It's Back to School with the MSRB

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WASHINGTON – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will soon introduce the first two of several educational courses it plans to offer as part of its new learning management system designed to keep participants up to date on the municipal market and in compliance with their continuing education requirements.

The classes will contain information about MSRB rules, complying with those rules, and other general market knowledge, according to Lynnette Kelly, the MSRB's executive director.

One of the two classes will be called The Decision to Borrow: Roles and Responsibilities of Market Participants in Fixed-Rate, Primary Market Offerings. The other will be called Rules and Risks: Understanding MSRB Rules in Relation to Municipal Market Risks.

The MSRB is naming its learning management system MuniEdPro.

Kelly said the classes can be used to fulfill continuing education requirements or to just supplement an individual's personal education.

"You can do it on a Sunday morning in your pajamas … you can do it anywhere you have internet access," Kelly said. "It really allows you to have total flexibility on when you are able to have the focus and have the attention on these courses. It's delivering that content in a way that we think people will respond to."

The MSRB has engaged with a platform provider and another company to help with developing the content for the courses. It is also working with a variety of market participants and experts on the specific subject matter the courses will cover to make sure they meet the needs of the industry, according to Kelly.

The courses, which will take up an hour or less, will cost $45 for individuals because the MSRB is subsidizing part of the cost. Organizations can also take advantage of subscription packages. Kelly said the MSRB's plan is to add a few courses every quarter with the goal of having between six and eight available by the end of the MSRB's fiscal year 2017, which concludes at the end of September 2017. The board has also authorized the MSRB staff to create a course or courses for issuers and investors that will be free, she added.

"That's something we are looking to do within the next fiscal year," she said. "When you think about our mandate to protect issuers and investors, we feel like this is squarely within that mandate and also has the potential to be a game changer."

The MSRB's idea for its own learning management system began several years ago when its board was discussing continuing education requirements in the industry and the issues involved in getting good continuing education. Participants can currently utilize courses run in a classroom-type setting or those that may have the participant read a book and take a test, Kelly said. Some larger firms also have in-house groups that will put continuing education together for employees, she added.

Historically the private sector has been responsible for creating and selling online continuing education content, but the muni market's small size has meant these programs are not be commercially viable for the private companies, Kelly said.

The classes offered under MuniEdPro will be especially helpful to small firms and many municipal advisors who do not already have access to the internal educational resources that large firms have, she said.

Kelly emphasized the MSRB hopes to get a lot of feedback on the courses from those individuals who take them early on.

"We want to get it right," she said.

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Law and regulation
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