e-Learning
- the future for CPD?
 A
growing need for more effective forms of Continuous
Professional Development is leading professional associations
to consider eLearning as a practical alternative,
explains Adrian Snook in this article first published
in Building Control Magazine, the journal of
the Institute of Building Control.
The pace of change in the construction industry is
speeding up almost perceptibly year by year, and it
is becoming increasingly evident that simply flicking
through the pages of Building Control from time to
time is hardly going to compensate for this.
The useful life of knowledge initially gained from
a vocational degree course or as part of an entrance
course to a professional body is evidently getting
shorter as the rate of change intensifies.
The
useful life of a vocational degree was estimated in
1992 to be four years (Watkins, 1992). Continuous
lifelong learning is becoming essential to keep pace
with this increasing rate of change.
In the broadest terms Continuous Professional Development
(CPD) consists of:
"....The purposive maintenance, improvement and
broadening of your knowledge, skills and personal
qualities in order to perform your professional activities
successfully throughout your working life".
(Geale, Cockett, Rogerson, 1995)
The IBC first began to address the whole issue of
CPD policy in the late 1980's and in August 1987 introduced
a scheme of Continuing Professional Development. This
was voluntary in nature and had the primary aim of
introducing the membership to the value of ongoing
professional development beyond final qualification.
As acceptance of CPD became more widespread the Institute
made the commitment to CPD obligatory. Fellows, Members
and Associate Members not pursuing Corporate Membership
were then expected to complete an average of 15 hours
of CPD per year and thirty hours over any two consecutive
years.
The Personal Development Plan came into operation
on January 2nd 1997 and this replaced the existing
arrangements with an expectation that Fellows and
Members should complete a minimum of 25 hours of CPD
each year.
A
review took place in late 1999. It
was evident that the requirement for all members to
submit CPD returns was not being implemented with
a great deal of consistency. In January 2000 policy
changed and in future a random sample of 10% of Corporate
Members and Fellows will be asked to provide proof
of CPD undertaken on an annual basis. At the same
time the CPD requirement was amended to become a minimum
of 75 hours over any three-year period.
Today IBC publications, conferences and the programme
of national and district seminars provide members
with a cohesive range of opportunities for effective
CPD.
When
engaged in the everyday cut and thrust of your working
life CPD can sometimes seem like a luxury with some
fairly intangible benefits. This is a great shame
because effective CPD has a broader purpose than training
and covers much more than the technical side of professional
life. It links education to practice.
Effective CPD will enable you to:
-
update your knowledge and skills to reflect best
practice and the latest developments
-
keep your professional qualifications up to date
- raise
your professional profile through networking and
certification, making you more marketable
- gain
recognition for any informal learning you have already
undertaken
- increase
the range of competencies underpinning your personal
and professional roles.
In a study carried out in 1993 Madden & Mitchell found
that 70% of professional bodies had a policy on CPD,
but only 25% of these had policies that made CPD mandatory.
Today, there is strong evidence that that a movement
towards compulsion is now rippling through the professional
bodies. This movement is being given added impetus
because professional associations are anxious to demonstrate
the competence and accountability of their members
to the public. This
concern has been intensified by recent high profile
media coverage of professional errors, lapses and
incompetence in a wide range of disciplines.
It is evident that CPD is now an essential component
of professional life and that all of us will be asked
to dedicate increasing amounts of time to learning
over the coming years. This represents something of
a dilemma for professional associations, who are after
all run by their members for the benefit of members.
There are obviously limits to the amount of time and
resources that professionals are willing and able
to invest in undertaking CPD. Equally, conventional
learning options are sometimes inflexible, inefficient
and unattractive in the context of an active professional
life.
Unless
professional bodies are able to offer more cost-effective,
flexible learning options in return for a commitment
to lifelong learning then a degree of conflict with
members is likely to arise.
Fortunately,
the advent of the multimedia Personal Computer, the
internet and what is increasingly termed eLearning
now offers professional new opportunities for engaging,
relevant and cost-effective CPD at the time and place
that suits them best.
For some this will be their Personal Computer at work,
for others their PC at home.
Modern eLearning courseware incorporates a heady mix
of:
-
text
- video
- computer
generated simulations
- a
range of question and answer types
- a
number of interaction styles
- rich
imagery
- graphics
and line drawings
- still
photographs, to provide realistic images and to
embody realism
- a
range of support functions.
It is now widely recognised that a typical self-paced
computer-based instruction and assessment course requires
less time for groups of learners to complete than
an equivalent lecture or seminar
Studies in the USA (Foshay 1994) indicated that groups
of learners engaged in technology-based learning need
between 6% and 37% less instruction time to complete
their course, with an average reduction in duration
of around 26%.
A report compiled by the Employment Department in
1990 quoted a survey by the National Computing Centre
that revealed typical reductions in training time
of around 30%. In other words you could learn 30%
percent more by switching your existing investment
in time spent attending seminars to an equivalent
amount of self-paced eLearning.
More seductive still, because eLearning is so flexible,
you can chose to learn at the time and place which
fits in with the demands of your personal and professional
life. This might mean no necessity to call in a locum,
crawl to colleagues so they will cover your work or
incur the travel and subsistence costs normally associated
with attending seminars and conferences.
Whilst
you might possibly miss the chance to chat to your
fellow professionals in the bar at a far-flung conference
once in a blue moon, you can actually chat to them
on-line via the Internet every evening from your home
via email, bulletin boards and chat rooms.
When
viewed exclusively from the perspective of the professional
associations themselves eLearning also has a lot to
offer. The latest learning management software enables
objective monitoring of learning performance via the
internet and facilitates intervention and support
where necessary. This overcomes an obstacle which
many professional bodies are seeking to grapple with
- how do you reliably verify the progress of members
undertaking CPD without incurring a huge and unsustainable
administrative burden?
The
potential opportunities offered by eLearning are clearly
significant but a shift to offering CPD opportunities
on-line will take some time for the professional bodies
to accomplish. In the mean-time there is a wealth
of public domain information and courseware waiting
for you out there on the ever-expanding world-wide
web.
If you want to find out about eLearning then why not
visit: www.the-eln.org
The
eLearning Network is a long established non-profit
organisation run by a committee of learning professionals
for all those interested in the application of technologies
to learning. The aim is to provide a lead in the use
of best practice in all aspects of learning technologies.
Building
Control Magazine is the Journal of the Institute of
Building Control. For further information visit their
website:
 
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