Online Training of Academic Counselors of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU): A Feedback Study
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ISSN 0975-5004
Ref# 1301-00004
Issue Number: 1301
Published On: 18- March-2013
Online Training of Academic Counselors of Indira Gandhi National
Open University (IGNOU): A Feedback Study
Abstract
Professional development is a continuous process that adds value throughout
the career of a teacher engaged in any mode of education. In India, IGNOU is
involved with various professional development activities for different categories
of personnel associated with the university on full-time and part-time basis. One
important category of the personnel is academic counselors, who are drawn
from different conventional universities, industry, health, agriculture sector and
so on, and are involved with tutoring and counseling to a large number of
distance learners at regional and state levels. Besides organizing face-to-face
training for those academic counselors, IGNOU has designed and developed
an online training program recently. The objectives of this paper are to describe
the design and development of the academic counselors’ training program
(ACT-online) online and to present the perceptions of the academic counselors
who have successfully completed the online training so far. Majority of
participants expressed satisfaction with regard to various components of the
online training program. Some have given suggestions for further improvement.
1.0 Introduction
Professional development is a continuous process that adds value throughout a teacher‟s
career (Sahu, 2009). Professionalism is not a one-time affair in one‟s career. A teacher‟s
development spans an entire career (Mclntyre & Byrd, 1998).
Professional development activities need to be related to the system where professional
practice takes place. Continuous professional development is a method of ensuring that a
person achieves the right abilities to perform his/her job and enhances his/her expertise in aparticular field. It embraces everything that a person does to improve job performance and lifelong employability (Morrison, 2012). According to Passi (2000) staff development programs are mainly intended to improve the professional knowledge of the staff, their skills and attitudes to enable them to accomplish their assignments more efficiently and effectively. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), India, uses a variety of media and latest communication technologies to impart education to a large number of learners in the country and abroad. Besides this, IGNOU is involved with various professional development activities for different categories of personnel associated with the university on full-time and part-time basis. One important category of personnel is „academic counselors‟ who are involved in tutoring and counseling to a large number of learners at the regional levels and spread all over the country and abroad. As the academic counselors are drawn from conventional universities, industry, health and agriculture sectors, non-government organizations and so on, all are not familiar to the open distance learning system. They need training at the beginning and advanced training after a few years of service in the open distance learning (ODL) system. All the academic counselors cannot attend face-to-face training due to time factor as almost all are engaged in services. IGNOU has conducted few hundreds workshops ranging from 1-day to 15 days for the academic counselor. Every month some new academic counselors join and the number has gone upto several thousands. So, an online training has been designed for those academic counselors, which is provided by Staff Training and Research Institute of Distance Education (STRIDE), IGNOU, New Delhi, India. 2.0 Review of Literature It is very important to formulate the objectives of the training programs clearly to derive maximum benefit of the training. From implementation point of view, any training activity may have three segments: pre-training preparations, actual training and post-training activities (Sinha, 2000). At the preparation stage of online training program, the software package should be identified which would be used in the design, development and delivery of online program (Pulist, 2001). The software package should be indentified or developed according to the needs of the online environment, different tools need to be used, methods of communications and interaction with the trainee, evaluation, feedback etc. should be predefined. The trainees should be given hands-on training to use the tools effectively. Chen and Wang (1997) opined that establishment of e-learning system should take into account the environmental components that affect learning achievement (i) Teacher side- teaching interaction, process control and post-class follow-up; (ii) Student side- peer interaction, learning independence, participation motive; (iii) Teaching material side- resource diversity, presentation richness, material appropriateness; (iv) Classroom side- space convenience, equipment entirety. In online training for teachers, teacher‟s professional abilities can be improved effectively by taking activity-based training (Jared, et al., 2008). A web-based or online course should include various elements e.g. (i) Course outline (ii) Calendar of activities (iii) Activities, assignments (iv) Explanation of concepts, modules (v) Links
