Multinational Collaboration in Advanced Distributed Learning

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Abstract:

The signing of the Switzerland - United States Memorandum of Understanding (Swiss – U.S. MoU) on April 25, 1999, was the inauguration of a collaborative multinational effort to develop and facilitate the development of open-source Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) amongst Partnership for Peace (PfP) nations. This multinational effort has since expanded to include contributions and participants from many other countries. To this end, a Joint Planning Document (JPD) was developed and published to implement the Swiss – U.S. MoU, a free and open-source Learning Management System (LMS) was developed and continues to be refined, numerous Cooperative Development Teams (CDTs) have been trained, and many courses have been developed and converted to internet-interactive courseware. Many of these courses are used in support of, and to train multinational military audiences in preparation for exercises and real-world events. The successes of the Swiss – U.S. MoU efforts are well documented, and the demand for the quality products and services provided by the CDTs have rapidly grown beyond PfP to NATO and others. This article underlines many of the accomplishments resulting from the ADL vision.