With a constant eye toward efficiency and providing quality customer service, the DOC Training Academy has changed the way it provides lesson plan materials to Pennsylvania county prisons. The academy now uses an FTP server to provide counties with the materials needed to instruct Basic Training courses at their facilities.
Basic Training lesson plans can have a large amount of instructional material including instructor and participant guides, PowerPoint presentations, videos and resource guides along with a variety of other items that are critical to the learning process. Counties benefit from access to and use of these materials for their own Basic Training programs and are able to use their own qualified instructors to deliver these courses.
Previously, these lesson plans had been copied onto multiple CDs and mailed to each of the counties on an annual basis—or more frequently if significant changes to the curriculum occurred. Getting these materials into the hands of instructors outside of the Training Academy in this manner had been time-consuming and costly and attempts to transmit large files and data electronically via email presented other challenges.
An alternate solution was suggested to make these resources readily available to the counties via a secure cloud-based server. The FTP server was organized by course topic with all relevant materials conveniently located in a folder structure. Through a collaborative effort between the Curriculum Development Unit at the Academy and the Office of County Inspections and Services, and with the expertise and assistance of IT services, this new process was brought to fruition in early 2019 and was met with appreciation and positive feedback from county personnel.
The Training Academy continues to look for ways to streamline processes, increase accessibility and improve timely communication in order to meet the diverse needs and expectations in the field, including our county partners.