Corporate university Russian Railway (WebTutor)

The autonomous nonprofit organization "The corporate university JSC "Russian Railways" is education center as a part of Russian Railway holding. Its main objective is creation of an effective system of additional corporate business education of leadership team of JSC "Russian Railways" according to the requirements shown by the Strategy of development of railway transport till 2030.

Students of ANO Korporativny universitet JSC Russian Railways are heads of an average and the top management of JSC "Russian Railways". During training such problems as system and systematic development of heads, formation of uniform approaches to a management activity, formation of effective management teams, etc. are solved. In training the most modern techniques are used, assessment on model of corporate competences is executed, individual programs of development are used.

Within implementation of the innovation training methods in ANO Korporativny universitet JSC Russian Railways the decision on creation of the system of distance learning (SDL) having the following functionality was made:

• carrying out distance learning using specially developed electronic rates;
• conducting testing of students;
• placement of information materials for training, including, specially developed electronic textbooks;
• holding webinars and organization of project work of listeners.

At the corporate university Russian Railway there was already a working educational portal based based on the solution WebSphere of IBM therefore SDO had to be completely integrated with it. All training and testing of users had to be performed directly on pages of the internal portal.

Solution of a task

After consideration of different options as a basis for creation of SDO the product WebTutor of WebSoft company was selected from ANO Korporativny universitet JSC Russian Railways. The standard modules which are its part have all necessary functionality. Besides, in WebTutor API – the interface using which SDO can be integrated with any website (regardless of CMS at which it works), the portal or an information system is implemented.

In the project progress first of all the technical specifications in which all functions expected from SDO, technical characteristics and requirements to integration into the existing portal were described were made.

The project consisted of two stages. The first passed from June to December, 2011. During it the main part of functionality concerning distance learning, testing and a digital library was implemented.

The second stage of the project was implemented from September to December, 2013. In it to already available functionality the feature for carrying out on the educational portal of webinars was added.

The following modules were used for ensuring implementation of necessary functionality from the WebTutor system:

• "Personnel and organization structure" — for maintaining lists of listeners and teachers of the corporate university;
• Management of portal — for the organization of the SDO educational portal;
• "Distance learning" — for studying by listeners of electronic rates and summing up training;
• "Testing" — for testing of listeners;
• "Digital library" — for ensuring access of listeners to information materials, including, to special electronic textbooks and books;
• "Virtual class" — for holding webinars.

Standard opportunities of these modules completely satisfy with everything to requirements imposed to functionality on SDO. Therefore their completion within the project was not required.

API – the program interface provided by the WebTutor system was used for integration into the internal educational portal. Information exchange between the internal portal and the WebTutor system is performed under the SOAP protocol. The following functions of the API interface are for this purpose used:

• activation of rates and tests;
• obtaining lists of active rates and tests;
• obtaining lists of rates and tests available to the user;
• receiving available polls;
• obtaining books from a digital library;
• creation of webinars;
• obtaining list of users of a webinar;
• etc.

The WebTutor web templates were built in the web interface of the educational portal of the Russian Railway so that for the user the solution looks as the uniform portal. At the same time thanks to flexibility of setup of the portal and the WebTutor web templates no change of a program code of WebTutor was required. "It is important as need of completion of the source code always leads to increase in terms and project cost and also to significant increase in risk of emergence of errors." – Pavel Kovalyov, the deputy CEO of WebSoft notes. – "The technology of integration applied by us allows users of the educational portal of the Russian Railway to work with standard tools of the WebTutor system so that they do not execute transition between sections of the educational portal and the system of distance learning, and work in a common information space."

In the project progress there was a requirement of the organization of access to SDO not only from internal network ANO Korporativny universitet JSC Russian Railways, but also from the Internet. This opportunity provides remote access for listeners to educational to rates, tests and information materials directly from the jobs.

For the solution of this task at the Corporate university JSC "Russian Railways" the separate website open for access from every spot on the globe was designed. Integrated into the SDO portal also has two "points of entry" — from a local network of the Russian Railway from pages of the internal portal and via the Internet using own educational portal.

The external educational portal — the full-function website in which the big range of opportunities is implemented. Part of them, certainly, belongs to distance learning. In particular, it is possible to note passing of electronic rates and tests and studying of educational literature in electronic form via the Internet. However in addition to them on the portal there are and many other useful services.

So, for example, in the section Press center it is possible to monitor news of the Corporate university JSC "Russian Railways", to get acquainted with official press releases and publications about it in media. Here photo and video galleries are placed. Is not less interesting and undressed Communication. It is possible to find the blog by the director of the university N.V. Steblyansky, forums in it, to ask the interesting question to one of experts. Well and, of course, on the portal the large volume of information on the organization and its activity is placed.

Interesting feature of this website is the dvuyazychnost. Data on it are provided not only in Russian, but also in English languages. And the visitor can switch between them and browse them in the most convenient type.

Alyona Zaytseva, the associate director of the Corporate university JSC "Russian Railways" on knowledge management and commercial work tells about project deliverables: "The functionality which appeared on our educational portal thanks to integration with the system of distance learning is very important for program implementation of advanced training of the heads of Russian Railway holding who are trained at the Corporate university. Passing of electronic training courses and tests already became an integral part of our educational process, the most part of training programs at us passes in a remote format. And the possibility of holding webinars expands a range of our opportunities regarding the timely report of knowledge and the latest training materials to our listeners even more. Separate mentioning is deserved by a digital library, access to which we provided to all trainees by means of SDO WebTutor. Now the extensive collection of business literature is available to reading on the portal online to all staff of JSC RZD passing training in the Corporate university that allows them to gain even more profound knowledge of the directions of training, necessary for them".

It is remarkable that the most part of time in project implementation was required on organizational actions (formation of necessary documentation, approval of exchange protocols and so forth), testing and commissioning. Net time of development was 2 weeks.

Only two specialists were involved in works. One from WebSoft company, another — from the developer of the internal and external portal of ANO Korporativny universitet JSC Russian Railways.

Results

During the course of performance the project SDO which functionality completely meets requirements of ANO Korporativny universitet JSC Russian Railways was implemented.

Works occupied very small (for the system of such complexity) term, and a technical part of the project was implemented by forces of only two specialists. It became possible thanks to two reasons: standard opportunities of the used modules WebTutor are enough for implementation of all requirements to functionality of SDO; existence in WebTutor of the integration platform with own API interface and support of the SOAP protocol.

As a result already today students of ANO Korporativny universitet JSC Russian Railways can read remotely electronic textbooks, take electronic courses and tests, to participate in webinars. And teachers received the modern means capable to increase efficiency and speed of training in the order.