What the pilot taught us
Honest findings from piloting POL-COM with police trainers, probation officers and security professionals — and what we changed in response.
POL-COM was piloted in Czechia, Lithuania and Romania with police cadets, trainers and security professionals. We asked participants to be critical rather than polite. Average satisfaction with the pilot training was 4.0 out of 5 and platform usability 4.2 out of 5 — but the criticism was the useful part. This page summarises what we heard, what we changed, what we did not manage to fix, and what we would advise anyone building similar training.
What we heard
“Too much text.”
Participants found the courses information-dense and said today's learners expect video and interactive formats rather than long reading materials.
“Every module looked different.”
Materials were presented in a different style in each module, so learners had to reorient themselves each time.
“Everything had to be downloaded.”
Materials were offered as downloads rather than readable directly in the platform, which made the environment feel heavier than necessary.
“Where are the usage rights?”
Trainers were told the videos could be reused elsewhere, but could not find any licensing information saying so.
“Activities repeated themselves.”
Some exercises felt too simple for adult professionals and cycled through similar patterns; a few definitions were imprecise.
What we changed
- Licensing is now explicit. Every training material carries a CC BY 4.0 notice and EU funding attribution, so trainers know exactly what they may reuse and how to credit it.
- Knowledge checks in the modules. Interactive exercises and quizzes let learners test what they retained, as requested during the pilot.
What we only partly solved
Two findings deserve an honest answer rather than a claim of success.
- Consistency across modules. The methodology itself was designed as one shared framework — including the five study phases every module follows — from the very beginning. In practice each partner implemented that framework somewhat differently on the learning platform, and harmonising all six modules retrospectively would have meant rebuilding them. On this website we took a different route: materials can be browsed and downloaded selectively, so trainers assemble the sequence they need. That addresses part of the problem, not all of it.
- Less text, more audiovisual content. This is a real limitation of the current version. The materials remain more text-heavy than participants would like, and it is the clearest direction for any future iteration of the programme.
What we would tell others
- Ask for criticism explicitly. Politeness produces useless feedback. Our most valuable input came from participants who were told that pointing out weaknesses was the point of the exercise.
- Decide the licence before you produce, not after. Retro-fitting attribution to hundreds of files is expensive; one decision at the start prevents it.
- Agree the implementation, not only the methodology. A shared framework on paper still leaves room for six different interpretations in practice. Agree early how the framework will look in the platform, not just what it contains.
- Pilot with the real audience, not with colleagues. Practitioners spotted issues — pace, realism, repetition — that internal review had passed over.
- Budget for revision, not just production. A pilot is only useful if time and money remain to act on what it finds.