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Navy Knowledge Online, the electronic arm of the Navy's Revolution in Training, has grown to 265,000 registered users. With new features and resources added almost daily, NKO is living up to its billing as Sailors' one-stop shop for all things education and training. But NKO is not just about online courseware and links to electronic training jackets; the Web site is now the exclusive home to Navy eLearning, the 5 Vector Model (5VM), and the Naval Personnel Development Command's Learning and Training Support Centers. Currently, NKO is receiving about 17,000 hits a day.

"With version 3.0, Sailors have even greater access to the tools they will need to succeed in their Navy careers," said NPDC NKO Program Manager Lt. Jeff Miller. "And every day we are looking for new ways to utilize the portal, new features to ensure Sailors are getting everything they need to excel both professionally and personally."

One of the most important features of NKO is the 5VM. For ratings that have models online, NKO is becoming routine, checking the status of data updates to ensure course and learning credit are being given where credit is due, and identifying future learning requirements, as well as interacting with 5VM managers to provide valuable inputs into the usefulness and efficiency of their personal models. For those not having a 5VM yet, NKO provides a primer for both the model's functionality and insight into NPDC's Career Management System. Together the 5VM and CMS, offered through NKO, will ensure the success of Sea Warrior by giving Sailors not only single point access to career management resources, but also by providing mechanisms for interaction with mentors, peers, community managers and detailers. "What we don't want is Sailors spending their valuable time searching for databases, trying to piecemeal resources together in an at-tempt to manage their careers, do their jobs on a daily basis or find ways to better themselves personally. We want seamless movement so all Sailors ever see is NKO," said Miller.

The portal is arranged by communities of practice and Learning Centers responsible for a collection of enlisted ratings and officer designators, and the schools and learning opportunities associated with each. Logging in for the first time, Sailors will be prompted to join their respective community based on their occupational information. Once inside NKO, Sailors are free to move throughout the center pages and can access a multitude of community resources. Within the communities of practice Sailors will find, among other things, technical assistance, such as Naval Sea Systems Command's Tech Assist and Fleet maintenance program. These links, in conjunction with other communication mechanisms found throughout NKO, allow Sailors on the deck plates to get first hand guidance from subject matter experts wherever they are around the world. Message boards are also gaining in popularity, with just about every community establishing occupation and task specific boards to promote Sailor input.

"The ability to establish and maintain communications between forward deployed Sailors and subject matter experts, particularly in regard to maintenance or repairs, was one of our initial goals in developing NKO," said Miller. "Having the ability to establish a real-time dialogue will drastically reduce repair times because information is now readily available. Think about a fairly new petty officer or ensign dealing with a new system. Being able to access all the appropriate technical information is only half the battle; having someone with more experience to provide guidance and support is the other half."

These message boards have also become very popular among communities being faced with mergers. Community managers are going out to their Sailors to find out not only what they think about the future of their respective ratings, but also to dispel rumors and tell Sailors why a merger is even being considered. For the Navy's community of media ratings, NKO also provides the opportunity to solicit suggestions for a new name.

"The advent of NKO now allows us to engage in a dynamic dialogue with our entire community, almost like a virtual All Hands call," said Chief of Naval Information Senior Enlisted Advisor, PHCM(SW) Terry Cosgrove. "These discussions via NKO allow every Sailor within the community the opportunity to have an impact, to play a part in the future of our community, to influence the decisions of senior leaders. And not just for our community, but for the Navy as a whole, real-time capability that will itself become more and more vital in conducting our day-to-day business."

A trend setter in embracing change, the Center for Naval Leadership, which absorbed the Navy Leader Training Units responsible for conducting leadership training throughout the fleet, is both promoting NKO and capitalizing on its functionality. Having recently restructured course curriculums around the development of its Leadership Continuum, CNL integrated Navy eLearning course ware with a classroom seminar, creating a more versatile elearning environment. The first day of leadership training includes an overview of NKO; that night's homework is logging in. Many students do so for the first time and their familiarity with NKO increases throughout the course as they complete their eLearning assignments.

"NKO is the future of the Navy, the way we are going to conduct business tomorrow, so its very important that we play a role in introducing all our leaders to it today," said CNL Detachment Little Creek Primary Leadership Development Course Facilitator, FC1(SW) William Bishop. "As we present the NKO section to the class, we discuss its potential, and what it will mean not only as individual Sailors trying to manage their own careers, but as leaders trying to ensure the success and well being of their shipmates."

NKO is growing by leaps and bounds as new information, links and tools are migrating to the portal, but the end state is not in sight. New communities of practice will continue to establish themselves, new support mechanisms will be added, such as Instant Messaging to allow Sailors to communicate at the most critical times to ensure mission accomplishment, and further architecture integrations will be made to give Sailors the most robust, intuitive, efficient Web portal possible.

NKO features now available online

My Education. Sailors can access non-credit online courses from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) 33 disciplines including aeronautics, chemistry, economics, engineering, health sciences, literature and business management. Look in My Education for this and other great research resources, including the Naval General Library Program eBook Collection.

My Finance. Take three steps to better investment decision making with Morningstar.com's online stock and mutual fund resource, or explore Right on the Money's tips for better budgeting. Use these resources to build a better financial plan for the future. Check out My Finance for more.

My Career. Exam time is just around the corner. Visit My Career for links to the Navy Advancement Center, Naval Education and Training Professional Development and Technology Center's (NETPDTC) online nonresident course catalog, or download the new Advancement Exam Strategy Guides for that extra edge come test day.

My Health. Personal fitness encompasses both the physical and psychological components of the human animal. Don't be caught behind the power curve, maximize your productivity, learn to handle stress, or investigate the latest news in nutrition and conditioning. Via My Health you can assess your current level of fitness through the Virtual Health Coach, take a Lifestyle Risk Assessment, and find information on the latest programs being tested in the Navy, like the Personal Performance Assistant pilot being conducted onboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69).

Log on to your future today. Visit Navy Knowledge Online at https://www.nko.navy.mil today to learn, grow, lead and excel.