with the Training or Learning Management System (TMS or LMS) to ensure constant alignment between courseware products, training, and the courseware processes. Additionally the CW WECS interfaces with your labor time accounting and personnel management systems to ensure that only active labor resources can enter time for WEC activities, and with a project management and a work order management system used to manage courseware projects.

The CW WECS reporting function can be an integral part of the DCARS reporting capability or the CW WECS can be setup with its own web-based reporting capability. Like the DCARS, the CW WECS reporting can be either predefined “one-button push” reports or ad-hoc reporting using a minimum set of report generation criteria.

General overview of CW WECS with CW Estimating / Prediction Tool