ACPA University: New Online Learning Platform Coming Soon for ACPA Members

As part of the association’s ongoing mission to provide industry-leading education for our members, the ACPA is proud to announce plans for an upcoming online learning management system. Known as ACPA University, the platform is being developed in partnership with Industrial Training International (ITI) of Woodland, Washington, a training and risk management solutions provider to organizations that perform in high-risk industrial environments, including mobile equipment fleet management.

Zack Parnell, president and chief executive officer of ITI, explains the development of the learning hub tailored specifically to meet concrete pumpers’ needs.

“The ACPA is unique as an association in that it provides a great amount of training and has done a remarkable job in creating a lot of training content for members,” says Parnell. “Many associations we’re familiar with don’t have as much training as the ACPA. We’re working to streamline ACPA’s many learning offerings, as we’ve done for NBIS.”

The ITI Learning Hub

ITI developed a learning management system via the ITI Learning Hub for NBIS, ACPA’s exclusively endorsed property and casualty insurance provider, and ACPA’s system will be similar. Fully branded for NBIS, the platform focuses on risk management support and delivers training materials, e-learning courses, various risk management documents and more. The goal is a powerful, full-on e-learning system. NBIS member insureds will have access to a combined platform of resources from the NBIS Risk Management Support System (RMSS™), ITI catalog and the ACPA content.

“We are excited to bring this learning opportunity to our members, as it will streamline our learning offerings into one system — making things more efficient for members as well as for ACPA staff,” says ACPA executive director Christi Collins. “The platform will also offer an ACPA operator onboarding course, which will be a tremendous asset to our members.”

Each ACPA member will have access to learning management software that would cost tens of thousands of dollars if purchased individually. Sharing the cost as an association makes the cost a fraction of that for members. Each member will have one free login and will be able to add their employees at a nominal per-user fee, billed in arrears by ACPA.

ACPA University will offer many benefits for ACPA’s training offerings, such as skills training, virtual reality solutions, online learning and more. Member companies will have access to more than 2,000 course titles within several off-the-shelf libraries, in addition to ACPA-authored content. The system will also bring improvements to the:

  • Management of training content;
  • Administration of training and certification records; and
  • Development of new content.

According to ITI, the ITI Learning Hub’s robust content authoring tool easily assists the creation of new training materials. To facilitate the content creation process, an ITI representative will meet regularly with ACPA staff.

Member companies will be able to create individualized learning paths for their employees, choosing from ACPA- and ITI-enabled courses, activities and additional requirements. The employee’s progression on the learning path is greatly simplified and highly visible to key leadership.

A Step Forward in Training

“ACPA University is a tremendous step forward for our industry collectively. From a risk management perspective, online access to completed learning and certification courses validates your safety plan efficacy in one dashboard and becomes extremely valuable during an OSHA audit and claims litigation,” Kyle Rask advises. Kyle is the Concrete Pumping Program Manager at NBIS, working in close contact with the ACPA on this exciting platform.

What’s more, ACPA University will allow members to perform paperless field evaluations, which helps meet OSHA’s new requirements for fleet owners to perform field evaluations on the make and model of the machines they operate.

“Paperless evaluations are powerful,” says Parnell. “If you’re evaluating an employee in the field, you can access the evaluation via tablet, conduct a field evaluation and submit the appropriate documentation from wherever you’re located.”

For ACPA operator certification, employees will begin taking examinations online instead of written exams. This efficiency will allow for immediate score results, eliminating the need for manual grading.

The ACPA anticipates ACPA University will open to members on January 1, 2022. Following the launch of the learning platform, ITI will continue to work with ACPA leaders to implement the strategy and improve it over time.

Member Benefits of ACPA University

  • Author custom training Content
  • Use the system as its company’s central training records system
  • Utilize any ACPA learning path or course
  • Access to 2000+ content titles, including OSHA 10, HSE compliance courses and more
  • Discussion boards
  • Certificate management, including expiration dates
  • Office hours available to communicate with subject matter experts
  • Analytics and reporting
  • Live-stream events
  • Live in-person events
  • Onboarding for new Employees
  • Career progression