The L-3 DPA's Distributed Online Management System (DOMS) and Related Systems (DARS) is an integrated suite of software applications designed to assist production teams in accomplishing training program tasks & milestones including:

• Program Management
• Quality Control and Analysis
• Courseware Development
• Product Review and Commenting
• Asset and Product Configuration Management
• Production Tracking and Management
• Data Centralization, Storage & Reporting

DARS features and capabilities are realized by the collaborative operation of its three base applications: Distributed Online Management System (DOMS), the Courseware Development Engine (CoDE), and the Front End Analysis Toolkit (FEAT). These applications communicate seamlessly with a group of databases to store and retrieve data. This ensures system expandability, data integrity and data continuity between program phases. Together they facilitate a structured yet flexible production environment to support execution of most training programs.

Distributed Online Management System (DOMS)

DOMS is a web-based application made available to selected personnel as a secure, public web site. It functions as a management ‘hub’ for production teams and provides the main interface to program information groups. Its modular architecture allows program sites to selectively include a variety of components as needed to control the program environment. Components provide specific data handing functions for general program areas such as risk, quality, document handling, product review, and workflow; some are integrated with other components and applications to expand their capabilities. Managers can choose components that best support the requirements of the subject contract to create a custom program management site.

Courseware Development Engine (CoDE)

CoDE is a Windows client application that provides an integrated, collaborative authoring environment for courseware development which does not require team members to perform outside of their essential discipline. A major benefit of using CoDE is in its ability to maximize reuse of FEAT analysis data, which is made accessible within the CoDE interface to instantly present structured course outlines to the user. This tight integration allows production teams to immediately begin building and organizing courseware data and assets. CoDE supports the traditional processes of storyboarding and allows an unlimited number of revision cycles. It also provides the mechanisms to generate static, HTML courseware runtime and ADL SCORM data files into self-contained, organized SCOs which can then be ‘plugged’ into DOMS to facilitate both internal and external review functions at any phase of the development cycle.

Front End Analysis Toolkit (FEAT)

FEAT is a portable Windows client application designed to assist production teams in organizing analysis data and creating several key analysis products including master task lists, behavioral hierarchies, curriculum structures, behavioral and instructional data elements and values, analysis data reports,
instructional and analysis support documents. Curriculum structures created in FEAT are tightly integrated with the CoDE authoring tool to maximize reuse of analysis data as projects enter the courseware development phase. Further integration with DOMS allows analysis data to be securely reviewed and
critiqued over the Internet. FEAT’s abilities to detach from the main system and deploy on a portable computer make it a useful, self-contained asset for collecting and organizing analysis data in the field.