ADC Virtual Academy designs and delivers operationally relevant short and long training courses and produces related technical manuals and documentation for the petroleum industry worldwide. Each year the company trains some 1,000 people all over the world in the theoretical and practical aspects of understanding drilling equipment and well-pressure control for drilling to ensure - through in-house and externally validated assessment processes - that they are ready for field operations using specific equipment and systems.

"In addition to technical proficiency, trainees need to understand health and safety as well as environment issues associated with their activities", says Douglas Hay, the Managing Director of ADC Virtual Academy. "This makes it extremely important that we have an able and efficient learning-management system (LMS) to not only make these courses available to learners but also to monitor the learners' usage of the materials and assess their progress."

ADC is using its own servers to host the Absorb LMS - developed by the Canada-based Blatant Media Corporation but supplied throughout Europe by the eLearning solutions provider Omniplex. Omniplex is also providing the ADC Virtual Academy with special training not only in how to operate the LMS but also in how ADC staff can train their clients to administer and interrogate the LMS.

Omniplex's Stephen Miller explains, "Given the importance of the training that ADC Virtual Academy provides for its clients' staff - from the health and safety and environmental points of view - those clients' training managers also need to be able to access the LMS as administrators to ensure that their staff are complying with the various regulations."