The Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy (OPOTA) is providing advanced training to more law enforcement officers than ever thanks in part to live webcasts and online courses, according to a six-year review.
Officers completed 162,162 course sessions through live webcasts and online courses presented through OPOTA last year, an almost 315 percent increase in “distance learning” since 2011, according to the report. Meanwhile, peace officers and other professionals completed 22,436 courses at OPOTA campuses, in regional locations, and through the mobile academies in 2016, up from 13,000 five years before.
When Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine took office in 2011, he placed an emphasis on making law enforcement training more accessible, relevant, and advanced.
“It is critically important that law enforcement officers continuously receive high-quality training throughout their careers,” said Attorney General DeWine. “By taking advanced training, officers build on the skills necessary to fairly and effectively serve and protect.”
To provide greater accessibility to training, OPOTA provides courses not only at the London and Richfield campuses, but also at regional hubs, via mobile academies, online 24/7, and through webcasts.
OPOTA Executive Director Mary Davis, who offered the statistics to the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission (OPOTC), said the greatest upsurge in training has been in the category of “distance” learning, which includes classes taken though live webcasts and recorded sessions through eOPOTA.
In 2016, the academy provided 105 courses online through its free eOPOTA lineup, with more than 21,000 law enforcement officers completing 126,745 sessions, up from more than 8,400 officers completing 26,112 sessions in 2011.
OPOTA released eight new eOPOTA courses in January 2017 to help fulfill Continuing Professional Training (CPT) requirements. Today, older online courses are being reviewed and updated for content and to allow for more self-guided study, Davis said.
In January 2016, OPOTA began offering courses via live webcast. The format provides a user-friendly, interactive platform that enables OPOTA to present live courses to up to 3,000 students at a time. Last year, 27 courses were provided via webcast.
Fayette County Sheriff Vernon Stanforth, chairman of the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission, said he is amazed to see the advancement in training during his time on the commission. “Older instructors might remember the resistance to the theory of eOPOTA, and the webcast was just a pipe dream. Today, we are reaching a lot of people.”
For more information on OPOTA courses, visit
www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/OPOTACourses.