Export Controls in Practice: ITAR and EAR for Manufacturers and Research Teams
Signature Course No. 423 — A Signature AI Socratic Coaching Course.
No experience needed — your coach starts where you are.
A New Kind of Learning
Socratic coaching, delivered by an agentic AI coach.
Not a course you watch. An AI coach you work with.
The Lighthouse Coach begins by discovering how you think about the subject, teaches what is missing, and gives you realistic practice before asking you to prove that you can use it. You may test out of concepts you already understand, while capstones turn the learning into a practical plan, decision, conversation, or other real-world result.
The curriculum is deliberately authored; the AI delivers it through coaching. It is not an AI randomly generating lessons.
A coach that teaches by asking — not by lecturing
The Lighthouse Coach is an AI Socratic coach built on Cognosco Learning's Export Controls in Practice: ITAR and EAR for Manufacturers and Research Teams course, in the Risk, Safety & Compliance category. It does not play videos at you. It holds a conversation: it asks you a question, listens to your answer, names the misconception it hears, affirms what you got right, and asks the next question — the way a great coach works in the room.
An export can happen without anything leaving the building. A crate on a dock is an export. So is an email attachment, a screen shared with a visitor, a conversation in a laboratory, and access granted to a shared drive. Two regimes decide which items, technology, software, and services may go to which people in which places under which authorization: the ITAR, administered by the Department of State's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, governing defense articles and defense services on the United States Munitions List; and the EAR, administered by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security, governing dual-use and commercial items, ECCNs, and EAR99. The course runs on two fictional settings — Merrow Precision Systems, a mid-size manufacturer, and Alderney University, a research university — and contains no classified information and no controlled technical content.
It starts with the sorting. Jurisdiction first — is the item described on the USML, or is it subject to the EAR? — then classification in the correct order of review, then the four coordinates of item, person, place, and purpose, then the authorization foundation, and finally the decision file that proves all of it happened in that order. Apply EAR logic to an ITAR item and you can commit a serious violation while feeling procedurally tidy; this course builds the habit that prevents it.
It works in two movements. First, Module 1 — Sort It Before You Ship It — work through Concepts 1–9, finishing with The Determination Register; then, Module 2 — Run the System, Not the Incident — work through Concepts 10–18, finishing with The Control and Remediation Plan.
Both capstones produce real artifacts — an Export Determination Register for a combined commercial-and-defense package: every element inventoried on its own line, sorted and classified with the entries considered and rejected, the four coordinates and the full transfer inventory run, an authorization path chosen per line or the line stopped, and a summary page the business can act on; and a Technology Control and Remediation Plan for a joint manufacturer–university program: the open-research boundary proved package by package, operations designed for suppliers, visitors, collaborations, and the people lifecycle, the pre-launch findings remediated with a disclosure analysis, and a launch answer leadership can read plainly.
The honesty standard is part of the course. Nothing in this course is legal advice. The architecture of the two regimes is durable and is taught as durable; the specifics inside it — which entry covers a given item this year, which country sits in which group, which exception is available for which destination — change by rulemaking, are flagged in the course as verify-current, and must be checked against the current published rule before you act. A learner who finishes will not be a lawyer. They will be the person in the building who knows which question comes first — and who refuses to ship, send, show, or share until that question has an answer on file.
The course is self-paced and always on — roughly 30 minutes per concept, about 9 hours in full, taken in as many sittings as you like. You can type your answers, or talk out loud: the Voice Coach speaks its questions and listens to your spoken replies. Learners who already know the material can test out concept by concept.
Export Controls in Practice: ITAR and EAR for Manufacturers and Research Teams is part of The Lighthouse Signature Series — the online counterpart to the one-day, in-person learning Cognosco Learning has delivered since 2002.
Course Facts
One full concept, coached end to end — free: verify your email and we’ll send you a link to start.
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Diagnose → Learn & Practice → Prove → Capstone
Every learner moves through the same discipline a Cognosco instructor would insist on in the room.
Diagnose
The Coach starts where the course starts: with the sorting. Name one item, technology, or service in your setting whose regime has been assumed rather than determined, and say what the assumption rested on — the customer, the appearance, the last shipment; say which regime your building pictures when it says export compliance handles that, and what it would miss if the item belonged to the other one; and describe the last delivery date promised before anyone stated, in writing, which regime governed. Every concept opens with three questions that locate where you actually stand, and your answers shape how deeply the Coach works the concept with you. Everyone begins with Module 1 — no skipping the foundations you only think you have.
Learn & Practice
Work each concept in conversation with the Coach — spoken or written — then practice it against realistic situations until it holds up.
Prove
Every concept ends in proof: answer the check cold and demonstrate the skill. Know it already? Test out and take credit immediately.
Capstone
Finish with two capstones — The Determination Register for Module 1 and The Control and Remediation Plan for Module 2 — that pull the whole course together, and earn the certificate.
