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The Centre of Decommissioning Australia (CODA) supports the oil and gas industry to plan and deliver safe, responsible and cost-effective decommissioning.
As part of its work to build decommissioning knowledge and capability across the industry, CODA engaged Sentient as its eLearning provider to develop an online Introduction to Well Decommissioning course.
Well decommissioning is a highly technical subject, and much of the source material for the course came from training already delivered face-to-face as part of CODA’s Introduction to Decommissioning course by well decommissioning specialist Chris Wilson.
Chris’s existing presentation gave the project a strong technical foundation. But an instructor-led presentation and a self-paced eLearning course using an eLearning module work differently. Without an experienced SME in the room to explain a diagram, add context or talk a learner through a difficult concept, the online course needed to do more of that work itself.
The challenge was to retain the depth and accuracy of Chris’s existing training while making it accessible to someone being introduced to well-decommissioning through self-paced learning.
Chris’s face-to-face training slides became the starting point for the eLearning module, providing much of the technical content and largely guiding its structure.
Sentient’s Instructional Design team worked through that material with Chris to determine what could carry across directly and what needed to change for a learner working through the course independently. Rather than simply transferring the presentation into Storyline, our custom eLearning development team considered where additional explanation was needed, where learners should interact with the content, and where a technical concept would be clearer if it could be seen rather than described.
That work was captured in a detailed storyboard before development began. Chris reviewed and validated the storyboard, giving the team an opportunity to check both the technical content and how his material had been interpreted for eLearning.
Sentient then developed the module in Articulate Storyline, with Chris continuing to review and validate drafts as the course took shape. This kept the subject matter expert involved throughout development rather than relying on a final technical check once the module was complete.
Some well decommissioning concepts are difficult to communicate through text, diagrams and static images alone.
For these parts of the course, Sentient’s 3D artists created custom 3D animations and visualisations to show technical processes in motion, including well abandonment and more complex abandonment scenarios. These gave learners another way to understand processes that would otherwise rely heavily on explanation from an instructor.
Interactive activities and knowledge checks were also used throughout the module, where learners needed to explore information or check their understanding, rather than adding interaction simply for the sake of it.
The completed course was delivered as a SCORM package for deployment through CODA’s LMS (learning management system).
Following completion, CODA submitted the Introduction to Well Decommissioning module to the International Well Control Forum (IWCF) for independent review under its Quality Assured framework.
The module met the applicable requirements across all five areas assessed:
The technical review also found the course suitable in complexity and presentation for its intended introductory audience.
The IWCF Quality Assured endorsement provided CODA with independent recognition of the completed course and the processes used to develop and maintain it.
“A module like this relies on the knowledge and experience of the people involved in developing it. The CODA team, Chris Wilson, Sentient and Of Note Design each brought their own expertise to the project, and that collaboration has been a big part of getting the module to where it is today. Having that work independently reviewed and receiving IWCF Quality Assured endorsement is a great outcome for everyone involved.”
Francis Norman, CEO, Centre of Decommissioning Australia
Turning specialist knowledge into an effective learning management solution isn’t simply a matter of putting existing training material online.
For this project, the source material and subject-matter expertise already existed. The work was in translating that material into a course that could guide an introductory learner through the subject without Chris being there to deliver it.
The resulting module retained Chris’s involvement throughout the design and development process, used custom 3D animation where visual explanation added value, and ultimately met the requirements of an independent industry quality review – confirming Sentient’s position as an industry-leading learning management systems software producer.
