April 2011 Navy
Story & Photo by Gary Nichols,
Center Information Dominance Public Affairs
PENSACOLA, Florida – Chief of Naval Personnel (CNP) arrived at the Center for Information Dominance (CID) Corry Station 19 Oct. to visit the staff and receive an update on the command’s activities. “The skills and the abilities that are taught at this school are the foundation of the future of warfighting that we will do as a Navy and as a nation,” said VADM Mark E. Ferguson III, CNP.
CID Corry Station is the Navy’s learning center that leads, manages and delivers Navy and joint force training in Information Operations, Information Technology and Cryptology.
With a staff of more than 1,050 military, civilian and contracted staff members, CID Corry Station oversees the development and administration of more than 168 courses at 16 learning sites throughout the United States and Japan. Each year, the center provides training for more than 19,000 members of the U.S. Armed Services and allied forces.
“The importance of cyber operations, electronic warfare – all the things that we are doing here – are preparing a future set of leaders in the Navy who will go out and bring these new capabilities to an ever important warfighting area throughout the fleet,” Ferguson said. “We are making efforts to increase throughout of all these schools and bring the very latest in technology and learning methodologies and concepts to prepare us for the future.”
Several important new programs CID is helping to develop to meet those challenges are the Joint Cyber Analysis Course (JCAC), Information Systems Technicians of the Future (ITOF) and Digital Tutor (DT).
CID developed JCAC to help the Navy master the cyber domain. This 24-week intensive course provides joint cyber warriors with advanced technical background in computer network operations (CNO). During the course of their training, students learn to think logically and analytically, master a significant body of knowledge to tackle very complex problems, and fulfill tactical CNO mission requirements. Upon graduation, they are well-equipped to serve in a wide range of roles and functional areas within the CNO community.
CID’s new ITOF curriculum is helping to provide information superiority for the warfighter by aligning Navy Information Systems Technician (IT) training with Department of Defense 8570.1M directive certification standards, resulting in Sailors being fully developed as ITs, certified and capable of rapidly adapting to accelerated growth of IT systems in the future.
DT is a pilot program that is being tested at CID to model computer-based training for the next generation of cyber warriors. In partnership with the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (IDARPA), DT has extensively studied how the best instructors teach and how they adapt to individual students. This information is then incorporated into a mild form of artificial intelligence, which will enable the DT to teach each student one-on-one in a computer-based environment. Other important non-academic programs CID is responsible for include Navy Credentialing Opportunities On- Line (COOL) and Center for Language, Regional Expertise and Culture (CLREC).
Navy COOL is a centralized, Web-based hub that consolidates information from numerous sources at the federal, state and local levels on certifications, licenses, apprenticeships and growth opportunities that correspond with each Navy rating, job and occupation.
Since 2006, Navy COOL has processed more than 28,000 credentials for Sailors. In 2010, the Navy COOL Web site has received an average of 2.5 million hits each month.
CLREC provides cultural awareness and language learning for the fleet. In addition to coordinating all formal, foreign language training of Navy personnel conducted at the Defense Language Institute, CLREC collects foreign language training products and cultural information from sources throughout government, academia and industry. This year, CLREC has delivered instructor-led training to more than 18,600 Sailors and provided training products and materials to approximately 121,000 personnel from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. “This has been a great visit,” Ferguson said. “I’ve been very impressed with everything I’ve seen – from the enthusiasm of the students, their skills and ability, and the great dedication of the staff and the leadership here; it’s just been a very impressive day for me.”
This article is reprinted from InfoDOMAIN magazine with permission; Copyright (c) 2011 Navy Cyber Forces/www.cyberfor.navy/mil.