News Detail

Always Advancing Education

1/5/2015

In the fall of 2009, Dick Stehly, in anticipation of his upcoming presidency of ACI, went to the Educational Activities Committee (EAC) and challenged them to provide more "tools" for the concrete professional. He wanted EAC to create more "touches" to the educational offerings of ACI. EAC responded to the challenge in a number of ways.

Initially, the emphasis was on creating more courses for the online Continuing Education Units (CEU) program. Today, this program has grown to over 65 courses offering Professional Development Hours for the licensed professional engineer seeking required educational credits. The development of several online, interactive courses for the ACI eLearning program followed.

Also, in response to this initiative, Web Sessions were added to our educational offerings, which allow the concrete professional to watch 250 presentations from previous conventions on a variety of topics. Did you know ACI has a YouTube channel? Here, the concrete professional can view and search the Web Session program videos.

In the years since, EAC has become more involved in training for certification programs, creating a workbook and video for candidates looking to become certified as Adhesive Anchor Installers, and creating eLearning courses and training videos for the self-consolidating concrete testing and physical tester of cement certification programs, respectively, that are currently being developed. Webinars, both live and on-demand, have been added to our offerings, allowing more web-based and online learning opportunities. Recently, EAC served as reviewers for the 8th edition of SP-4, "Formwork for Concrete," which is the most significant revision of that document in its 50-year history.

As a result of these actions, the "touches"—the number of times the educational programs are engaged—increased by over 450% by 2013. The touches in 2014 were nearly six times those in 2009. It's also possible to find a variety of sample design problems and case studies that walk an individual through all of the steps required to design a concrete element or structure. These can be found by accessing the "318 Information" page through the "Tools" menu at the bottom of each ACI web page.

But that is not the end of our story. Our Educational Department, along with EAC, continues to develop new materials, add content, and make the ACI educational offerings of maximum benefit and use to the concrete professional.

Recently, I asked if we could reinvent our educational programs, create new ways to deliver our materials, and make them more beneficial and user-friendly. And once again, EAC and ACI have responded. At the ACI Fall 2014 Convention in Washington, DC, the ACI Board of Direction approved two new initiatives.

The first is the "ACI University," which will combine all of ACI's online educational offerings in one location and make them more convenient to access, even on mobile devices. It will be rolled out to the public at World of Concrete in Las Vegas, NV, in early February. This global, online learning resource will provide on-demand access to a wide range of topics on concrete materials, design, and construction. With this immediate access to courses—covering ACI's technical documents, preparation for ACI certifications, webinars on a variety of concrete-related topics, and study programs on concrete design requirements—we will create an ability to obtain concrete education from an internationally recognized leader in concrete in a more easily accessible manner than ever before.

The second initiative is a new Certificate Program. This comprehensive and in-depth program will be available for an individual to review, study, and be tested on a variety of topics, resulting in a certificate noting the individual's completion of a variety of single-topic-focused courses from the ACI University. Certificate programs on "Concrete Fundamentals" and "Anchorage to Concrete" are being planned for launch.

We have no doubt that these new initiatives and offerings will continue to grow our educational programs and provide concrete professionals with the needed tools to develop their chosen profession. As our tagline accurately states, we continue to be "Always Advancing."

I hope that this memo has intrigued you enough to immediately proceed to your PC, tablet, or smart phone and go to www.concrete.org/education to see what may be waiting there for you to explore.

William E. Rushing Jr.