What You'll Learn
Jurisdiction first, written down — before classification, before licensing, before anyone promises a date. Every downstream rule differs between the two regimes, so the sorting is the first line of every decision file in this course: per item, per technology, per service, resting on design history and intended application rather than on the buyer or the item's appearance. In export control, overconfidence is not a personality trait; it is how unauthorized transfers happen, and the course builds calibration — call it first, score the call — as a compliance skill in its own right.
Module 1 teaches you to decide one transfer correctly. The two regimes and the first question; ECCN logic and the USML side; the four coordinates of persons, destinations, end users, and end uses; every form an export, reexport, retransfer, or deemed export can take; the authorization paths — license, license exception, agreement, exemption, or no license required; screening and red flags; and the decision file that proves the order of your thinking.
Module 2 teaches you to build the workplace where correct decisions are the default. The open-research boundaries of fundamental research, published, and educational information; the technology control plan; manufacturing and research operations; licensing in practice and shipping execution; the people lifecycle from hiring to leaving; voluntary disclosure and corrective action when something goes wrong; and the program itself — risk assessment, audit, and the system that holds year after year.
And it holds its boundary throughout. This course teaches the compliance system only. It contains no classified information and no controlled technical content — no drawings, parameters, or specifications of any actual defense article or controlled technology — and it is not legal advice: a real determination about a real item, person, or destination belongs with qualified counsel and, where the rules provide for it, with the responsible agency.
What you will learn
- Sort any item, technology, software, or service between ITAR and EAR — and defend the sorting in writing
- Classify under the EAR using ECCN logic and under ITAR using USML logic, in the correct order of review
- Analyze persons, destinations, end users, and end uses before any transfer
- Recognize every form an export, reexport, retransfer, or deemed export can take
- Choose the correct authorization path — license, license exception, agreement, exemption, or no license required — and honor its conditions
- Run screening, red-flag review, and the decision record so an auditor can retrace every call
- Apply the fundamental research, published, and education boundaries honestly in a university setting
- Operate controls in manufacturing and research: technology control plans, suppliers, visitors, collaborations, and publications
- Execute shipments and licenses correctly, manage people access across their lifecycle, disclose and correct violations, and run the whole program as a system
Everything in the course
- All 18 concepts of Export Controls in Practice: ITAR and EAR for Manufacturers and Research Teams, in 2 modules
- A starting-point check first — the Coach finds where you actually stand before teaching
- Learn, Practice, Prove for every concept — no passive video watching
- A test-out on every concept: prove you know it and move on
- The Voice Coach: talk with the Coach out loud — it speaks, listens, and replies
- A personal Learner Record of your work across the course
- Two capstone exercises: The Determination Register and The Control and Remediation Plan
- A printable session summary whenever you pause
- The Lighthouse Coach completion certificate (Signature Series)
- Your progress is saved as you go — stop anytime, resume where you left off
Built for the people who sign the determination — and everyone whose daily decisions it depends on
Export control practitioners and compliance staff inside manufacturers — the person who signs the determination, owns the register, and answers the auditor; and university research administrators and laboratory managers who run sponsored research, host foreign scholars, and guard the boundary between open fundamental research and controlled work.
Engineers, program managers, and shipping and logistics staff — who make the daily decisions, what to send, whom to show, what to file, that compliance depends on.
Leaders and counsel-adjacent managers — who need the architecture well enough to resource the program, read a disclosure, and know which questions to ask. This course does not make anyone a lawyer, and it says so wherever advice-shaped judgment appears.
Prefer to learn live and in person? The same material anchors Cognosco's one-day programs — browse the in-person catalog.
Start with Two Regimes, One First Question
$195 — introductory price. One payment. No subscription, no password to manage.
Here is exactly what happens when you enroll:
- Pay securely with Stripe — you are taken straight into the course
- Create your learner profile and begin the Module 1 starting-point check
- Save the access key you are given — it restores your enrollment on any device
- Learn at your pace; your progress is stored in your browser on your device
For the full voice experience, use Chrome and allow the microphone when asked. Typing your answers works everywhere, all the time. Questions before you enroll? Email hello@cognoscolearning.com.
Before you enroll
What is a Socratic coaching session?
A conversation, not a video. Your coach asks a question; you answer — out loud by voice, or by typing — and the coach responds to what you said: naming the misconception it hears, affirming what you got right, and asking the next question. You advance only when you have mastered each concept, so a finished course means the learning held.
How long does it take — and how long do I have?
About 30 minutes per concept. Learn in sittings of any length; your progress is saved as you go. You have a full year from purchase to finish, and you can revisit and retake within that year.
What does the certificate verify?
That you completed every concept and both capstones of this course. Anyone can confirm a Cognosco certificate online — enter its certificate ID on our verification page.
What if it isn't for me — what are the refunds?
If you have not started, cancel for a full refund within seven days of purchase. Once you have started, there is no cash refund — stop before finishing and we credit the full amount you paid toward any other course in the library (credit valid one year from your original purchase). Once you complete the course, no refund or credit applies.
More Signature Courses are coming
Export Controls in Practice: ITAR and EAR for Manufacturers and Research Teams is Signature Course No. 423. Leave your email and we'll send you news of future Signature Courses and Lighthouse updates as they are announced — nothing else.