NAVIGATION SKILLS
ASSESSMENT PROGRAM (NSAP)®

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The Navigation Skills Assessment
Program (NSAP)® Brochure.
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Home : About the NSAP®

NSAP® DEFINED

The Navigation Skills Assessment Program (NSAP)® is a risk-based measurement tool to assess a mariner’s performance in the simulator, focused specifically on the core skills required of licensed deck officers as defined by international standards and industry best practices. Each NSAP® session uses realistic scenario-based exercises geared toward each company’s operation and is assessed by trained and qualified subject matter experts. At the conclusion of the session the participant is debriefed by the assessor/facilitator. The debrief provides an opportunity for the participant to discuss his/her performance with the facilitator and for the facilitator to provide guidance to improve and enhance the participant’s navigational skills. The vision of the NSAP® is to reduce catastrophic maritime incidents by addressing mariner competency and knowledge and use of technology. At the conclusion of the NSAP® session a comprehensive report is provided to the company which can be used to determine the allocation of resources to improve specific skills or mitigate specific risks.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“I have recently been assessed at MITAGS through their the Navigation Skills Assessment Program (NSAP)®.  The NSAP® was by far the best and most enjoyable maritime educational challenge of my career. I literally can’t wait to do it again. It made me realize the $20K in courses and all the time spent in obtaining my 1600 Ton Oceans was worth it.  The program not only showed me where I need to focus my attention on, it highlighted my skills and strengths.”

-Dan Schweitzer

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“The NSAP® was a very effective way to accomplish both objectives and provided a valuable tool to identify opportunities for improvement both on an individual and fleet-wide level. It brought broad issues to the surface quickly like overreliance on ECDIS and lack of effective COLREGS application. Of further note is a definite cultural shift after the officers went through the NSAP® process: Captains were taking lessons learned back to their vessels to raise the level of watchstanding by mates.”

-Captain Scott Craig, Director, Marine Development and Compliance, Crowley Marine Services

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“I’m highly impressed with the work you are doing and the way you go about developing the NSAP® product. I also enjoyed meeting and spending time with the MITAGS Leadership Team, an impressive group of people. And last but not least, it was personally very gratifying to see the Cockpit Resource Management principles we developed at NASA during the 70s and 80s translated so effectively into the marine environment.”

-Dr. John Lauber, former Chief of the Aeronautical Human Factors, Research Office of NASA

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“Overall, the assessment MITAGS West Coast campus has developed for their NSAP® was observed to be sound and well aligned to the performance skills of interest. Specifically, their group of subject matter experts possess an extraordinary wealth of practical ship piloting knowledge and experience, and were able to craft a well-designed exercise that incorporates more than 20 plausible, challenging, and in some cases, unexpected event scenarios to serve as measures for their assessment.”

-Alan Koenig PhD, Markus Iseli, PhD UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“The assessment process including the simulation scenarios are scientifically engineered to uncover the true and actual level of competency of a navigating officer giving ship owners/ship managers a vivid picture of risk areas that will need to be mitigated. It provides highly valuable input equal to if not more than what can be gathered from professional/technical interviews, simulation training, workplace (on the job) assessment and performance appraisal combined.”

-Captain Terence Uytingban, General Manager, UltraShip Crewing Phils., Inc.

PRESENTED WORLDWIDE

As a result of global demand for an objective tool in risk mitigation, MITAGS has implemented the NSAP® at various International Training Centers (ITC) throughout the world.

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