Next-level learning for remote piloting compliance

The challenge

• Navigating through various LMS options to find one accommodating diverse stakeholders' needs efficiently
• Difficulty in ensuring seamless mapping of training activities to certification requirements for aviation remote piloting compliance
• Simplifying onboarding for learners, instructors, and mentors without disrupting the learning process

We provide training resources to schools across Australia for people that want to embark on drone training, our resources are aligned with certificate three in aviation remote pilot, and also align with the CASA excluded category. The outcome is that our learners can fly in the excluded category and be able to do that in the commercial sense so that they legally comply with CASA rules and regulations. It's very important that our learners learn to fly the drone the correct way following the CASA rules, and fly safely and not cause any accidents to other people.

I investigated LMS systems in 2015. And researching which ones are the best ones for our needs. We tried lots of different systems and found that CYPHER was the better one to use. We had a pretty particular need. And we needed something that our learners would find very easy to use. We also needed our students' parents to be able to log in and monitor the process. The vet coordinators at the school Vocational Education and Training coordinators also needed to monitor the learner progress, the instructors at the school log in and assist us with the training. And they mentor the students through the programme. So CYPHER's LMS was the only platform that we could find that would allow those features and allow the system to work. So simple that it just worked.

The solution

One of the main requirements that we were looking for was the ability to map the training back to the requirements that we needed to be able to issue a certificate three in aviation remote pilot. CYPHER has the ability to map competencies back to the assessment activities that our learners are doing. So they can read through all the learning material and cross off what they've covered in the learning. And then they look at the activities that they're doing. As they complete those activities, it also maps back to the competencies. It's a fantastic feature. And it's something that really helps us when it comes down to compliance.

CYPHER has the best solution of any LMS on the market. The support we have received from CYPHER Learning has been brilliant. We found that CYPHER was the only solution that could offer our business an entirely different portal for each organization, allowing the teachers (mentors), students, parents, and school training coordinators to have a separate login to monitor the entire learners’ journey in their training.

Implementation

The adoption process for learners is very seamless. We rarely talk to our students and mentors, our instructors will enrol them, and they pick it up extremely simply; a learner will rarely contact us with problems.

The system just seems to work really easily and is user- friendly. The student has a lot of options on the screen that can vary from dark mode to light mode. They can put their own backgrounds in, they communicate with us via the system. So as far as enrolling new learners, it is probably one of the simplest systems we've ever used.

We always have an onboarding session with our instructors. The help articles are useful. However, the system is user-friendly for my instructors. I also catch up at least four times a year with each instructor and give hints on how to do things. The learners seem to work it out with the support of the instructors.

Features

• The most important feature is that we can see what the learners see on the screen. So if they do have a problem with their training it may not necessarily be a system problem and we can help them. That might be something that they're trying to learn or understand. We can actually log in as them and see exactly what they're seeing and help them through the process. Most importantly, we want our students to have an enjoyable process, and to be able to see what they see on the screen is vital for our IT people to actually resolve any issues that they may be having.
• The Organization feature is very valuable to us because each school has its own fully self-managed portal inside the LMS.
• The ability to have two parents to watch over learners progress and the ability to have the careers adviser at the school to watch over the learners.
• For learners and instructors the internal messaging system and the option to give answers when marking assessments are very helpful for us.
• And finally, for instructors, the ability to enroll learners in the next course and have control over the courses.

The results

• CYPHER's robust reporting capabilities facilitated comprehensive progress tracking and assessment
• Dedicated organization portals within CYPHER streamlined management and monitoring of learner journeys
• Access to prompt and comprehensive assistance from CYPHER Learning ensured smooth problem resolution, fostering continuous learning evolution

We find that the CYPHER platform has been improving over time, which has been fantastic for our learners. We've been using most of the features from the early days. We’re using the same features moving forward to keep the consistency for our learners. But the features implemented have been great in the reporting progress so that we can generate better reports for our clients.

The best feature we've found, which has been fantastic working with CYPHER is the level of support that we receive. If we ever have any issues whatsoever, there is a support forum where we can actually log the issue that we're having. What I found is that most of the issues that I have been having are that the system is so intelligent that I've got to understand how it works. There have been some minor problems along the way. But the guys have been absolutely brilliant in resolving those issues, and they get it done really fast. And the most important thing to us is that we have that level of support, and the level of support is 100% there. The whole experience has been really good.