Civil Aviation authority seeks learning management system

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is looking to engage with a provider of learning management software for the online delivery of its training course content and material.

CASA is a federal government authority tasked with regulating the safety of domestic air operations and the operation of Australian aircraft overseas.

The new learning management system (LMS) will provide employee self-service functionality to CASA staff in its office locations and in the future to provide delivery of educational programmes, content and events to the aviation industry throughout Australia.

CIO, Simon Denby, will manage the supply and integration of the new LMS.

CASA’s headquarters are in Canberra and it has offices in the major cities around mainland Australia.

At this preliminary stage, CASA is seeking to engage with a supplier of a commercial-off-the-shelf-software (COTS) an in-house learning management system and an integrated learning content management system (LCMS).

The LMS-LCMS applications will manage the provision of professional development courses and electronic delivery of course content and course related materials for some 700 CASA staff.

When it is made available for use outside of CASA, it will provide event and course management for about 75,000 people across the Australian aviation industry.

The software must comply with aviation industry computer-based training standards and is required to integrate with the existing human resources and flying currency and training (FCAT) systems.

CASA has a preference for a commercial, in-house LMS, but it hasn’t ruled out a SaaS or open source offering.

TechWorld has an overview of 10 open source e-learning and LMS available to CASA.

CASA’s IT environment consists of Windows XP desktops virtualised with Vmware, Citrix XenApp for access to applications outside of head office and a virtual Windows Server environment. Juniper VPN appliances and RSA tokens provide security.

The database system is Oracle 11g RAC on HP-UX Unix and Microsoft SQL 2008 on Windows Server. Storage is a mix of Brocade and EMC.

Casa’s main business intelligence application is served by Oracle Fusion middleware, SAP’s Business Objects and Microsoft SharePoint.

Late last year CASA announced it was seeking more possible suppliers for the replacement of its Aviation Industry Regulatory System (AIRS).

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