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New JKO course improves knowledge base

A new course designed in cooperation between the Joint Irregular Warfare Center and Joint Knowledge Online allows warfighters, civilians and contractors to learn about the nature of counterinsurgency.

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By Army Sgt. Josh LeCappelain
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(NORFOLK Va. - Sept. 1, 2010) -- U.S Joint Forces Command's (USJFCOM) Joint Knowledge Online (JKO) recently completed a new irregular warfare (IW) course to provide warfighters and civilians with training to understand the the nature of counterinsurgency (COIN).

The new advanced distributed learning course, "Counterinsurgency," resulted from a combined effort between JKO team and members of USJFCOM's Joint Irregular Warfare Center (JIWC). According to Rick Martin, JIWC Training and Education Division chief, the course seeks to institutionalizes IW into professional military education and support professional development of USJFCOM staff.

"Our intent with these courses is to improve the irregular warfare knowledge base and training through online course work," Martin said. "JKO already had several IW-related courses. We pulled 30 courses from JKO and scrubbed them, with about 15 potentially going into the new curriculum. But the primary IW activities were missing from the 15 courses, so the teams set out to build IW courseware."

He added that the COIN course, which is interactive, takes one to two hours to complete, and it has assessments included throughout to test students on what they learn.

"An improved knowledge of IW capabilities allows warfighters to go into the fight with a better understanding of their missions and enables them to focus their training and education," Martin said.

The training requires users to interact with the course. This interaction demonstrates, an understanding of the principles and gets students to think about how those principles are applied.

"You have to demonstrate a proficiency to get a certificate of completion," said Marty Vozzo, JKO deputy program manager. "You have to be engaged and participate in what is going on."

Vozzo added that cooperation between the two teams created a product that meets the demands outlined by joint warfighters.

"This is an excellent case of how we as a program respond to combatant commands and their requirements," he said. "We view this as part of the joint training enterprise, where civil servants, contractors and service members, from E-1 to O-10, can get the important training that fits with the secretary of Defense's training priorities."

The JKO - JIWC team is coordinating to complete five additional courses by December: IW overview: foreign internal defense: counterterrorism: stability operations and unconventional warfare.

Each course requires four to six months of work to build, Vozzo said. The JIWC team spends two to three months establishing the content and its JKO partners spend two to three months building the interface and supporting Web capability.

"Rick's team provides the subject matter experts, while we build the course and host it," Vozzo added.

JKO is an enterprise portal system using advanced distributed learning technology to deliver joint web-based training courses, products, knowledge and services. Part of the overarching Joint Knowledge Development and Distribution Capability, JKO is responsible for evolving the training capability for people preparing for joint operations and exercises.

JKO courses are available at its web site, http://jko.jfcom.mil/.