- Teaching timetables made attendance difficult
- many staff IT needs were at beginner level and needed a sustained period of training and confidence building although PC's were available in Learning Centres for staff use, very few had easy access to a PC for their own use, to practise and consolidate their skills
- the training offered, as usual, had been based around the use of wordprocessing, spreadsheets and databases, not skills relevant to teaching.
However, in order to implement change it is necessary to start with a picture of where you are now, where you want to be and how you can change to ensure that you get there. (Mayon - White 1993 p158, Broom 1998 p8)
To lead the change a transformational leadership style is required this was suggested by Burns 1978 and further defined by Broome 1998 as involving empowerment, inspiring vision/ideals having a long-term focus, being challenging, rewarding personally informing and being able to use simplification.
The Staff IT programme was implemented in 1997 to address these issues, which would allow staff to be inspired to use the facilities offered by Staff IT. The first year involved a substantial investment aimed at bringing all teaching staff to a level of competence in the use of IT. A strategic decision was made that staff would be allocated a PC and that they would have 2 hours a week reduction in teaching timetable which combined with 1 hour college duty time would give 3 hours a week for IT training. A steering group was then set up to thrash out how this could be achieved. The target group of staff were academic staff teaching 12 hours or more each week. Staff on lesser contracts could infil on the training in their own time but would not be allocated a PC.
3.2 The Training
The aim was to get all teaching staff to a level of competence in the use of IT and to follow the recommendations of the Dearing Report (1997). Staff ability ranged from never having touched a computer to staff who were and are extremely competent in the use of IT. This was further complicated by staff who were competent in some areas but beginners in others. There were also the varying needs of staff from a wide range of subject disciplines to consider. For example staff from Business Studies needed a depth of knowledge of Spreadsheets unnecessary to staff in Hair and Beauty or Humanities. It was decided that staff would work in the subject area teams as far as possible. This would allow teams to develop skills pertinent to the subject and for more skilled staff to support their less skilled colleagues.
It was also decided to concentrate the training into one academic year. This was obviously constrained by budget but also the feeling of urgency that was needed for staff trained now not next year or the year after, time was wasting. This left the college with the logistics of training over 300 staff in one year. A number of criteria were identified for the training.
That as a baseline outcome, all staff should be familiar with Windows 95, internet and email. That they should know the basics of Word and Powerpoint and they should experience use of Excel and Access. Beyond the baseline, staff would develop according to subject needs and IT ability. There would not be a standard scheme of work, subject teams would have an input into their training programme and since staff needed time to practise and absorb the skills, a short intensive programme would not be appropriate.
The basic training plan was that staff would alternate their allocated three hours a week between three weeks of training and three weeks applying the skills learnt. There would be 5 blocks in the year of 3 weeks of 1.5 hrs lecturer contact, 1.5 hrs facilitated workshop followed by 3 weeks of practical use of skills in the facilitated workshop or in their own environment.
In organisational terms half the staff (150) had trainer input in the first three weeks and the second half were trained in the second part of the block. There were fifteen training sessions each week and training was delivered by computing section staff.
3.3 Accreditation
This was a difficult issue. "To attract staff and influence others to participate in staff IT, it was necessary to influence others to change it was required to establish, what's in it for them". Terrington & Weightman 1994 p228).
Senior Management decided that accreditation would not drive the content of the training, but felt since it would be eligible for FEFC funding it should be accredited, academics and staff may then feel that at least they would receive a paper qualification out of the training.
There were however, two qualifications which were appropriate, the RSA Teacher and Training Certificate (Information Technology) and the JEB Certificate of Competence in the Educational Use of IT. It was decided that the former which was an NVQ 3 equivalent qualification.
3.4 Support
"Training is one aspect of gaining proficiency in the use of IT but in isolation its effectiveness is limited". (Smale G 1996, p185) Skills need to be consolidated and will have limited values unless they can be used regularly. To support the staff in their training they were all issued with a PC. (See Appendix 2) This is a Pentium 166 with Windows 95, Office 95 with a modem and access via the College Web server to the Internet and email. The package also includes a Hewlett Packard DeskJet colour printer. It was expected that staff would use the PC's at home, and at their own discretion, given the restrictions of time and space in College. The staff are responsible for any telephone costs incurred in using the Internet. 54% of staff have accessed the Internet from home. Of the remainder some have been reluctant to incur the cost and others have had connection difficulties.
