Over the past year, the Iowa Waste Reduction Center staff have been working on an update to the Online Painter Training course provided through our website. The current Online Painter Training course will be transitioning to a new platform and thee are a few important deadlines you should be aware of. 

Important deadlines

• Current Online Painter Training course will cease operation on December 31, 2024, 
• Access to the Company Administrator Dashboard ends on January 4, 2025. 
• New Online Painter Training course will be available through the University of Northern Iowa’s Blackboard eLearning portal beginning January 6, 2025. 
• Painter enrollment guide sent out before January 6

Details

We are advising all companies to review their training data to ensure course progress is up-to-date and hands-on validation has been finalized before January 4 and we will continue to work with company administrators throughout this transition to provide certification
information for all paint personnel. In addition, any painters who are unable to finish the course by the December 31 deadline will receive a code to enroll in the new course at no charge. Again, our staff will work closely with company administrators to ensure all outstanding training is completed. 

New features

There are a few exciting features with this new platform. 

• Course will now bookmark a painter’s progress, allowing the painter to take the course over multiple sittings. 
• Course is broken into individual units that save after the painter completes each unit quiz. 
• Course progress will be more easily tracked and monitored through a gradebook feature. 
• Hands-on training validation has been added as a final assignment before a certificate is generated.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The current company administrator role will not, however, be immediately available when the course goes live
on January 6. This is one of our top priorities in the second phase of this transition, and we will provide regular
updates on our progress.

While transitions can be challenging, we appreciate your patience and cooperation during this process. We will continue to diligently work towards creating a better course for painters and administrators alike, and welcome any questions and feedback as we
navigate this transition. We are available by email at iwrc@uni.edu and by phone at (319) 273-8905.