DNV awards its first certification for maritime training platforms

SeaSkill Service Manager Torsten Schröder awarded Seably’s CEO Andrea Lodolo the certification on behalf of DNV last week. [Image: Seably]

Seably, an online marketplace for maritime training owned by the Swedish Shipowners Association, has become the first of a new breed of digital training platforms to receive a new DNV competence certification, DNV SeaSkill standard ST-0595.

Rapid digitalization, a move to offer more learning experiences on board and two years of operating during a global pandemic have transformed the maritime training market, says DNV, noting that “greater digital portfolios and local providers seeking access to learners from around the world have led to the emergence of digital training platforms. They offer local providers the opportunity to elevate their courses beyond their regional market and gain access to customers worldwide.”

Those “digital training platforms” are essentially online store fronts offering a huge range of training courses. But just how good are those courses and what is the quality of the training?

The new DNV certification aims to ensure the quality of the training platforms, as well as their learning products and operation. It was developed in co-operation with Seably as a pilot customer.

MARKETPLACE FOR MARITIME TRAINING

Seably describes itself as a “marketplace for maritime training that creates smarter education for the industry through a fusion of good content, usability, and technology.”

“I am delighted that we have been able to work with DNV on the ST-0595 standard, which is open and will be available for any organization in the maritime sector to achieve,” says Andrea Lodolo, CEO of Seably. “It was of great importance to us that we pioneered this for the benefit of the whole sector, and not just the select few. There has been tremendous progress in technology and learning skills, and Seably has been at the forefront, driving innovation through our unique marketplace. This standard recognizes this progress while setting the bar to maintain the quality and robustness that seafarers rightly expect from their training and development. We look forward to seeing many more companies attain the standard in the future.”

“Making learning experiences widely accessible to seafarers is a very positive development for an industry that is becoming increasingly demanding as it heads into a digitalized, decarbonized futuret,” says Ulrich Bernhardt, head of competence & learning and SeaSkill at DNV. “However, while we welcome this trend, it is equally important to ensure that training platform providers have a robust management system in place which accounts for the challenges of their unique operational environment.

“This is why we were so pleased to work with Seably as a pilot customer to develop the DNV SeaSkill™ certification standard ST-0595. It defines the necessary criteria for digital training platforms, for example, including requirements for how to ensure the quality of the training organisations which use the platform as well as their products and covers information security.”

In addition, DNV’s certification criteria also include other service areas which the training platform may offer to their own customers. This covers services such as provision of training simulators, assessments, and the certification of learners on behalf of the onboarded training organizations, as well as content development and learning consultancy.