Defense Acquisition Magazine - DAU

Refreshing Acquisition Workforce Skills

DAU's Partnership With Coursera

David Pearson n Abel Trevino

ACRITICAL CHALLENGE FOR ACQUISITION WORKFORCE MEMBERS AND THE WORKFORCE AS A whole is to keep critical skills fresh and to develop the new skills needed for fielding and maintaining modern defense systems. As new areas such as data analytics, modern software development methods and artificial intelligence drive the capability of our systems, acquisition professionals must adapt. Leading edge training, provided by world-class educators and available on demand at the point and time of need to workforce members, now is available through the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) partnership with Coursera.

Founded in 2012 by two Stanford University professors who were inspired by Stanford's online courses, Coursera has grown into a consortium of more than 150 colleges and universities, providing more than 2,700 courses to 35 million students worldwide. As the world's largest provider of Massive Online Open Courses, or MOOCs, Coursera offers students courses ranging from artificial intelligence to risk management through a combination of prerecorded lectures, peer-graded homework assignments and exams. A typical course runs for about 4 weeks and require 4-6 hours of weekly work from the students.

Pearson is the Director of the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) Engineering and Technology Center. Trevino is a communications professional on the staff of the DAU.

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Table 1. Agile Software Development Program

University of Virginia (Darden)

University of Alberta

University of Minnesota

University of California-Davis

Agile Meets Design Thinking Running Product Design Sprints Managing an Agile Team Testing with Agile Agile Development in Practice Digital Product Management Continuous Delivery and DevOps

Intro to Software (SW ) Product Management SW Process and Agile Practices SW Requirements Agile Planning for SW Requirements Review and Metrics for SW Capstone

SW Development Processes and Methods Agile SW Development Lean SW Development

DevOps Culture and Mindset

Source of tables: Defense Acquisition University.

Coursera offers users a unique experience beyond individual courses. Many of the partner universities took the initiative to develop a more robust curriculum path of their own courses called specializations. These specializations combine a series of courses to provide students with a mastery of a specific subject. Students benefit from the specializations because they often provide credit toward college certifications and degrees. As an award-winning corporate university, DAU is comfortable pushing the boundaries of traditional learning delivery methods away from the classroom and incorporating student expectations. In conducting market research in this area, DAU viewed these pre-configured curriculum paths as starting points for course selection--the universities already determined which courses provided topical information, DAU just needed to select the ones relevant to the Defense Acquisition Workforce.

DAU's interest in commercial providers of MOOCs began when Congress, through the Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, required DAU to provide agile software training to designated pilot programs. Rather than spend months developing new content, DAU recognized that there were countless training providers already out there teaching this topic. The challenge was to find a respected provider to deliver high-quality training to the workforce at the right scale and price. After detailed market research, DAU chose the Coursera platform as the primary deliverer of training on agile fundamentals. By using already developed curriculum on Coursera, DAU was able to present leading edge training in agile methods in a matter of weeks instead of developing a course from scratch. Specifically, three separate specializations, each consisting of multiple courses taught by leading universities were screened and selected (Table 1). After incorporating the feedback of the initial students, DAU

now offers the program to the entire Defense Acquisition Workforce at no charge.

Two New Programs in 2019

Leveraging the success with the Agile Software Development program, DAU looked at training in other disciplines, particularly those related to data science. The analysis of data is an emerging discipline with implications for both warfighting and in providing the Defense Acquisition Workforce with a solid foundation to make data-driven decisions. Recognizing the need for advanced training in this area, DAU investigated Coursera offerings in Data Analytics, eventually selecting courses offered through Johns Hopkins University.

Despite being best known for its medical school, Johns Hopkins University also is a leader in engineering and mathematics; there was no question that DAU would

Table 2. Data Analytics Program

All courses taught by Johns Hopkins University

Executive Data Science

Data Science

Crash Course in Data Science Building a Data Science Team Managing Data Analysis Data Science in Real Life Executive Data Science Capstone

Data Scientist's Tool Box R Programming Getting and Cleaning Data Exploratory Data Analysis Reproducible Research Statistical Inference Regression Modeling Practical Machine Learning Developing Data Products Data Science Capstone

46 | | September-October 2019 DEFENSEACQUISITION

incorporate their available Coursera tracks in providing the Defense Acquisition Workforce with training. Johns Hopkins provided two specializations in data analytics, one targeting managers and the second aimed at those students seeking to become practitioners of data analytical methods. Together, they form a robust Data Analytics curriculum (Table 2).

Like the agile curriculum, both the Data Analytics and Digital Engineering

The Department of Defense defines Digital Engineering as an integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of system data and models as a continuum across disciplines to support life-cycle activities from concept through disposal. For the layman, this means using software and data--the digital in digital engineering--to develop and improve defense products. Through Coursera, DAU found the Digital Manufacturing and Design Technology specialization offered by the University of Buffalo, State University of New York. Although the specialization provided by the University of Buffalo includes nine courses, DAU selected five that provide the Defense Acquisition Workforce with the information needed to adequately understand Digital Engineering (Table 3).

Like the agile curriculum, both the Data Analytics and Digital Engineering Curriculums are available at no cost to members of the Defense Acquisition Workforce through DAU.

Reducing Friction of Advanced Training

Whether it is for an individual workforce member or an acquisition organization, setting up training programs that meet current training needs is difficult and frequently misses the mark. Often, the students do not know enough about the subject to fully identify what skills they need in the first place. The market research, vetting and final selection of a training provider is time consuming and filled with risk. Even after selecting a training source, the paperwork begins with training requests, supervisor approvals, the search and approval for funding and other administrative hoops to jump through. Of course, once training is approved, it is up to the student to fit their work schedule into the training schedule.

Table 3. Digital Engineering Program

State University of New York at Buffalo

Digital Manufacturing and Design Digital Thread: Components Digital Thread: Implementation Model Based Systems Engineering Roadmap to Success in Digital Manufacturing and Design

Curriculums are

available at no cost to

members of the Defense

Acquisition Workforce

through DAU.

DAU has reduced much of this training friction though its partnership with Coursera. By working with leading subject-matter experts, the skills and competencies that require mastery are determined. Then, by using learning objective content mapping tools, course ratings and student reviews, an appropriate set of course offerings is compiled. Acquisition organizations then submit student names and e-mail addresses to DAU, and enrollment instructions are sent directly to the student. Because DAU already has negotiated a reduced licensing rate with Coursera, the university pays for the courses through the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund, leaving students free to work at their own pace from their own workspaces.

What's Next?

The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering has identified Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning as one of its top 10 technology focus areas. A search of the Coursera catalog revealed no fewer than 250 courses on this topic, ranging from a 6-hour course titled, "AI for Everyone" to a comprehensive 55-hour course taught by Stanford University. DAU's Engineering and Technology Center now is reviewing the courses and developing a curriculum for the workforce. Other customized training programs on such topics as leadership or business can be built for specific acquisition organizations.

Future training requirements will continue evolving. Through its partnership with Coursera, DAU can quickly connect workforce members with best-in-class online content from leading educational providers.

The authors can be contacted at david.pearson@dau.mil and abel.trevino@dau.mil.

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