Course Requirements

This Virtual Campus subscription is intended for FSA, NRCS, and RD federal employees and Soil and Water Conservation District employees. Interns and temporary SCA federal employees are eligible to take courses if the course is relevant to the scope of their work with the agency. Volunteers are not eligible to take courses through this subscription. Cooperating agencies, institutions, and groups are not eligible to take courses through this subscription.

Prior to requesting a Virtual Campus course all students:

• must obtain approval from their supervisor prior to requesting a course.
• should defer to their local training coordinator for guidance in entering the selected course into their training record.
• should ensure that all applicable software necessary to take the course is loaded on their computer.
• should ensure that all prerequisites required for the course have been met.
• should ensure that they have completed any previously issued courses. Students must complete one Virtual Campus course before requesting another. Students should not request multiple courses at one time.
• should obtain guidance as needed from their local GIS Coordinator to make sure the chosen course is applicable to their needs.

Contractors to the SCA’s are eligible to take Virtual Campus courses through this subscription at the discretion of each agency, and providing they meet the additional criteria:

• The contractor must be working full-time, on-site at a USDA SCA location for a minimum of 1 year.
• The contractor must be working exclusively for a USDA SCA agency on on-going or near term GIS-related projects that build on the agency’s capacity to serve customers.
• The course taken must have a demonstrated critical linkage to the projects.
• The contractor must have approval from the contracting agency COTR to take the course.
• The contractor must work on the course on their own time.