Founded in 1919, the university of California at Los Angeles is one of the leading research universities in the US. It covers various areas of studies from business and economics to political science and psychology.
UCLA offers nearly 150 graduate degree programs, including an extensive selection of management and health sciences options. The university encourages collaboration across disciplines with a number of research centers and institutes.
Challenge
Since 2001, the US Department of Health and Human Services has mandated UCLA to build the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). The aim of the network is to raise the standard of care and improve access to services for traumatised children, their families, and their communities throughout the US. The goal was to deploy a holistic platform to provide workforce training to military providers. A web-based system where they could acquire knowledge and experience, form online communities, share best practices and lessons learned from their collective experiences.
We didn’t want to deliver a boring learning experience. We envisioned an interactive environment, and eXo Platform incarnated it best.
Jason Liu, Researcher, UCLA
Why eXo?
After researching the market, the project team could not find a product that perfectly matched the social and learning capabilities that it was looking for. However, eXo Platform was the closest to the team’s vision and was customisable for both branding and the integration of e-learning capabilities. The evaluation team also found that eXo had already worked with the US Department of Defense to enhance communications in operational conditions, which was a pledge of confidence for a service that was primarily aimed at military families.
This unique integration of learning and social networking allows behavioural health specialists to virtually connect learners with not only their lessons but with their classmates to learn from each other.
Gregory A Leskin, PhD Director of the NCTSN Military and Veteran Families Program, UCLA
The impact
After a year of development and a pilot phase of six months, the social e-learning system is ready to be deployed to the whole network. Dozens of courses have been integrated into the learning centre to support approximately 3,000 professionals across the country.
For example, a military behavioural staff member working in Hawaii now has access to the same on-demand training materials as their colleagues staffing clinics in Europe.
With this new system, NCTSN hopes to foster collaboration among network affiliates to benefit American children.
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