CITE and FHWA Introduce a New Blended Course

The Consortium for ITS Training and Education (CITE) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Operations have released an interactive web-based course on the “Principles and Tools of Road Weather Management.” This course provides transportation professionals in highway maintenance and/or highway operations with training to apply tools and strategies for addressing road weather problems.

The course begins with an overview of the types of road weather problems and their associated costs, as well as basic meteorology for non-meteorologists. Through this course, participants are exposed to various strategies for addressing road weather problems, including Road Weather Information Systems (RWIS) and the development of crosscutting decision support systems to respond effectively to weather situations. In addition, road weather solutions unique to maintenance management, traffic management, traveler information, and emergency management are discussed. It is the same content as the NHI classroom version of the course, only it is converted to an on-line format. A complete outline of the course can be found on the CITE web site.

CITE eliminates the inconvenience of attending courses away from the office by providing courses through an interactive web-based format. All of CITE’s courses are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The courses provide student interactivity through a stimulating mix of participatory activities, such as self-study quizzes, exercises or problems, and drag-and-drop pages. These activities help support and reinforce the text-based information and keep students engaged and active in the learning process.

This course is available as both an independent study web-based course and a “blended” course. A “blended” course combines the best features of both instructor-led and web-based instruction. These features include:

• Live discussions with the instructor through the use of conference calls,

• Convenient, flexible web-based learning,

• A specific time schedule in which to complete the course, and

• Interaction with other students through the use of class workshops posted on a discussion board.

The instructor for this blended course is Leon Osborne, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Regional Weather Information Center at the University of North Dakota. He has served since 1995 as the principal investigator of the Advanced Transportation Weather Information System at the University of North Dakota, which has laid the foundation for much of the present weather applications within the surface transportation industry.

This blended course begins on March 14th and continues through April 27, 2008. The fee for the course is $250 and students can register by going to the CITE web site at http://www.citeconsortium.org.

For more information, please contact Denise Twisdale, mztwiz@umd.edu or 301-403-4592.

February 1, 2008