By: Madison Alder

NITAAC University’s initial courses focus on helping government employees use the agency’s governmentwide acquisition contracts for IT services.

Federal workers have a new way to learn about how their agencies can purchase IT goods and services through large-scale contracts offered by the National Institutes of Health’s acquisition arm.

NIH’s Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center launched NITAAC University in early December as an online, self-paced educational program to teach employees throughout the federal government how to use its governmentwide acquisition contracts, or GWACs, for IT acquisitions. 

NITAAC, while a part of the health research agency, is responsible for large-scale, multi-billion dollar IT contracts like Chief Information Officer-Commodities and Solutions (CIO-CS) and Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 3 and 4 (CIO-SP3 and CIO-SP4). 

The new platform comes in response to “a critical need” the agency identified through customer research in 2019, Ricky Clark, acting director of NITAAC, told FedScoop in an email. At the time, users expressed that there were challenges with understanding different acquisition processes and the agency later determined that “the lack of accessible, on-demand learning materials made the process unnecessarily taxing.”

Before the platform was created, information about the agency’s governmentwide contract options was available monthly, through pre-scheduled training sessions, or by request. There is also a “shortage” of senior workers knowledgeable about the complex acquisition process and available to coach or assist acquisition professionals and contract officers, Clark said. 

“Existing employees who are knowledgeable about federal IT acquisition are retired or getting ready to retire. This knowledge needs to be captured and documented,” he said.

The new platform fills that need and makes the information available at all times.

NITAAC University currently offers an introductory course on the agency’s governmentwide acquisition contracts, which was launched Dec. 3, and others are planned. Coming courses will focus on CIO-SP4, CIO-CS, the Electronic Government Ordering System (e-GOS), and Government-Wide Strategic Solutions. The program is also designed to count for continuous learning points, with the current active course offering three CLPs, Clark said.

Initial enrollment is expected to be about 200 people and could scale up to 500 in the next couple of years when the program is potentially expanded to include courses for contract holders as well, he said. In the meantime, the free courses are for federal government employees and those working on a government contract.

“Our target learner persona for NITAAC University courses is someone who is an entry-level or mid-level IT acquisition professional from any federal agency, civilian or Defense—agencies that are interested in procuring IT commodities, services, and other related solutions through NITAAC GWACs,” Clark said. “Senior IT acquisition professionals are also welcome.”

Development on the platform began in September 2023, and through that process, the agency selected Drupal, a content management system that’s open-source, as its software, Clark said. Since then, the agency has been designing, testing and debugging before the official rollout in December.

As far as next steps, NITAAC plans to create awareness about the course and has been refining the platform and developing new courses since the launch, Clark said.

Written by Madison Alder.

Madison Alder is a reporter for FedScoop in Washington, D.C., covering government technology. 

Read or listen to the original article posted on FedScoop.