Critical Analysis of Marine online

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Running head: Critical Analysis of MOL

Critical Analysis of Marine Online

Craig Davidson

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

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Abstract

Marine Online was developed and implemented for the purpose of simplifying the access to Marines' administrative data via the internet. All Marines can access their personal data and leaders can access their personnel, provided that they have the appropriate access permissions. This paper will show both advantages and disadvantage of using MOL. It will ask the question, "Has MOL, simplified the administrative needs of Marines and their units?" Is there a way to make MOL more accessible during busy periods and can we prevent the common system outages?

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Critical Analysis of Marine Online

Marine Online was developed in the late 1990's to update the administrative requirements of the Marine Corps by utilizing the internet. The initial release, known as "Classic MOL", gave all Marine's the ability to view and update certain personal information. Now the Marine Corps is utilizing what is known as "Modern MOL". This new capability allows the small unit leader and above the ability to view, submit, and track information on their Marines. Modern MOL gives the commander the ability to manage requests submitted by Marine's under their command. Personal requests are routed electronically, resulting in change to the Marine Corps Total Force System (MCTFS). The need to print and hand walk a leave request is becoming a thing of the past. The same can be said about promotion recommendations and proficiency and conduct recommendation process for junior Marines. The Unit Management Status Report (UMSR) allows all levels of a unit to view the current status of members in that command and their associated duty status. Features such as notifications and assigned work will inform a unit leader that they have pending requests. Daily updates from MCTFS ensure the data is valid on all members of the command.

Marine Online has become easy to navigate and most users should be able to find the information that it provides with little problems. This hasn't always been the case. The last couple of years users had to jump back and forth between Classic MOL and Modern MOL to find the information they were seeking. In fact one of the main subjects that I was critical of when I began this paper in June of this year, was the fact that there were two versions of MOL. Since then the functions of Classic MOL have been fully integrated with the new version.

Prior to MOL if an individual or a unit leader wanted to view personal information on a Marine, they had to have access to MCTFS. MCTFS access was usually only granted to administrative branches. Marines were restricted by working hours or system availability as far as being able to obtain these reports were concerned. Now all this info is available from any computer system that has access to the world wide web. If an individual was to access MOL and click on the Personal Info tab under "Home", they would be able to access several different types of reports. Under personal reports you will find information that you can review but due to the sensitivity of the information, you can not update without contacting someone in your chain of command that has permissions to do so. You would be able to