TrainingPort.net’s Value to You, Part II: Why Paper Training Certificates and Records Should Be Extinct

Author: Scott Macpherson

Very occasionally, TrainingPort.net has current or potential clients ask us about how our system produces training certificates. In all honesty, we don’t know why anyone would want to receive them and do the work associated with filing them in training files or binders. However, we do produce certificates for a few clients upon request; these are usually for a specific reason, such an an RFP or specific audit requirement.

The need for certificates as proof of training has been obviated by web-based training record systems, which show a trainee’s status in real time. These training records can be checked at any time, on any device, and can be printed if necessary. In fact, I just recently demonstrated to a client that I can pull up a training record on my BlackBerry Q10 without any difficulty, and that it simply scales according to the size of the device for readability.

One problem with training certificates as we see them is that they don’t really prove anything. One can produce a very nice, official-looking certificate with any date on it under any name, but it doesn’t prove anything other than the fact that it is printed on paper. On the other hand, an electronic training record which is based in an HTML environment, sourcing information from servers using a database system, is much harder to falsify, and has internal checks which can be used to validate the data. This is much more meaningful and reliable than printed certificates.

Another problem with paper documents, whether or not they are training records or certificates, is that they can be lost or damaged; depending on how much you paid, your service level may not allow you to reprint them without a substantial charge. In addition, if paper records are used, and one is training as delivered by our system (with lessons delivered throughout the year and topics spread out across two or three years), a printed training record becomes outdated as soon as the next lesson is delivered. In the case of our average delivery rate, this means that a printed training record would become outdated, even if only slightly, in about one week. This would also mean that the printed training record would become increasingly outdated as each lesson is delivered and completed.

TrainingPort.net  has just released a major enhancement for our training records, and we hope that all of our clients and their auditors find it very helpful. It still includes the training manager and auditor tools that clients have had up till now, but it presents information in a grouped fashion and clarifies trainees’ histories, including a totally transparent reproduction of trainees’ exams. One feature that hasn’t changed, but that many clients were unaware of, is that all trainees receive different exams through a random question selection algorithm, using a bank of questions for each lesson. We have thousands of questions in our exam bank.

We look forward to any input that you are willing to provide for us so that we can improve the features that we offer, and satisfy your requirements.

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Scott Macpherson is the President and Founder of TrainingPort.net and Vice Chairman of the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) Governing Board. He is currently Captain on a Falcon 900LX.