CLCL 018: Contract Data Requirements & Data Rights
Examples Screens from CLCL 018
CLCL 018: Welcome to Strike Talon
Summary
This Defense Acquisition University credential course was designed to close a critical gap in how acquisition professionals understand and apply contract data requirements and data rights. While Data Item Descriptions, contract clauses, and rights negotiations are foundational to long-term system readiness, they are also famously abstract, paperwork-heavy, and easy to misunderstand until something goes very wrong.
CLCL 018 set out to change that by transforming dense policy and contract guidance into an immersive, scenario-driven experience. The goal was to help learners not only recognize the importance of data and data rights, but to confidently apply them in realistic acquisition situations where decisions carry real consequences for cost, availability, and sustainment.
Solution
CTEC developed CLCL 018 as a cinematic, interactive learning experience built around high-stakes scenarios and memorable visual metaphors. Rather than presenting data requirements as static rules, the course placed learners inside unfolding situations where contract decisions directly affected system outcomes. Learners were guided by an AI assistant named CLEA, who helped translate complex contract concepts into actionable guidance without sounding like a policy manual.
A centerpiece of the experience was the Dragon Challenge, an Unreal Engine–powered interactive game that reframed data rights decisions as a strategic battle. Learners navigated animated environments, evaluated tradeoffs, and made contract decisions that determined whether the dragon was defeated or the program paid the price. The use of real-time 3D environments allowed abstract contract choices to become visual, immediate, and difficult to ignore.
The course also incorporated live-action video enhanced with cinematic visual effects, including holographic characters and HUD-style overlays that reinforced key decision points. These sequences blended seamlessly with animated and interactive elements, creating a cohesive experience that felt more like a mission briefing than a traditional course. Scenario branching, feedback loops, and interactive tools such as the DID Determinator reinforced how each choice affected data access, risk, and long-term sustainment outcomes.
Together, these elements created an experience that made data rights tangible, memorable, and directly tied to real acquisition consequences, without ever requiring learners to learn the hard way on an actual program.
My Role
I served as Creative Director for CLCL 018, overseeing all creative direction across the course and ensuring that every visual, interaction, and narrative element supported both the learning objectives and the overall cinematic tone. In practice, this meant guiding the experience from early concept through final delivery while making sure it felt cohesive, intentional, and not like five different ideas stitched together at the last minute.
I personally created all content graphics for the course, establishing the visual language that carried across interactive tools, scenarios, and video sequences. I was also closely involved in the development of the Dragon Challenge, working alongside the team to shape the Unreal Engine game experience so that it reinforced contract decision making rather than distracting from it. Balancing gameplay, metaphor, and instructional clarity required careful collaboration and more than a few conversations about what dragons should and should not represent in a federal acquisition course.
In addition, I oversaw the visual effects work for the live-action video, which included holographic characters and HUD-style overlays layered into filmed footage. These effects were designed to feel purposeful and integrated, supporting the story and learner decision points rather than existing purely for spectacle. Throughout the project, I collaborated closely with instructional designers, developers, and leadership to ensure the experience remained visually ambitious, technically sound, and instructionally effective.
In short, I led the creative vision, built much of the visual foundation personally, and helped deliver a course that made complex data rights concepts engaging, understandable, and surprisingly enjoyable, which is not a sentence often written about contract data requirements.