The case against online fire and life safety training

The National Football League has announced today that teams may conduct practices using computer-based training during the upcoming regular season. 'The online option will be a tremendous savings in both time for the players and operating costs,' said one head coach. 'Players will be able to practice "virtually" from their home or wherever they are located; we are confident that there will be no degradation in the level of preparation for the upcoming game; in fact, players will be more rested.' The NFL players union had no comment regarding the change to online practices." The ludicrous concept above is, of course, fictitious. No NFL, or any other competitive sports team, would ever consider replacing on-field practices with online training. Why then, do we allow this to occur with our fire and life safety training in commercial high rise office buildings, where the stakes are much higher? New York City's Comprehensive Fire Safety & Evacuation and Emergency Action Plan law contains provisions for conducting computer-based online training. The intent seems to be to make it easier and more efficient for building staff and tenant floor teams (wardens, deputy wardens and searchers) to receive mandatory periodic training on the building's fire safety and emergency action plan; the easier it is for tenants to participate, the more likely their participation. With online training, the building's Fire Safety/Emergency Action Plan (FS/EAP) Director, who is ultimately responsible for the building's preparedness (i.e. the plan, floor team and building staff training, and drills), can easily gauge who has completed the online training via an electronic record. While the intent of this concept seems sound, it fails in its application. The first reason is that the use of computer-based training, in this case, differs greatly from either in-person classroom education, or "distance" or "distributed" learning, a technique which is widely used by academic institutions. The current fire/life safety online training provides limited interaction; there is no opportunity for the floor teams to ask questions or receive feedback from the FS/EAP director. The tenant floor team or building staff reviews materials, takes an "exam" designed to validate competence and then becomes "certified." Academic models for online classes are markedly different; there is a class with an assigned professor/instructor and there is instructor-student interaction over a period of time via a virtual "blackboard" which may include webinars, presentations and emails. The second reason is that there are no standard curricula for online FS/EAP training; that is, FDNY prescribes no specific online content guidance, other than that the training must be accomplished in accordance with annual training requirements. For example, a one-hour annual floor team refresher training is required. It is the FS/EAP director's responsibility to develop training topics specifically for his/her building; in fact, developing a training plan is a topic on the EAP on-site examination. Current online training curricula development solicits little input or participation from the FS/EAP director. The vendor that provides online training modules is at his/her own discretion to develop the topics and length of training time dedicated for each, as well as the "exam" questions at the end. Obviously, the vendor wants to develop a module that can be used by numerous clients, whether they be a midtown 50-story high rise or a 14-story doctor's office building on the Upper East Side. This, in itself, abdicates the FS/EAP director's important role in developing and overseeing training for his or her building. The third, and probably most resounding argument against online training is that it is generic; it is not tailored for a particular building. An unmistakable tenet of high rise preparedness is building-specific knowledge. In a classroom session (whether it be a presentation, seminar or workshop), the instructor can ask building-specific questions to participants. For example, what are the stairwells on your floor and where do they terminate? Does this building have a fire tower stairwell? Where are the building's egress points? Where are the building's outside assembly areas? The FS/EAP Director is present and can interact with participants, whether answering building-specific questions or providing clarification of procedures. Online FS/EAP training does not discriminate; it is "one size fits all" and does not address a building's unique characteristics. I have had, over the past few months, an opportunity to sample at least three different FS/EAP online training modules. Each had serious gaffes. In one, the training offered was ubiquitous; that is, it was designed to be taken by both floor teams and building staff. There was no articulation in either the instruction or the exam between those actions required by floor teams during an incident and those of the building staff. Certainly, during FS/EAP plan implementation, floor team actions are different from building staff actions. In another module, I read through the material presented (in the form of slides) and then took the exam. I purposely answered as many of the questions as I could incorrectly. Lo and behold, when I finished the exam, I was congratulated on successful completion of the training. We must do better than this. Computer based online training is certainly acceptable for a number of different topics, but commercial high rise building fire and life safety, especially with the limited amount of time we have annually to imbue in the tenants the importance of building preparedness, is not one of them. If it's not good enough for the NFL, it shouldn't be good enough for us. Walter Ulmer III is the president of Remlu, Inc., New York, N.Y.