“Design and develop a comprehensive seaport security curriculum that meets regulatory requirements… while recognizing seaports’ central purpose of commerce.”

When the Department of Homeland Security issued that challenge, the PortStar team responded with eight courses made up of over 500 brief lessons that can be configured to meet the training needs of each seaport and facility.  The framework for the curriculum was created through close collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard, MARAD, and the Industry Advisory Group to provide flexibility for each of the nation’s 360+ seaports and 3200+ marine facilities to meet its unique needs.  And, while the courses include lessons that fulfill Coast Guard and MARAD requirements, they also include many additional lessons that go beyond requirements to provide professional development on topics like customer service, crisis management, and effective decision-making.

Online or Instructor-Led, You Decide

The PortStar curriculum is available for both Instructor-led training (ILT) and Web-based training (WBT), with both delivery methods containing the same activities, content, and management support. Each course consists of brief lessons that last about 30 minutes. You can think of these lessons as building blocks. Rather than taking an entire course (whether you need it all or not), you can use only relevant lessons to build a training program that meets your needs.

After successful completion of the required lessons in a course, learners receive a certificate. All lesson completions are recorded in a web-based system and available 24x7 to employees, instructors, and supervisors.  Through this system, employees can access their lesson history and, if WBT is available to them, complete lessons online day or night.  Trainers and supervisors can view completions of their students and employees through the system, using the reports to monitor progress, export data, and print course completion certificates.

Meet Regulations, and Support Professional Development

It’s a given that seaports must meet federal training requirements, but simply meeting minimum requirements is no longer an option in today’s competitive environment. Businesses are doing more with less. Training is no exception. High performing workplaces offer on-going professional development opportunities. With PortStar, planning worksheets indicate which lessons are required. Required lessons can be combined to create a core course for new hires.

The lessons marked “optional” on the worksheets are for professional development. They cover topics like situation awareness, decision making, and conflict resolution. Using the worksheets, training managers can quickly create a training plan for each audience and have confidence that it will provide the knowledge and skills for effective port security.

 
* PortStar has a 1.5 hour lesson designed specifically for Maritime Security Awareness.

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