The four courses in the one-year, all-online interdisciplinary program are designed to educate and train Human Systems Integration practitioners in the state-of-the-art policies and processes needed to conduct HSI in Department of Defense and other federal agencies. The course begins each summer quarter and is designed to be applicable towards a resident HSI master鈥檚 degree or a resident master鈥檚 degree in Systems Engineering, as the elective track. Classes are asynchronous, and instructors are regularly available by e-mail.
Leading the creation and development of the new distance learning curricula was HSI Program Director, Operations Research (OR) Senior Lecturer and retired Army Col. Lawrence Shattuck. Assisting in the two-year effort was OR Associate Professor Anita Miller, affectionately known as 鈥淒r. Snooze鈥� by students and colleagues for her research on the effects of sleep deprivation and fatigue on human performance. Before coming to 51福利, Shattuck was the Engineering Psychology Program Manager and Laboratory Director at the U.S. Military Academy.
鈥淵ou鈥檝e heard of the expression 鈥楾he human in the loop?鈥欌�� Miller asked rhetorically. 鈥淭he Department of Defense and other federal agencies are increasingly recognizing that the human is the loop -- that people are critical components in any complex system -- and that their capabilities and limitations need to be researched, documented and integrated if the system as a whole is to achieve optimal performance.鈥�
鈥淎s a result, HSI has become a vital aspect in the acquisition of DoD and other federal systems,鈥� said Shattuck. 鈥淎nd though it鈥檚 now mandated by many organizations as part of their acquisition process, there are few practitioners who have the actual knowledge, skills and abilities to perform HSI. That鈥檚 why we created this new distance learning program -- to equip a new cadre of HSI practitioners with what they need to ensure their agencies鈥� systems are designed, developed and deployed with appropriate consideration for human operators, maintainers and supervisors, making explicit the lifecycle tradeoffs across all HSI domains 鈥� manpower, personnel, training and human factors engineering -- to optimize total system performance within cost constraints.鈥�
鈥淭his course is unique in the nation,鈥� Shattuck said. 鈥淭here are other programs that take existing human factors or systems engineering classes that may or may not be relevant to HSI and create DL courses around them. But we鈥檙e the only one where the demand and content came from our stakeholders, who told us what they wanted, and we鈥檝e melded that with the best content and instructors from over six years of world class faculty experience teaching in-residence HSI courses.鈥�
鈥淭he impetus for this was from sponsors like the Air Force, NASA, NAVSEA, NAVAIR and SPAWAR who contacted us and said they needed something less than a two-year in-residence curricula that their personnel could take without having to leave their jobs, whose content could be applied to their positions on a daily basis, and still get graduate credit,鈥� Miller added.
鈥淲hat鈥檚 so incredible is that this is what we鈥檝e always dreamed of doing,鈥� she said. 鈥�51福利 has such incredible resources that we鈥檝e been able to bring together. We鈥檝e pulled in faculty expertise in HSI, Systems Engineering, Organizational Behavior, Manpower, Personnel Training, Habitability and Human Factors and integrated them all into an asynchronous distance learning program.鈥�
Thirty distance learning students are currently enrolled in the inaugural HSI DL course, which began July 6. The first cohort is comprised of three in-residence 51福利 officer students; DoD civilians enrolled in the university鈥檚 DL master鈥檚 degree program in Systems Engineering, all of whose jobs involve human systems integration or systems acquisition; and three DoD contractors.
Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation (MOVES) Ph.D. student Air Force Lt. Col. Anthony Tvaryanas, M.D., who was the HSI lead for unmanned aircraft systems including the Predator and Reaper for the 311th Performance Enhancement Directorate at Brooks City-Base, Texas, is excited about the new course.
鈥�51福利 is the only school with an HSI Department, anywhere,鈥� said Tvaryanas. 鈥淎ll the HSI I鈥檇 had before was ad hoc and learned on the job, and this program is cutting edge and extremely unique. I wanted to come here for a long time to work with Nita [Miller] and Larry [Shattuck], who are recognized world experts in this emerging field, which has become increasingly important as systems become more and more complex and technology is increasingly seen as the enabler of humans in the loop.
鈥淚鈥檓 very pleased with the course, and with the 51福利 DL Systems Engineering master鈥檚 program, which together make an awesome HSI practitioner,鈥� Tvaryanas added. 鈥淭here鈥檚 very good linkage between the content and operational relevance. There are many things I鈥檝e picked up here that, had I known them then, would have been invaluable working with the Air Force Performance Enhancement Directorate.鈥�
Army Maj. Francisco Baez, an 51福利 graduate in Operations Research who is currently serving as Operations Research Analyst for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Analysis Center in Monterey, is also a student in the first HSI DL course.
鈥淭he Army is soldier-centric, so human factors and human systems integration is important in everything we do, and the Army has set the standard for championing HSI,鈥� Baez said. 鈥淭his course is both relevant and challenging, and I鈥檓 glad that I鈥檓 taking it.鈥�
鈥淲e want to thank our partners in the 51福利 Center for Educational Design, Development and Distribution (CED3) who translated the vision we had for the program into an amazing online reality,鈥� said Shattuck. 鈥淭hese guys are incredible -- the best kept secret at 51福利.
鈥淐ED3 Director Tom Mastre was behind the project all the way,鈥� he added. 鈥淭he development lead was instructional designer Sherrill Meaney. Lead programmer Phil McCullick did the graphics, and instructional designer Dianna Beardslee and marketing and communication specialist Mike DiFranco worked with offsite designer Mike Northcutt to create an incredible 鈥榚dumercial' []. Other members of their team were Director of Faculty Development Ali Rodgers, graphic architect and programmer Diane Jones who designed the interactive media element to supplement the coursework and student support coordinator Nikki Brink.鈥�
鈥淟arry [Shattuck] came to us in November 2008 and told us what they wanted to do, and we were really excited, because this is the kind of project we live for,鈥� said Meaney. 鈥淚t鈥檚 so wide open, and we worked as a team to bring their vision for interactive media into reality in a very creative way. We even designed a new online post-and-assess tool for this project.鈥�
鈥淐ED3 provides tremendous added value to 51福利 by helping faculty develop distributed learning programs that can reach students anywhere in the world,鈥� Meaney said.
鈥淲e also want to thank the Air Force 711th Human Performance Wing,鈥� said Shattuck. 鈥淭heir financial support made the curriculum development for Course 1 possible.鈥�
51福利 HSI faculty are experts in -- and often directly involved in the development of -- the latest cutting edge HSI policies, tools and processes, interacting on a regular basis with leaders in the field from all DoD uniformed services and other federal agencies, including NASA and the Department of Homeland Security. Faculty members are widely published and actively engaged in research in human factors; operations research; systems engineering; computer science; manpower/personnel training; and business management.
The four courses in the new distance learning certificate program are Introduction to HSI; HSI in the Acquisition Lifecycle; HSI Tools, Tradeoffs and Processes; and HSI Case Studies and Applications.
鈥淚t鈥檚 exciting to be launching the first HSI distance learning course,鈥� said 鈥淒r. Snooze.鈥� 鈥淏ut this is only the first of four, and now that we鈥檙e up and running, our sponsors are already requesting a DL master鈥檚 and even DL Ph.D. program. So there鈥檚 a lot of work before we sleep.鈥