Technician support is available within the College framework and for the few problems, which have occurred, most staff have been willing to bring the base unit into College. A system of home visits has been instigated to help tackle the Internet problems. All the PC's have been built in house by the MIS Engineers.
The Staff IT Training Suite consists of a training room with a capacity of 14 PCs and a workshop with 20 PC's. Staff also have support from a full time facilitator based in the workshop. Part of each block of training was spent in the Staff IT Workshop to give staff the opportunity to practise the skills just learnt. They could also have training in the use of the scanner, digital camera and software. The workshop is available for drop in support.
3.5 Quality Assurance of Learning Programmes
The Quality Assurance of Barnsley College learning programmes is achieved principally through the following activities.
The New Programme appeals sub-committee of the academic board support in the preparation of and subsequent scrutiny of all proposals for substantial new learning programmes.
The course teams periodic Reviews and evaluations
The Chief Executive monitors and tracks the responses to external quality assessments.
Quality standards reviews of selected learning programmes
The work of the lead teachers in monitoring the students learning experiences and encouraging incremental improvements in the quality of teaching and learning.
The aim is to ensure new programmes of appropriate standard and quality are sustainable, can be appropriately resources and reflect the College's mission statement and strategic objectives.
Running parallel to the training programme were developments to support staff in using IT in the teaching environment. Over the last two years, nine Multi-media classrooms have been created, at least one on each major site. These are bookable resources which include a multimedia PC, video, ceiling mounted data projector, PC and video units will be available from September 1999. The aim of these is to support staff in using their IT skills in classroom delivery. For group work with students there are Learner bases equipped with PC's in most programme areas that have been established for a number of years. Of course the ideal would be to have PC's for student use in every classroom - but that's for the future.
Another aspect to the programme was to support the staff back in their subject area with suitable Information Communication Learning Technology (ICLT) materials. Each department was allocated £2000 for the purchase of subject-related software and CD ROMS. The programme did not aim to train staff to produce their own multimedia materials, although some staff opted to do so.
3.6 The budget
Such a programme does not come cheap. Hard decisions have to be made about the focus of spending for a year. The following shows a broad outline of the cost:
IT Equipment 425000
Staff Remission 423000
Trainer/facililitator 32000
Registration/accreditation 28500
Furniture 2400
Consumables 9000
Reprographics 500
Computer materials/Software 32000
Total 951,900
4.0 An evaluation of what has been done
Evaluation of the StaffIt programme is an ongoing process. In the long-term the ultimate aim is to contribute to improved retention and achievement, a difficult effect to measure. In the shorter term the Senior Management team is looking for an increase in the use of IT in teaching and learning by both staff and students. This has been evaluated on a number of fronts. The college has an initiative of classroom observation by Lead Teachers who include in their reports reference to the uses of IT in classes they have observed. To gain access to students views they were sought through informal meetings with members of the executive and through student perception questionnaires.
Six months after the completion of the StaffIt programme staff were asked to respond to a questionnaire to evaluate how much they were using IT. Responses were received from 244 staff which is 80% of the StaffIt cohort of 304.
55% of staff considered that they used a computer more now than prior to the Staff it programme, this figure does not include those staff who used a computer regularly prior to the programme.
87% of staff surveyed indicated that they have used their computer at home this academic year. 54% can access the internet from home, with 21% having hardware and software difficulties.
The following chart shows staff using ICLT in their teaching and learning.
The most use of 82% has been preparing handouts/notes followed by 73% for research. A substantial 63% used IT to provide student activities within the classroom (other than teaching the use of IT).
Asked what general affects could be identified which were felt to be attrituble to the Staff It programmes responses included:
Improved quality of teaching materials
Increased use of computers
Increased staff confidence in using IT
Increased use of email
Working together was good for the team spirit
Increased reliance on PC's frustration and tension when it breaks down!
Meeting new people gave an insight into other areas of the College
4.1 Side Effects
Many of the effects of the programme are much less tangible, like the ethos of using IT. Staff who are IT illiterate may not encourage and may actually stifle the use of IT by students in their subject area; fear of knowing less than the student can make IT a topic to be avoided. Even if some staff make limited use of IT themselves, the training programme has at least enabled them to support students in the use of IT and knowledge of what is available and what is possible can facilitate positive guidance. IT knowledge also helps subject area tutors to integrate IT key skills into their subject area.
Although the full training programme completed in July 1998, the initial impetus has given much staff the confidence and basic grounding necessary to take their skills much further. Much of todays software is very intuitive and familiarity with accessing the basic features can quite easily be extended as the need arises.
