Staff development for distance education is not a recent phenomenon. It has been in existence since 1970s. Initially the open universities did not assume any formal training for staff development. It was assumed that on the job training for them will be sufficient for them to develop and deliver the courses.
In ODL or DE, quality of the educational or teaching material is the first indicator or determinant of credibility. It needs a course team to put the study material together for a course. Often these teams are needed as the course material could be interdisciplinary in nature and the medium or media used to develop this material needs technical or media experts to be part of the team.
A course team is needed as the course produced by a method will be much better than the one prepared by an individual faculty. The course development team needs training the most in the case of distance education. A course team needs subject matter experts, an editor, a technologist, a producer, a course administrator and a staff tutor. One of the subject experts act as a chairperson of the course team. He or she is responsible to conduct meetings and keep the team together during the process of course development. The subject matter experts of academic team work together under the chairperson, coming from across the departments and with the non-academic team but they are held accountable to their respective departments. Non-academic staff could also include personnel such as graphic experts, project control staff, librarians etc.
The draft units are prepared by the individual academic contributor and discussed with the whole team. The modifications and suggestions are incorporated based on the team feedback. The functioning of the course team is not always smooth or as expected. Some of the challenges could be
(i) getting the right academics – subject expertise, writing skills, teaching skills, time consciousness and cost consciousness
(ii) clash of egos and
(iii) problems in integrating specializations as people find collaborating and understanding each other, a complex process. Despite such team work oriented challenges inherent to the course team, it is expected that it
(a) produces excellent teaching material by seamlessly integrating content and expertise from across the disciplines.
(b) trains its course team members selectively as needed from time to time to keep pace developments in the market
(c) develops the course material quickly and within the budgeted cost. The value of the course content increases on each iteration. and
(d) goes beyond the course development and works on delivering it too in an engaged manner.
Course consists of
(i) theoretical studies (ex curriculum, educational technologies, science of learning etc)
ii) management studies (ex staff management, facility management, copyright and contracts) and
(iii) production skills (ex graphics, editing and recording). It needs staff development on the three components. The target groups (the staff) engaged in distance education need to be trained in a dedicated manner with a help of professional course, whether its a developing or developed nation.
The objectives of such staff development training courses are – to make distance education relevant to the country and its HRD objectives, help make an informed choice of various methods of distance education, help organize the administration aspects of delivering the distance education and revise and maintain the course content. Course content development for staff typically includes activities like conducting workshops for – planning, producing printed materials and non-text (AV) materials, projects on under specific themes and case studies from the countries.
Distance education trainers are not taught as distance educators. They are trained in the fundamentals of distance education, by being a distance education learner themselves. It is the same training that a typical educator would need. They are taught about challenges that come in when delivering distance education which are not present otherwise in the conventional or face to face programs. They are taught the program or trained in the same environment as typical the students will face in a distance education mode. The training this way imparts more relevant experience to them. The reason being, distance educators of today might not have been distance learners themselves. Hence they may not have practical exposure to what a student in a distance education mode goes through as an experience. They need to understand what “an individualized or personalized learning” means to a distance learner.
There are four kinds of parameters that need to be considered for a staff development program:
(1) structural parameters like course function, modes of instruction, subject characteristics, subject location, teach characteristics, student characteristics and professional assistance
(2) instructional parameters – motivation, goal, cognitive aspects of learners, signposting, activation (questions and activities), feedback, transfer and retention and assessment and evaluation
(3) effectiveness of parameters. Addressing the the three level of concerns of the staff – impact, task and self-concern, designing the program as per staff needs, and
(4) staff development stages – define what is new in the training, identify the concerns related to the new learning, organize them in different groups. relate each group with the objective to be achieved, prepare blueprint for design and implementation of the program.
