Session C - Growing expertise:The evolution and impact of

multibeam sonar training1994-2005

Reflections from CARIS Training Staff

April 4, 2005

Shallow Water Multibeam Sonar Training and Operations

Workshop Mandate

“…reflect upon the changes that have occurred over the past decade in multibeam technology, in multibeam operations and applications, and in multibeam training and expertise…”

CARIS HIPS Trainingincludes CARIS & CARIS bv

• Recent numbers…– 2004:

• 38 HIPS courses, 10+ countries, 300+ trainees

– 2005• Jan-May schedule = 15 HIPS courses• expected to surpass 2004

• Past numbers…commercial sales of HIPS, with training, started in the early 90’s…but our records

search went back only to 1998

– 1998-2004:• 220+ HIPS courses• 1500+ trainees

CARIS HIPS Training

• Workshops (2000-2005)

– 2 or 3 days, hands-on– ~8 workshops in total hosted by Hydrographic

Offices in Hong Kong, Chile and Argentina

• CARIS Conferences– 10th year… Sept 2005, Halifax, N.S.– 2 day training courses, hands-on

Training Staff

• Current– Total Customer Service staff, all products

• 25: Canada & Europe

– Active in HIPS/SIPS training & support• 11: Andy, Bill, Matt, Corey, Serge, Jamie, Alexis, Otto,

Trish, Arne and Mark– English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, and Newf

• Past trainers– How many previous faces have the customers

seen come through their door for training?• John, Stephane, Maarten, Mike, Jeremy• Kevin, Crescent, Veronique

Content• HIPS&SIPS Training modules exist for:– SBES– MBES - Beginners– MBES - Advanced– LiDAR– SSS– TPE & CUBE– Fieldsheet creation– ...

• Enough material to fill 3 weeks training– Thus, it is vital to be flexible and ready to provide

custom courses to fit customer needs.

Users

• Familiar faces and the rest of the world• The agencies represented around this table

account for:– ~40% of HIPS seats

• But… ‘developed’ countries vs. ‘developing’ countries:– ~60% of countries that have HIPS are ‘developing’

1994-2005… Changes?

Workshop Mandate:

“…reflect upon the changes that have occurred over the past decade in multibeam technology, in multibeam operations and applications, and in multibeam training and expertise…”

• Comments from the training staff…The methods…– “Indeed one cannot learn it all in a training. Getting efficient with a

software tool and one's own data is a question of exercise and repetition/practice.”

– “We've got the materials, but there's never enough time to learn it all, which drives the need for customization.”

– “We need new methods for delivering training.”

– “In recent years there has been more focus in the training on defining and following workflows, and less on theory and how it all works.”

1994-2005… Changes?

• Comments from the training staff…The customers...– “It's not very often that any customer will setup a training

course lasting more than 1 week, which is due to cost and commitment of their staff.”

– “Maturity of the MBES technology and market has brought a wider range of backgrounds into our courses.”

– “Competition in the industry has put the technology into the hands of newer and younger staff.”

1994-2005… Changes?

• Comments from the training staff…The customers...– “Trainee knowledge level is not at a Geomatics university

degree anymore. We see combinations of Office Assistants, Draftsmen, sometimes Engineers, but not necessarily Surveyors…”

– But Why?• “Maybe because the amount of data has increased, while in other

sections of the office, due to advances in technology, the workload has decreased. Therefore a lot of people all of a sudden come into contact with data processing, who never had to do that before”

• “Also I still think, that there are not enough hydrographic surveyors trained in many of these countries.”

1994-2005… Changes?

• Comments from the training staff…Questions...– “Is the MBES technology maturing like GPS did in the 90's?”– “Is MBES going to be usable by such a broad range of

people, that the collegiate/university science educated will not be needed to operate these systems?”

– “Is the OMG MBES course too expensive for developing countries? Or even developed countries for that matter?”

Going Forward...

• Training delivery…– eLearning:

• Not a replacement, but as a means to cover introductory subjects and theory.

• Leave the hands-on face-to-face training for the advanced subjects and processing workflows.

eLearning module now available for CARIS Notebook

Going Forward...

• Online Resources…www.caris.com/tpe

– pick your sensors and let it build your ‘TPE-ready’ vessel configuration file

Going Forward...

• Training content…– workflows:

• More emphasis on workflow procedures.• Customizable / flexible / low cost workflow control

systems.• Lead the limited experienced staff through detailed

processing and quality control.

– “People simply would like to make processes more controllable to eliminate user errors and different results between the processing by separate users on the same dataset.”

Summary

• “Some will always try so say... that you need to be an expert to operate all this technology. That would be people who want to protect their positions. Others, who try to sell these systems, will say that it is getting much easier. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.”