NAUI Worldwide Streamlines Global Dive Certification Training Across 8 Languages with Articulate 360

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A growing certification library that needed to scale across languages

NAUI’s motto is “Dive Safety Through Education,” and training is integral to it. Because diving is a physical, hands-on skill, NAUI certification is never based on course completion alone. Students earn certification only after completing in-person skills and dives with a NAUI instructor, which makes online training a foundational step. It’s where divers and instructors build the knowledge base they need before they ever get in the water with an instructor.

That training is built almost entirely by one person. Lorelei Burke creates NAUI’s courses from the organization’s established books, standards, and other source materials, then routes each one through the NAUI Training Department, the Training Committee, and selects subject matter experts for review. The content covers both divers and instructors and today spans more than 100 courses including translations, from foundational certification material up through advanced instructor-level training like the Instructor Trainer and Course Director courses.

NAUI is, in its own words, “a worldwide company,” so a course can’t be built once and called finished—it has to work for divers and instructors far from NAUI’s Florida headquarters, in languages NAUI’s small team doesn’t natively speak. Before Articulate, moving that content between platforms was already slow, since courses had to be copied over individually. 

Translation was worse. “Before Articulate, translations were a very long process that took a lot of time and effort,” says Burke. By the team’s own account, it would take months to complete a single course in just one language with an outside vendor—let alone 100 courses.

They needed a platform that would let a one-person team manage a 100-plus-course library, move that content across platforms without rebuilding it from scratch each time there is a need to move, and get courses translated and reviewed by native speakers without losing months to every new language.

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100-plus courses, translated with a click

NAUI adopted Articulate 360 for the ability to export courses as SCORM files, which let the team move courses between platforms without rebuilding them from scratch. Today, Burke builds the online courses for NAUI’s certification programs primarily in Rise. For translation, NAUI relies on Articulate’s localization features rather than the outside vendor process it used before. 

“Articulate’s localization features allow us to translate and review our courses easily, which is important for us as a global company,” Burke explains. The built-in review workflows in particular stand out. “We really enjoy the review process of localizing courses in Articulate,” says Burke. “It allows our members who are native speakers to make corrections themselves, easing a lot of frustration from the previous process.” 

Articulate’s flexibility also changed who could work on a course. NAUI has built training in conjunction with outside partners, something the team credits directly to the platform. “Articulate’s ability to work with non-NAUI employees has been vital to us being able to build these courses,” says Burke.

The Instructor Trainer/Course Director Requalification course is the clearest example of what the platform makes possible. NAUI built it in Articulate and translated it into seven languages for Course Directors and Instructor Trainers around the world—one course, produced once, then localized rather than rebuilt for each market.

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Faster, higher-quality training for divers and instructors worldwide

With Articulate 360, NAUI has replaced a translation process it once called “truly unmanageable” to a process that its own team runs end-to-end, while growing a course library built almost entirely by one person.

Before Articulate 360, translating a single course into an additional language could take months. Now, the process takes roughly 1–2 weeks, including the vetting process by the native speakers. It’s also streamlined the workflow—native-speaking reviewers can correct translations directly in the platform instead of routing every change through an outside vendor.

Quality shows up in learner feedback. The Instructor Trainer/Course Director Requalification course, built in Articulate, drew a different reaction than past training had. “We received lots of great feedback on how interactive the courses were, how professional they looked, and how much more engaged learners were,” Burke says.

NAUI now maintains 26 courses for certification programs in Rise, with more in development, and supports that content in eight languages: Iberian Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Arabic, Italian, English, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese. These courses are available to 6,000 learners per month—both divers and instructors—around the world.

That reach ties directly back to why NAUI builds this training in the first place. NAUI’s mission is to empower divers with top-quality training, while championing conservation of the aquatic world, fostering a global community of responsible divers, and promoting underwater exploration, education, and enjoyment for all. Faster, more consistent content means more divers and instructors, in more languages, get access to that education without waiting months for it to reach them.

With Articulate 360’s localization features, NAUI maintains 26 courses in 8 languages entirely in house, unlocking faster, higher-quality training for divers and instructors worldwide.