Small Footprint, Big Impact: Supercharging the Workforce with Interactive Online Education

How often does a single training event captivate 1,500 building professionals around the world? We’re using a powerful combination of video, PowerPoint, interactive polls, and Q&A to expand our reach and connect our audience to rigorous accredited continuing education programs. Our approach breaks through traditional training barriers—cost, time, and travel constraints—to deliver training worldwide. Online education also benefits energy efficiency program managers by increasing customer participation in and satisfaction with ratepayer-funded programs. This paper presents a case study of an online course that teaches integrated daylighting design for whole building energy savings. With this program we reached viewers in 48 states and 11 other countries at a fraction of the cost and environmental impact of a traditional event. We discuss the production of both live and on-demand online courses that integrate industry expertise with effective teaching methods. We highlight best practices and lessons learned in sharing information online. Building and retaining a satisfied customer base is crucial to our success and our robust evaluation process keeps us in tune with our customers’ needs. Empowering building professionals with the knowledge they need to reduce our energy impact is the challenge. We are embracing this challenge by delivering high quality, convenient and affordable online education programs.