Get to Know ITI: Product & Web Development
As an International Training member, you should know we value being close to our members. We stay in touch with our members through many different channels, we always welcome feedback and we offer tours to meet the staff and see the offices at World HQ in South Florida. Following this philosophy, we wanted to introduce a department that does very little front-facing work – but affects our members in big ways: Product and Web Development.
So, what does Product Development, the team noted for being downstairs in the “dungeon” actually do?
Training Materials
The Product and Web Development Department’s primary role is just that – create products. We create, edit and maintain our training materials. The creation and editorial process has been an important focus of the department over the past few years. Our membership asked for better and more visually appealing materials and we have delivered. We focus on simple-to-read but thorough materials that are graphically stimulating and video-rich when possible. Our editing process underwent a large changeup to ensure students are not receiving materials with glaring grammar or spelling errors. These products are not only print but also eLearning. Furthermore, the department edits existing materials to keep them up-to-date – or fix errors missed previously. Part of this process is tracked by our versioning system so you, the member, can make sure you’re using the most up-to-date products.
Some of our recent work includes new Scuba Discovery, Snorkel, and Inactive Diver eLearning courses. We also launched a whole new suite of materials under a new agency – First Response Training International. Check it out at https://www.firstresponse-ed.com/.
Translations
Our department also oversees all material translations – across multiple languages and regions. We use state of the art software to facilitate 100% human translated digital and print products to avoid goofy machine translation, and then review translated materials with native language editors before production.
Some notable recent translations include:
SDI Open Water Scuba Diver – Malay
SDI Open Water Scuba Diver – Indonesian
SDI Open Water Scuba Diver – Russian
SDI Open Water Scuba Diver – French
SDI Divemaster – Spanish
SDI Rescue Diver – French
SDI Advanced Adventure – French
TDI Nitrox – Traditional Chinese
TDI Decompression Procedures – German
Graphics and Media
The Product and Web Development department LOVES creating pretty pictures. From the images adorning our website blog articles to the banners we send out for events, our department shoots, chooses and edits all the graphic media for International Training.
Photo and Video Production
This might be the best part of our department – PHOTOSHOOTS! We strive to capture all media for materials and marketing using our in-house staff. Sometimes it’s for a new manual, other times it’s just for more website content but whatever the reason, we don’t shy away from hitting the water. We have many divers capable of shooting in a variety of environments, shallow reefs, deep wrecks, and even cave diving. If there’s an excuse to get more media we don’t think twice.
We produced over a 100 videos in 2018. We maintain these videos on our YouTube channel but the best way to see our recent videos is to dive into an eLearning course.
Web Dev
In today’s digital world, you can easily get left behind if you are not constantly innovating and improving the way you do business and interact with your customers. Another major focus of our department is to keep our production websites running smoothly while constantly improving the experience that our members and divers have when they come to tdisdi.com or firstresponse-ed.com.
Some examples of our recent work include a major upgrade to our website Instructor and Facility search functions that now geo-locate users. We also have greatly improved the process for downloadable products from our online store, along with a new and improved eLearning course signup process that allows the user to enter a course quickly and easily.
These are just a few of the areas that our department focuses on and we invite you all to come by and peek behind the curtain the next time you are in South Florida. In fact, our HQ staff can be seen hitting the water on weekends (or maybe even “sick days”).
Phew! That’s a lot of stuff, but we love it. Being able to create new things and offer top notch products to our member base is what keeps us cranking things out. We welcome input from the membership and hope to see you visiting in the office or joining you for a dive sometime soon!
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