Reflections - Unit 5 (opening section)

This caught my eye in the opening of Unit 5 .

"two factors that determine the effectiveness of a professional in any area of occupation are

• the quality of their sources of information - timeliness, pertinence, reliability
• their ability to apply intelligence to that information (determine what is relevant in each information source, and how best to make use of it)

Paul Lefrere & Robin Goodfellow

Thinking immediately of my work in the ELC a few years back when I used electronic surveys to identify faculty needs but I also made a point of reviewing and assessing the traditional delivery mode for workshops - face to face - largely on a hunch that the current strategy wasn't working. Identified the need for a rethink .. because attendance at past workshops was consistently poor .. yet the same needs were still being expressed in the surveys. This told me that there was a crying need for more flexibility to complement the faculty situation / environment.

I entertained the possibility of capitalizing on the constant availability of the network .. to devise a new strategy that was less proximity dependent (the need for a scheduled time and place to present IT support workshops). That led to the development of a four prong strategy consisting of tipsheets, screen cams, one to one tutoring.. all designed to complement the traditional "face to face" strategy.

The result? Subsequent online surveys noted tipsheets and screen cams as number one support method ... while face to face was still seen as highly desireable.. yet attendance remained abysmal (what people were voting for in a survey, they weren't prepared to vote for with their "feet").

What does it point out to me now .. the importance of challenging assumptions, making decisions when possible based upon data. The data is powerful for informing one's decisions and supporting their close scrutiny by others. However.. the data doesn't offer all the answers .. I realize more clearly now the need to review them in their context. For example, if I was to go on the choices made in the survey, we would still be using only the "face to face" strategy.