Circular Issues- Just like any students, the staff in DE has an educational need. Hence there is a need to put a methodology that can answer such questions like why training is required – professional training needs to adapt to the new changes in the system quickly and contribute to the change, who need training – professional experience in terms of pursuing distance education a career or those who are active in social reforms using DE, who will train and whom (trainees) – professional trainees like planners, administrators, technologists, facilitators and non-professional trainees like policy makers, politicians, community leaders, housewives, liaison agents – parents, religious agents etc and what should be the characteristics of the trainers for distance education programs – academic and people skills, cooperation, flexible, patient and innovative, what should be the content of the training – general, task analysis, incident analysis, case studies and opinions and what should be the parameters of evaluation for this training – scale, scope, short term and long term impacts, individual and institutional need fulfilment, futuristic and providing desirable behaviors.
Types pf training – Workshops. field staff programs, manuals, professional associations, in-house programs, assistance from resource institutes – consultancy, attachments, visits, and adoption.
State of Maturity – Maturity means DE as a Discipline and developing staff for DE. There are various tasks and training needs associated with these tasks like
(i) policy maker or planner has a need to have an overview of the DE and relevance to a particular sector and tasks could be like manpower planning, institution management, supervision, popularization of DE, tutor appointment and engagement, delivering sessions, organizing study centers, disseminating information to students, assignments and feedback collection
(ii) administrator has a need to do SWOT of DE, design research in DE, Writing Reports and DE Data Collection and analysis for tasks related to course design, data analysis, report development and research dissemination
(iii) course designer has a need to understand the overview of DE, resources required, target groups, teaching strategies, curriculum design assessment, learning experiences for tasks like assess learners, analyze incidents, coordinate activities, using media for courses, preparing course outlines and designing learning experiences or outcomes
(iv) Course Writer/Reviewer have a need to have DE overview, writing skills, content knowledge, locating resources, testing skills, editing and printing skills and this is needed for the tasks like organizing course material, writing course material, reviewing drafts, preparing feedback, revising print proofs and working with other reviewers and editors. If this is the Training Need Assessment (TNA), a sample training program could be like Session 1 – Concept of ODL or DE (Presentation Mode), Session 2 – Course Media and Selection (Presentation, Audio-Video Mode), Session 3 – Self-Learning Material (SLM) Design Writing, Visualization, Copyright and Evaluation (Presentation and AV), Session 4- Learning Materials and Features (Discussion Groups), Session 5 – Developing Media Components (Group Work) and Session 6 – Unit Structures (Presentation By Course Writers) and Session 7 – Feedback and vote of thanks (Questionnaires). Each of these sessions could be set up in a right environment (location, layout and days) with appropriate expert faculty as a trainer.
(v) Editor would have a need to have DE overview, DE techniques, editing skills, manuscript printing, printing stages, proof reading skills, media knowledge for the tasks it carries out like editing texts or languages, checking readability and flow, proof reading and contacting printers for printing.
(vi) Course Coordinator would have a need to understand DE philosophy, writing skills, coordination skills subject knowledge, course production methods, scheduling, communication skills , testing and evaluation for tasks it carries out like organizing writers and briefing them, coordinating course development activities, smooth production and maintenance of courses, course team collaboration, reviewing and testing materials and monitoring marking of assignments etc.
(vii) Tutor or evaluator would need to know about DE and role of a tutor in it, role of evaluator in DE, knowledge of subject, counselling skills, human relations and regional programs and activities for the various tasks that it carries out like corresponding with students, assignment evaluation, providing guidance, providing feedback and holding face to face sessions.
(viii) Training administrators need planning task related training for knowledge , attitudes and skills.
Towards professionalism – Quality of students directly depends upon the quality of the faculty or teaching and non-teaching and support staff. Need for professionalism, concept of training based on hierarchy of needs (Maslow – survival, safety, social, self-esteem and self-actualization), efficiency and effectiveness of training, models of training – individual training model vs training as an organizational change, identifying training needs – institutional analysis, shop floor analysis and person level analysis and application of learnings.
