ECDIS Situation Awareness (ECDIS SITAWARE)

As many of you might have experienced the ECDIS training based on IMO/STCW requirements is not enough to give navigators the necessary in-depth understanding. We now offer an e-learning model, called ECDIS-SITAWARE that we claim meets this shortcoming. Our approach is focusing on the necessity to raise the navigators’ awareness of the technical limitations and the pitfalls for unsafe use of ECDIS in various situations.

In this course unsafe use of ECDIS is not understood as poor motivation, rather, limitations and pitfalls are explained in a concrete manner using simple language.

The course is based on a real incident and covers four main themes:

1. Scale Issues

2. Wrecks and Obstructions

3. ENC quality and Alternative Information Sources

4. GPS and AIS positioning

The course starts with an introductory chapter explaining what it means to have situation awareness regarding ECDIS. Ten chapters then covers one awareness aspect each concerning ECDIS use. Each Chapter follows a common pedagogic template in three parts:

1) a short presentation of the awareness aspect,

2) an example taken from a real grounding accident, and

3) a multiple-choice question activating the learner and testing understanding at the same time

The course takes the average learner about 1.5 hours to complete.

Each chapter can also be printed out in standard A4/Letter format as reflection sheets. This makes excellent supporting material for reflective discussion amongst navigation officers. The learners will get an immediate feed-back on their test score in %. In addition, the learner and their employer will receive an overview of the test result.

The course software can be used on smartphone, tablet or PC.