Life long learning as a key isSue in staff development
A. Villems, University of Tartu, L. Pilt, University of Tartu, K. Ruul, Estonian Information Technology Foundation

Even where technological infrastructure and support are strong, and even when worthwhile learning applications are developed, without staff development nothing is likely to happen beyond pilots.

Salmon, E-Moderating, 2000

Abstract

Almost every university nowadays is developing e-learning. As every innovation, this process needs special organisational means to overcome Moor's chasm when the phenomenon starts to seize majority of teaching staff. This paper reports study results of the Minerva UNIVe project staff training group. Aim of the project is to build a consortium type e-learning university model integrating know-how from existing EC supported projects on this theme and studying experience of the 8 universities from 6 different countries and in according national e-learning consortia. All eight had to answer the open ended questions to report their e-learning situation: e-learning courses, staff training and support means etc. In this paper we report the background, importance of the study, summarize organizational tools universities use and make some suggestions.

Introduction

E-learning has been in the centre of attention now already for many years and many European universities have published their white papers and action plans to foster ICT supported learning in traditional learning situation, in distance learning and in any combination of them (flexible learning). Adaptation of eLearning initiative by European Union in May 2000 and Action Plan in 2001 has seen e-learning as key factor for institutional change and development in higher education [1]. The number of research papers and number of EU collaborative projects in this field is growing rapidly. These projects have had very different aims: to develop technical tools, to create e-learning management environments, comparative studies of those tools and environments, to collaboratively create tutor training courses, to plan evaluation tools and quality indicators, to find impact of certain ICT tools on actual learning process, to develop international collaboration models etc. [1,2,3] The HECTIC Report [2] claims among other things that “Among the most important factors is the question of staff motivation”.

Teaching staff of university studies and corporate training is one very important target group for life long learning. As e-learning is a tool which makes life long learning possible for many different target groups in the rapidly changing work environment, the development of e-learning itself relies mainly on the know-how and attitude of the teaching staff. Especially the university teachers have been known as a fastidious and independent group. They are used to making their own decisions and as it is always complicated to change peoples' attitudes, it is especially complicated to force these people to start to profit from e-learning as a useful tool.

The key problem is: What structural and legal changes might facilitate academic staff to change their teaching methods to incorporate ICT? How policy objectives and educational development stimulate real everyday teaching practice?

These questions are in the focus of interest in the new Minerva UNIVe project [5]. Its aim is stated as follows: UNIVe aims to collect and share the knowledge and experiences of developing a consortium-type e-university. Establishing consortia for using better limited intellectual and financial resources is one opportunity to be successful in the situation of growing international competition. In order to provide an e-university model that would be relevant for different European countries, we integrate available e-learning know-how of the previous successful international projects and analyse and integrate existing consortium type e-university models from Finland (Finnish Virtual University[5]), Sweden (Net University[6]), Scotland (Interactive University[7]) and Estonia (Estonian e-University[8]). Project partners are eight universities: four from Estonia , four from three other partner countries: Finland , Sweden and Scotland . All participating universities are members of their national e-learning consortia. In addition, EADTU is include to help to disseminate the project's results.

Six thematic groups have been formed in UNIVe project to study different aspects of e-learning. The authors of this work belong to the staff training group. Our objectives are: to analyse previous experiences in supporting, motivating, and training academic staff for developing e-courses. Centralised and decentralised models of financial, technical, and pedagogical support, administrative regulations and staff training are under discussion. We will compare the situation in 8 participating universities from 4 different countries and will study number of EC projects in eLearning staff development field. This presentation tries to summarize results of interviews with number of universities.