Development of an interactive on-line training course for testers of plant protection equipment

The testing of plant protection application equipment in Finland is carried out by private testers. The
system is very distributed and relies on the availability of testers around the country. In the recent
years a risk of poor availability of testers around the country has been identified. To mitigate the risks
more testers are needed, which means attracting new people to the business. One obstacle in
attracting and recruiting new testers is the availability and accessibility to the training. Trainings are
arranged at fixed times at fixed locations and can be difficult to access. There are also other
challenges to training of testers. The increasing level of automation and complexity of user interfaces
in sprayers requires revisiting and supplementing the training material constantly.
New digital technologies for training and education offer new possibilities to arrange trainings and
present possible solutions to the challenges facing the training of testers. New e-learning
technologies like Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOCS) and virtual reality environments have
progressed considerably and have been employed especially during the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Finnish Chemicals and Safety Authority (TUKES), Häme University of Applied Sciences (HAMK),
and Natural Resources institute Finland (Luke) explored possibilities of new e-learning technologies
in arranging training for testers of plant protection application equipment. The study was carried out
by identifying challenges facing the training today, deconstructing the current training course and
constructing a pedagogical script for a new online training course. Available e-learning platforms and
virtual reality environments was studied. From these studies a new concept for arranging training of
testers was created. The objective is not to completely replace the current system but to supplement
it and make the training more accessible, extendable, re-usable and more interactive.
This paper presents the proposed e-learning platform, first experiences and discussion on using such
an environment.