It is anticipated that there will be a number of effects on the workload of clerical support officers (CSOs). It is likely that there will be fewer requests for straight forward typing.The IT training was not intended to teach staff how to type up their own notes, hence the emphasis on teaching and learning, but it is an inevitable consequence that staff find it more convenient to type up notes directly rather than handwrite them However, now that staff have a much broader knowledge of what is possible using IT, it is anticipated that CSOs will need to raise their own skill levels in order to respond to a wider need.
Another side effect was generated from the fact that the PC`s allocated to staff and those used for the training were based on the most up to date specification and as such had moved ahead of the network computers in College. Inevitably staff soon experienced frustration in transferring their work
between systems.
The upgrade to the College network took place in the summer of 1998 and for the first time since computers crossed the College doorstep in 1978 we had a common platform throughout some 1300 staff and student PCs.
4.2 The plans for the future.
StaffIt was a major initiative for the College in 1997/98 but that was not the end of the story, the project set the standard, which has to be maintained. All new academic staff follow the same programme in terms of being allocated a PC and two hours reduced class contact for their first year to follow the training programme. The College is also looking at ways of extending the training to fractional staff and to agency staff in the interests of ensuring the same quality of IT literacy throughout the teaching staff. In 1998/99 staffit extended its remit to a two-day training programme for the management team (including the Chief Executive) and to Staffit 2, which provided a programme for all business support staff. An audit of IT skills and needs informed a programme which aimed to bring all support staff to a minimum level of competence and to extend the IT skills of staff where appropriate . At the minimum level the aim was to give staff the basic skills and confidence to switch on a PC and navigate Windows NT to access internet and email with a brief introduction to text processing. The full programme offered twenty-four options extending to advanced database and webpage design. Approximately 339 staff undertook training during the year.
The objective for the coming year is to address the needs of fractional and agency staff and to maintain a programme of IT skills which will support the continuing advances in the use of IT. One thing is certain, ICLT will not stand still, it will move upwards and onwards.
5.0 Issues and Recommendations
Based on the findings, here are a number of recommendations for the future development of Staffit.
- Assess user needs, analyse the internal market
- Institutions and colleges must work out their own solutions but under national guidelines and tools.
- Prioritise staff development and resources
- Share good practise and information with other FE and HE institutions, communicate and disseminate activities.
- Recognise diversity of learning styles and processes within Further and Higher Education (FE and HE) and learn form others experiences.
6.0 Conclusion
There is clearly a need for staff development at all levels, lecturers, support staff, heads of department even the Chief Executive. Dearing stressed the need for staff development and training in IT. Staff development needs to be well thought out and with a structured programme of staff and student development and training are required.
Advances in communication and IT (C& ITD) will radically shape the delivery and learning throughout the world, which means over the next decade, HE services will become an international tradable commodity with an increasing competitive global market. (Joint Information Systems Committee, 1999/2000)
The innovate exploitation of C&IT holds out much for the future, improving the quality, flexibility and effectiveness of education. The potential benefits will extend to and affect practice of teaching, learning and research.
C&IT will have a central role in maintaining the quality of education in an era when there are likely to be continued pressure on costs and a need to respond to an increasing demand for places in institutions, for these reasons Senior Management need to show a commitment to staff by encouraging C&IT training and provide a structured and allocated time for staff to attend training.
Only then will academic staff who have no training and little experience in the use of communications and IT as an education tool, begin to utilise skills and produce computer assisted learning materials and produce new enhanced delivery systems into their own teaching.
7.0 Appendices
Appendix 1 - Barnsley College Training Plan 1999/2000
Appendix 2 - Barnsley College fact and guidance sheet
Know your college.
Bibliography
Beckhard, R. & Pritchard, W. (1992). Changing the Essence. Jossey-Bass Inc: San Francisco
Broome, A. (1998). Managing Change. 2nd edition. Macmillan: Basingstoke
Forsyth, I. Joliffe, A. and Stevens, D.(1999) Evaluating a Course: Kogan Page
The Higginson Report (1997)
Joint Information Systems Committee (1999/2000)
Forsyth, I. Joliffe, A. and Stevens, D (1995). Planning a Course: Kogan Page
Smale, G. (1996) Mapping Change & Innovation. HMSO: London
Torrington, D. and Weightman, J. (1994). Effective Management people and organisations. Prentice Hall: Hemel Hempstead
