Educating the workforce: M&S professional education

As Modeling & Simulation (M&S) becomes increasingly important, there is a significant and growing need to educate and train M&S practitioners and researchers. The Department of Defense (DoD) has a growing need for an educated M&S workforce. This need includes users, developers, managers and executive-level personnel, which can effectively apply M&S to DoD requirements. While several universities offer academic M&S degree programs, the time and expense of earning these degrees often limit the number of people that go through these programs. Professional education is an alternative for gaining M&S skills and knowledge, and courses are offered by a range of university and commercial groups. The observations in this paper begin to outline both the need and available options for M&S professional education. This collection of position papers begins a conversation on the DoD’s need for professional M&S education and how the M&S Body of Knowledge might fit within that strategy. These position papers are contributed in preparation of a panel discussion and edited for the supporting proceedings. 1 M&S EDUCATION: AN OVERVIEW As Modeling & Simulation (M&S) becomes increasingly important, there is a significant and growing need to educate, train, and certify M&S practitioners, researchers, and faculty. Efforts to meet that need have taken a number of forms: academic degree programs, non-degree professional education, and professional certifications. In this context, academic degree refers to a bachelors, masters or Ph.D. programs, non-degree professional education refers to skills and knowledge attained for career advancement through facilitated learning, and professional certification refers to a designation earned to assure qualification to perform a job or task. Only a few universities offer M&S as an academic discipline with a degree program. Graduate-level programs are currently offered by the University of Central Florida, Old Dominion University (ODU), the 3968 978-1-4577-2109-0/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE Loper, Diem, Henninger, Petty and Tolk University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). These programs follow a traditional academic approach where students enroll in a graduate program and take a series of courses that lead to a degree. It is common for the curriculum to be based on the theory and science of the underlying subject area, and for the degree to culminate with a formal project, thesis or dissertation. An alternate form of M&S training is professional (or continuing) education. These courses differ from academic degrees in that they focus on applied learning rather than theory. They may also focus on a more narrow area study. Professional education courses are taught by universities and industry, and come with differing levels of accreditation. In this context, accreditation refers to the standards against which the student’s course performance was assessed, which is often measured by continuing education units (CEUs). There are more choices in this space than for academic M&S degrees. In addition to ODU, UAH and NPS, courses are offered by the Georgia Tech Research Institute, George Mason University, and the Army Simulation and Modeling School, to name just a few. These professional education programs serve an important role in M&S education. Many practitioners and researchers do not have the time nor desire to pursue a traditional academic degree program, however they need to learn new skills and knowledge to be effective in their jobs. The Department of Defense (DoD) has a growing need for an educated M&S workforce. This need includes users, developers, managers and executive-level personnel, which can effectively apply M&S to DoD requirements. To support the range of professionals that need M&S education, the DoD published the M&S Workforce Body of Knowledge (BoK) (Department of Defense 2008). The development of the BoK was funded by the Modeling and Simulation Coordination Office (M&S CO). The BoK provides standardized language and associated knowledge base for users, developers, managers and executivelevel personnel to effectively apply M&S to DoD requirements. The BoK is considered a starting point for defining the core knowledge and skills that a member of the DoD M&S workforce performs. The M&S BoK serves as a foundation for defining the core knowledge needed by the M&S workforce. However, most M&S courses (academic and professional) were created prior to the development of the BoK. This raises interesting questions about how it might be used in education. Since academic courses are governed by institutional procedures, the BoK might be used for reference but could not be required. However, the DoD could require professional education courses be assessed against the BoK to ensure a common level of education across the different options available to students. Is that a good idea? The DoD has some M&S programs it offers through the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and through the U.S. Army FA57 and CP36 programs. Do these programs intend to use the BoK as a foundation for M&S knowledge? Do these programs provide adequate coverage for M&S professional education or do university-based and commercial M&S courses need to grow to support the expanding workforce? This paper is the beginning of a case study to understand the DoD’s need for professional M&S education and how the BoK fits within that strategy. The paper contains some description of the DoD’s needs and current programs, and also includes a look at how three universities are addressing the need. This paper is not a comprehensive look at M&S professional education, rather observations by the following individuals:  Diem discusses workforce development from the perspective of DoD M&S Enterprise.  Henninger briefly describes the U.S. Army’s M&S career titles to develop and train its workforce.  Loper reports on the computational modeling degree program and the M&S professional education certificate offered at GT.  Petty provides a case studying comparing content, delivery and purpose of the academic and professional educational programs at UAH.  Tolk raises the issue of where the BoK falls short in education programs and need for M&S science.