London Luton Airport Rescue & Fire Service and Optivote
As a heavily regulated service, the Rescue and Fire Service at Luton airport has to conform to a number of compliances, and are regulated primarily by the Civil Aviation Authority. These range from the speed and efficiency of our fire appliances, to the quality of fire fighting media, to, in particular the performance of our fire-fighters.
Performance of fire-fighters is controlled by our Maintenance of Competence Scheme, which conforms to a CAA document known as CAP699. This document is set out in a similar way to National Occupational Standards, and as such consists of numerous types of performance criteria that need to be met. Clearly, a significant amount of a fire-fighters performance is assessed practically; but there is also a large amount of knowledge and understanding that needs to be assessed in other ways. Traditionally this has been by means of written assessment, which as we know has major limitations in effectiveness particularly with the adult learner. Optivote has allowed us to really open up the way in which we assess this type of performance. I am able to produce a fairly traditional format of assessment, with the flexibility of being able to introduce pictures, video and internet material into both questioning and answers.

In addition to this, I am able to produce PowerPoint presentations and introduce genuine interactivity which for the first time is fully auditable by using the Optivote facility. The student feels fully involved in the session, armed with their personal unit, and I can see post session that they have joined in and been part of it. This is a particularly powerful use, as the presentation can be constructed to cater for the already competent staff, and provide evidence of expansion of their knowledge and understanding. It mustn't be forgotten also that following either type of session, valuable time that would be spent marking individual papers is eliminated by the comprehensive report system that allows me to produce all relevant types of data that I need to show both my Company and CAA auditors, and indeed my External Verifier. All of this data is available instantly following the session. I would recommend Optivote to any business such as ourselves. It saves time, is innovative, and opens up all the different types of media available in the current IT rich environment. Mark Buckingham Deputy Senior Airport Fire Officer