Lincoln Electric is making its welding curriculum platform, U/LINC, more user-friendly and accessible to welding instructors and educational institutions through a new partnership with Tooling U-SME, a provider of manufacturing training solutions, the company said.
The new partnership gives Tooling U-SME the authority to administer U/LINC and leverages the company’s access to industry and academia, as well as its competency-based learning and development solutions.
Working directly with “thousands” of companies, including many Fortune 500 manufacturers—as well as 600 educational institutions across the country—Tooling helps prepare the incumbent and next generation workforce by providing industry-driven curriculum. As part of the agreement, new and current U/LINC subscribers will receive additional support services and reporting capabilities, and Tooling now can provide the U/LINC platform as part of its broad range of learning and development products, Lincoln Electric said.
Curriculum materials also will be integrated with the company’s popular learning management systems, such as Blackboard, Moodle and others.
“Tooling U-SME has a proven track record of providing solutions that help welding educators enhance their practice, leading to measurable results and improved performance outcomes,” said Jason Scales, business development manager for Lincoln Electric’s education division. “We’re excited about this partnership because it will allow us to make our industry-recognized welding curriculum even easier for welding school instructors and industry trainers to integrate and enhance their welding programming.”
Lincoln Electric established U/LINC to help welding educators find the detailed curriculum resources needed for teaching welding at every level. Developed by 35 of the industry’s top welding instructors, U/LINC contains more than 18,000 pages of curriculum resources connecting welding theory, practice and knowledge in one place, Lincoln said. Subscribers to U/LINC can search, download and print lesson plans, class assignments, presentations, group-based activities and more with in-depth directions, tips and teaching strategies that leverage Lincoln Electric’s more than 100 years of welding training experience.
“For 15 years, we have partnered with Lincoln Electric to bring industry-leading welding content to the manufacturing community, and we are proud to further extend our partnership by providing management support for the company’s U/LINC program,” said Jeannine Kunz, vice president of Tooling U-SME.
“Our goal, as is Lincoln Electric’s, is to bring the most relevant and forward-thinking content to market, and by providing accessibility to more people, we will ensure the industry’s workforce is well-prepared to perform in today’s and tomorrow’s advanced manufacturing world.”
Plans call for U/LINC to migrate over to Tooling U-SME this fall. Existing U/LINC subscribers still will be able to access the U/LINC platform in its current form until the transition is completed in January 2020, the company said.
For more information on U/LINC, visit education.lincolnelectric.com/ulinc.