Steel pipe supplier Tenaris’ 25,000 employees are spread all over the world. For certain subgroups of employees, such as those in R&D and product engineering, only the best global experts are able to provide the technical training about cutting-edge research that Tenaris’ employees need. E-learning and Webinars are not viable training alternatives given the sophisticated, lengthy content. Instructor-led training is not possible given the cost of moving professors and employees for up to month-long courses.
Therefore, in 2013 TenarisUniversity launched a new strategy that focuses on Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs). Also known as Corporate MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), SPOCs allow dozens if not hundreds of individuals in different geographic locations the opportunity to simultaneously take an online course taught by a distinguished professor, who also is connected remotely.
Program Details
SPOCs incorporate innovative educational techniques such as social learning, forums, microlearning, videos, real-time assignments, peer-to-peer evaluations, live Webinars, meetups, and hangouts. They generally have start and end dates like traditional classroom courses, and students are evaluated and provided a certification of completion. Searchable versions of the courses remain online so students can continue to take them “self-paced” or search for sections relevant to their learning objectives.
The SPOC format has proved a fundamental training strategy for Tenaris. SPOCs retain networking and human interaction with professors and other students—elements crucial for learning. Subsequent runnings of SPOCs cost a fraction of first editions.
In 2013, TenarisUniversity launched its first SPOC, collaborating with The University of Sheffield, home to well-known researchers in metallurgical sciences, to develop “Thermo-Mechanical Processing of Metals” on a customized Moodle Platform. This project was designed to address a clear business challenge: deepen engineers’ knowledge of high-temperature metal shaping processes. TenarisUniversity was recognized in 2013 for Excellence in Training by the Worldsteel Association for this initiative.
The benefits of the SPOC are clear:
- The course content was superior. It was taught by world-renowned global experts.
- The total cost of the SPOC was 20 percent of what would have been required for classroom training.
- Tenaris has increased dramatically the quantity of employees trained. In two editions, 66 individuals finished the course in comparison to only one in previous years. Ninety percent of the target population was trained.
- Employees were able to continue doing their jobs while participating in training. Previously, this training required being absent from the job for up to a month.
Results
Based on the success of its first SPOC, in 2013, Tenaris partnered with edX, a university-level online course platform founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in 2012. In 2014/2015, Tenaris launched three SPOCs on the edX platform completed by a total of 162 employees. This has translated into savings of more than $600,000 in training and related costs. Without the SPOCs, this training would have been prohibitively expensive and, therefore, would not have taken place. Four SPOCs are in the works for 2015/2016.
