lindsey martin meeting the challenges of e-learning: achieving and maintaining an e-ethos in an...
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Lindsey Martin
Meeting the challenges of e-learning:achieving and maintaining an e-ethos in an academic library
ALDP April 2007
Aims and Overview
• Focus upon the strategic approach to embedding e-learning within an academic library service and its maintenance:
• Defining e-learning
• Impact of e-learning on libraries and job roles
• The Edge Hill context
• Role of leadership, strategy and vision
• The strategy in action
• Reviewing the strategy
• Next actions
• ‘Any technologically mediated learning using computers, whether in a face-to-face classroom setting or from distance learning’
(University of South Dakota)
Defining e-learning
• Early initiatives not led by librarians
• Largely focused at short-term, local project level
• But offering new opportunities for collaboration across services
• Evidence of increasing involvement in technical support, learner support, discovery & embedding of e-resources, instructional design and e-tutoring
• Impacting on roles across the library – subject librarian, front-line support, collections
Impact of e-learning on libraries and job roles
Role of leadership, strategy & vision
• Organisational readiness for e-learning requires leadership that visibly values and encourages learning
• Dean and senior management team’s vision was to engender an e-ethos that enthuses and equips staff at all levels with necessary skills
• Central is embedding e-learning opportunities within the staff development programme and within everyday working practices of all staff
• Staff would develop their roles where appropriate
• Purpose is the benefit of learners who have access to skilled and knowledgeable support staff at point of need
• Staff development is consciously planned• Inclusive approach - staff at all levels• Introduce e-learning from day 1
• Future needs are identified• Performance review and communication channels• Through restructuring, changing roles and teams
• Providing a baseline of knowledge and skills for all staff• ProVIDE (staff induction and information base)• Supporting Online Learning (4 week online module)
• Beyond the baseline• Customer Care module for all staff• Other staff development opportunities dependent on job role• Experiential learning through small project work
The strategy in action
The Baseline: ProVIDE
The Baseline: Supporting Online Learning
• Staff enthusiasm for e-learning has diminished
• Engagement with e-learning is inhibited by lack of understanding of the demands of e-environment
• Completion rates reduced
• Online products and process remained the same
• Hypothesis: there is a gap between the rhetoric around the e-ethos and the reality for staff across the service
• Action research would enable me to explore this gap and determine how rhetoric and reality might become more closely aligned
Reviewing the strategy
• Review of past e-learning modules and staff development activities
• Qualitative and quantitative data from WebCT use
• Module evaluations and completed portfolios
• Questionnaire to elicit attitudes to e-learning, personal skills assessment and their view of where e-learning sits in relation to job role
• Reflecting on my delivery of an online module
• Maintaining a reflective journal of my experiences during the reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
• Our vision of an e-ethos is unpublished – there is no continuing point of reference
• Supporting material e.g. pre-module information has not been treated as part of the learning process
• Staff perceive e-learning as less effective than face to face
• Little marketing of e-learning staff development
• Baseline skills for e-learning had not been defined
• E-skills and competences for specific roles have not been identified
• Staff complained of lack of time to complete online modules
• Staff report lack of opportunities to follow up what was learned
• Line managers and supervisors not engaging with the notion of e-ethos
Findings
• Marketing and communication: publishing and promoting the vision
• Audio/video/print of vision for ProVIDE
• Review all pre-module communications focusing on value rather than content
• Newsletter for staff
• Face-to-face awareness-raising sessions to explore and improve perceptions
• Marketing to be a rolling programme targeted to various stakeholders
Actions identified: theme 1
• Articulating and communicating e-skills and competencies
• Baseline competencies tested and refined
• Front-line staff competencies tested and refined
• Consultation process prior to implementation
Actions identified: theme 2
• Management issues around e-learning
• Promote value of e-learning to line managers and supervisors
• Senior management to communicate their expectations concerning the promotion of an e-ethos and how staff participating should be supported
• Review locations available for staff to undertake e-staff development
Actions identified: theme 3
• The role of leadership, strategy and vision is essential for cultural change
• Over time sustainability of an e-ethos may wane
• Requires continuing communication of the vision and senior management’s expectations around engagement with e-learning
• Continuing promotion of the value of e-learning is crucial
• Action research can be ‘messy’ but provides a richer insight than evaluation alone
Lessons learned
• Lindsey Martin• Information & Research Co-ordinator (Arts & Sciences)• Learning Services• Edge Hill University• United Kingdom
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