Improving professional development for SLA

Information Outlook, May, 2004 by Sylvia Piggott, John Lowery

Professional development is a high priority for SLA. It is one of the key sections on the association's website. Look through the Professional Development "tab" and you will see an outline of current priorities for the department. The committee's definition was amended in June 2003 (Board Document A03-53) with the following mandate:

1. Analyze findings of staff research and feedback documents relating to the learning and development needs of the association's membership and other target audiences in partnership with the association staff in order that the offerings remain aligned with the anticipated needs;

2. Review, shape, and endorse annually the strategic directions in the association's learning and development activities;

3. Recommend policies and initiatives to the Board of Directors and to association staff to address the learning and career development needs of the association's membership;

4. Ensure updating of the professional competencies document as appropriate;

5. Provide feedback and advice to the Board of Directors and Executive Director related to library/information management curricula;

6. Function in an advisory capacity to association units as needed as relates to all of the above;

7. Make recommendations to the president-elect regarding desired characteristics of incoming Professional Development Committee members.

The committee has been working closely with the association's director of professional development to review the status of professional development and to develop solutions and offerings based upon three important documents: the committee's charge, the strategic vision document of the committee, and the revised competencies document.

We have reviewed past recommendations gleaned from surveys of the membership, and we have taken a close look at current successful professional development services and systems in order to choose appropriately for our membership. At this time, we are investigating new media in order to deliver professional development offerings to membership, both at the annual conference and on a continuous basis.

Immediate Goals

Restructuring Professional

Development at the Conference

The committee is seeking to help minimize the divisions' burden of finding speakers and funding for conference programs and to reduce the cost to those vendors that are finding it difficult to support divisions at the level to which they are accustomed. We have advised the conference program chair for Toronto of a proposed method for streamlining professional development programs at the annual conference.

1. Presentations covering specific subjects will be offered by divisions that cover those subjects.

2. Programs of general interest will be placed in a central pool from which the association office will select the best choices to offer at the conference.

3. Topics not selected from the central pool will be reviewed, and some of them will be chosen for conversion to self-paced courses to be offered via electronic medium by SLA headquarters during the year.

In addition, the committee will request that continuing education courses that have been identified for possible presentation at the conference, or under the auspices of SLA, be reviewed by the Professional Development Committee for content. Selected courses will then be reviewed by the Professional Development Department for adherence to good instructional design principles. This process should help to improve the offerings and enhance the level of satisfaction with these courses. The committee hopes that some of these proposals can be implemented for the 2005 conference in Toronto.

Improving Online Seminars

We have finalized an agreement with Premier Conferencing to be our new Web-conferencing provider for all of our online seminars, both the Virtual Learning Series and the Career Development series. This move offers several advantages:

* Premier will make an audio and video recording of the live event. Within 24 hours, you will be able to see and hear the seminar. Whenever possible, we will get a commitment from our presenters to answer questions by e-mail after the event. Thus, almost nothing will be lost by "attending" the seminar at a later date.

* Premier's VisionCast product is much more suited to large presentation-style meetings than the technology we have been using. It is also better suited to more advanced uses, such as moving through multiple websites.

* Premier's presenter interface offers more opportunities for audience interaction and control.

* Premier Conferencing has two features that relate to our ability to allow our European members to participate in our online professional development events. The first will be immediate: Since all presentations will be recorded and will be available for viewing and listening within 24 hours, anyone in Europe will be able to take the same seminars, with the only difference being that they will not be able to participate in live questions and answers. The second feature is that Premier has international audio bridges in Canada, Europe, Australia, and the Far East. What this means is that most members can participate live. For example, when a member in France dials in to the presentation, the call will only be going to Paris, so we will be able to offer international participation without incurring additional expense.