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EBSR Training Toolkit User Guide, v1

0. User Guide for the EBSR Toolkit

The target audience for this User Guide is a training coordinator/manager in an organisation such as a local authority, a specialist information provider (e.g. traveline) or a bus operating company. The Guide assumes that you are already familiar with the basic concepts of electronic bus service registration.

The purpose of the EBSR Training Toolkit is to provide a set of resources that can be used to support training courses that develop the skills and knowledge of practitioners, managers and technical staff in the EBSR business process and associated data transfer formats.

Rather than prescribing exactly how the training should be carried out, the Toolkit is designed to enable the local training coordinator to 'mix and match' materials to deliver an event that best meets the local requirements, within a common framework.

In order to improve the skills and knowledge of your staff in EBSR you will need to identify:

1. The training requirements of your staff as regards the EBSR process in your organisation;
2. One or more training courses that will meet these training requirements;
3. Appropriate training resources to support the course(s) and to enable self-guided learning and reference, as well as trainers and other experts such as competent users who can deliver training events;
4. How to evaluate each training event and the skills and knowledge gained by your staff.

The resources provided in this Toolkit will support you in delivering successful training outcomes for your staff.

1. Identify User Needs for EBSR Training
   The introduction of EBSR will lead to technical and business process changes in organisations dealing with bus service registrations. In the long run these changes will help to make the process of registering a new bus service quicker and more efficient, and will also improve the quality of the data available for other purposes such as passenger information.
   
   The new skills and knowledge staff need for EBSR can be acquired by attending short training courses, supplemented by on-the-job learning. This Toolkit provides you with materials to assess the skills and knowledge of your staff.
2. Define the EBSR training needs for your organisation. For instance, most organisations will need Competent Level Managers and Practitioners to manage and operate the EBSR process, ideally supported by one or more Advanced Level Practitioners.
3. In order to find out what your practitioners already know, invite them to complete the document EBSR Training Needs Assessment Form in the User Needs folder.
4. After your practitioners return the completed assessment forms to you, capture the results in table form using the document EBSR Stakeholder Register in the User Needs folder. This document will give you an overview of staff skills and knowledge at different sites or in different parts of the organisation.
5. Use the results in the Register as the basis for conducting a simple training needs analysis:
   • Users who declare themselves as Beginner Practitioners will benefit from attending an Introduction to EBSR course;
   • Users who declare themselves as Competent Practitioners will benefit from attending an EBSR for Advanced Users course;
   • Users who declare themselves as Advanced Practitioners can be considered for an EBSR for Technical Users course, depending on their job responsibilities;
   • Users who declare themselves as Beginner Managers will benefit from attending an EBSR for Managers course; and
   • Users who declare themselves as Competent Managers or Project Managers are unlikely to require formal training. They will however benefit from knowing about the materials contained in the Toolkit and may be able to share their own knowledge and experiences with other staff.
6. Using the results of the training needs analysis, you can therefore build up a picture of the types of courses that you will need to run, and the likely number of users on each course.

2. Select EBSR Training Course(s)

Once you have identified which courses are required by your users, you can select the necessary course outlines from this Toolkit. You can customise the course outlines with your organisation's logo and incorporate them into your training pack for trainees.

An overview of each course is given below:

Introduction to EBSR

The purpose of this training course is to take practitioners with little prior knowledge of EBSR, and train them to a competent level, so that they are able to operate EBSR business processes as part of their everyday work. The suggested training course outline is given as EBSR Training Course Outline - Introduction to EBSR in the Courses folder.

EBSR for Advanced Users

The purpose of this training course is to take practitioners who are already competent in EBSR business processes and train them in the more advanced skills and knowledge needed to resolve common issues relating to EBSR. The suggested training course outline is given as EBSR Training Course Outline - EBSR for Advanced Users in the Courses folder.

EBSR for Technical Users

The purpose of this training course is to train users in understanding the basic workings of TransXChange, in order that they can confidently deal with TXC files in the course of their work. The suggested training course outline is given as EBSR Training Course Outline - EBSR for Technical Users in the Courses folder.

EBSR for Managers

The purpose of this training course is to take managers with little prior knowledge of EBSR, and support them in understanding how the introduction of EBSR business processes will affect their organisation. The suggested training course outline is given as EBSR Training Course Outline - EBSR for Managers in the Courses folder.

3. Select Training Resources

In order to deliver the training courses you will need to set up real and virtual learning spaces, circulate and print training materials, and invite trainers and other people who will support the training. On the second page of each course outline is a list of all of the resources that you will need to deliver that course.

Most of the training materials mentioned are included within the Resources folder of the Toolkit. You will also need to find supplementary in-house materials.

If you need to source a trainer or other supporting people such as advanced users who can share their own experiences, please email us.

4. Evaluate the Training

After each part of the training which involves an event, it is good practice to circulate an evaluation form to gather feedback from the users attending. This can help you to find out if there are any areas that users need follow-up training or support, and to gauge the effectiveness of the training event itself. Use the EBSR Training Event Evaluation Form in the Evaluation folder.

Page last updated: 2010/12/07