Meeting New Learning Challenges: How IDI and OLACEFS Delivered the First Regional E-Learning Workshop

International Journal of Government Auditing, Jul 2006 by Callaghan, Patrick, Walmann, Elizabeth

IDI's Strategic Plan Commitment to E-Learning

IDI is nearing the end of its strategic plan for 2001-2006. The plan commits IDI to five goals that members of the INTOSAI community identified as priorities in the late 1990s. The fifth goal sought to "explore the potential of distance learning programs," and IDI embarked on its first e-learning project to meet this commitment.

IDI has a long and distinguished history of engaging INTOSAI's regions in capacity-building programs to meet developmental needs. From 2001-2003, the first 3 years of the IDI's strategic planning cycle, substantial progress was made on goals 1-4 of the strategic plan. At the end of 2003, IDI began work on goal 5. Since e-learning had never before been used as a methodology for meeting regional needs, IDI looked for a region, a demand, and a partner to deliver a project that would explore the potential of e-learning.

Partnership with the OAS and OLACEFS

In October 2003, IDI began a cycle of meetings with international development organizations to find one or more partners for its e-learning program. This was an essential ingredient of the e-learning program, as neither time nor resources were available to build the tools or expertise necessary to create this new stream of work.

Through this partnership approach, IDI was introduced to the e-learning program of the Organization of American States (OAS), a membership organization for countries in the Americas that aims to strengthen cooperation and advance common interests through dialogue and action. The OAS has a large program of e-learning courses that are delivered through its virtual classroom (VC), an internally developed e-learning platform that provides facilitated learning through the Educational Portal of the Americas (www.educoea.org) in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. The VC enables the OAS and its partners to deliver vocational education and training to people throughout the Americas, and it has a respected certification program that is important to both governments and employers. The OAS offered to host IDI-funded e-learning courses that met OAS development aims on a cost-recovery basis.

OLACEFS had previously expressed an interest in e-learning as a means of training larger numbers of auditors. Following discussions with the OLACEFS training administrator (the SAI of Venezuela) and an agreement of the OLACEFS General Assembly, IDI and OLACEFS decided to develop an e-learning program based on a 2-week performance auditing classroom course that had been successfully delivered several times.

The Course Was a Year in the Making

IDI and the OAS signed a cooperation agreement in August 2004. IDI and OLACEFS would provide the subject matter expertise, course materials, tutors, and funding, and the OAS would deliver a working course that met its high pedagogical standards and provide advice on delivering the course.

Using the OAS" experience, IDI worked with the SAI of Venezuela to set a project goal of training 60 auditors in approximately 11 weeks through a part-time course. Marcelo Cartaya, of the SAI of Venezuela, was chosen to be the academic coordinator, the central person for developing and delivering the course. In addition to being an IDI training specialist and a performance auditing expert, he was also a key player in developing the OLACEFS regional training approach. During the development phase, Marcelo monitored the redesign and redevelopment of course materials created for the classroom, made sure that they were appropriate to the virtual classroom, and revised strategies suggested by the OAS.

The project also benefited from the work of Tania Garc�a, also from the SAI of Venezuela, who served as the subject matter expert. Tania and Marcelo revised the classroom course materials and advised the OAS designers on the interactive elements of the pilot course.

IDI and OLACEFS also had to find and train a group of online tutors. While the academic coordinator ensures that the course delivery is even and appropriate, online tutors interact with students on a daily basis, answer their questions, lead activities, and evaluate coursework. Because the online tutors need to have the same empathetic characteristics as classroom trainers, a decision was made to use OLACEFS training specialists who were about to go through a Course Design and Instructional Techniques Workshop in Quito, Ecuador. The OAS sent a staff member to Quito to train all participants in the virtual classroom methodology.

The OAS, OLACEFS, and IDI decided that seven of these trainers should become online tutors. Six would be allocated 10 students each, while the seventh would act as a "floating" tutor to cover any absences. In most OAS courses, each tutor is allocated up to 30 students; the decision to limit each tutor to 10 students in the OLACEFS program recognized that the role was being filled on a part-time basis and that the duration of the course made it important not to overburden the tutors.

In June 2004 the academic coordinator, subject matter expert, online tutors, and IDI program managers met for the first and only time in Venezuela to define responsibilities, agree on the timetable, and build a network of support. Following this meeting, a 7-week trial of the course took place, with the tutors acting as students. The trial enabled tutors to define and prepare for their roles and to finalize the course materials and exercises.