to additional resources (vi) Notice boards, announcements (vii) Conferences, discussion groups (viii) E-mail (ix) Online access to library (x) and Student profiles (Williams 2002). Panda and Mishra (2008) have categorized the elements in an online learning resources into five tools: (i) Orientation and organization tools (ii) Learning activity tools (iii) Interaction and collaboration tools (iv) Support tools and (v) Analytic tools. The suggested online tools for orientation and organization groups are: (i) Welcome and calendar (ii) Instructor and learning community (iii) Concept map and (iv) Syllabus. This set of tools supports the motivational approach of Keller‟s (1979) Attention - Confidence - Relevance - Satisfaction cycle. The tools under learning activity group include: module, activity related to self assessment questions, assignments, cases and action research. The tools under interaction and collaboration are: e-mail, discussion forum, online chat, participant corner, wiki, web-based video conference, and white board. Interaction can be synchronous (i.e. it occurs in rear time) or asynchronous (where there is a time lag between sending, receive, and replying). The online learning environment promotes collaborative learning using various tools, where participants work together online to solve problems and complete authentic tasks (Reeves et al. 2004). Jung et al. (2002) stated that web-based courses should incorporate various types of interaction including social, collaborative and academic interaction. Salmon (2002) referred these interactions as e-tivities that can be organized through both synchronous and asynchronous technologies. Panda and Mishra (2008) considered the following as support tools: mentor support, technical support, web resources, search engines, online dictionary and netiquettes and emoticons. Under analytic tools, they considered: model evaluation, module evaluation, teaching evaluation, satisfaction, process reflection, and learning assessment. Partlow and Gibs (2003) found from a Delphi study of experts in instructional technology and constructivism that online courses designed from constructivist principles should be relevant, interactive, project-based, and collaborative, while providing learners with some choice or control over their learning. According to collaborative learning model, learning occurs as an individual interacts with other individuals. Learning results as individuals exercise, verify, solidify and improve their mental models through discussions and information sharing (Carswell, 2001). Researchers are of the opinion that the inclusion of variety of differing learning tasks in online courses help to stimulate and maintain the interest of learners and promote engagement (Macdonald, Bullen & Kozak, 2007). In an effort to identify effective pedagogical approaches for online workplace training various learning activities like self-test exercises, quizzes, tasks incorporating external online resources, tasks incorporating choice of topic, discussions, group work and face-to-face meetings were used. The participants in online training programs expressed strong desire for face-to-face interaction (Dagada & Jarkovijevics, 2004; Van der Westhuizen & Krige, 2003).
Online learning is not a creature from a different universe (Sener, 2010). Many evaluation tools
may be applied just as well to online programs as to other types of programs. Sener (2010) has
cited commonly-used Kirkpatrick and Phillips Scales for example and stated that academic
programs routinely measure student satisfaction (level 1) and learning effectiveness (levels 1
and 2 on that scales) in online courses.
Mateo and Sangra (2007) explained a new paradigm for assessment and discussed some of
the possibilities opened by an open sourced platform i.e. Moodle, which appears to be one of
the best designed platforms to support instructive processes that are closer to the new
paradigm (Dougiamas & Taylor, 2003). Its tools allow to analyze how to manage information
and communication and also how learning takes place. The portfolio represents an important
tool of integrated management in open distance learning context. An e-portfolio is a digital
container that is able to store texts, sound, images and even software instruments in order to
manage a big and diverse amount of information (Abrami & Barret, 2005). It forms a dynamic
and comprehensive meeting space for the processes of instructional, evaluative and personal
development of the learner (Barbera & Ahumada, 2007).
To develop a training program online is a challenging task. Keeping the need of providing
training to a large number of academic counselors of IGNOU and other open universities to the
concept, theory and practice of ODL, IGNOU has developed the Academic Counselors‟ Training
(ACT-Online). The aim of the present paper is to present the design and development of the
academic counselors training online (ACT-online) and discuss the perception of the participants
who have completed the program recently.
3.0 Objectives of the paper
The main objectives of the present paper are to:
describe the design and development of the Academic Counselors‟ Training (ACT-Online)
program of IGNOU; and
analyze the perception of the academic counselors on various aspects of the online
training.
4.0 Design and Development of ACT-Online Program
ACT-Online program is designed specifically for those who are engaged in the task of providing
tutoring, counseling, and other technology-mediated support to the distance learners. The URL
of the ACT-Online program is www.ignouonline.ac.in/actonline
The ACT-Online is grounded in both the theory and practice of Open Distance Learning. The
specific objectives of this training program are to: (1) discuss the concept and theories of ODL,
(2) discuss the development of ODL in the country and abroad, (3) explain the nature,
characteristics and importance of self-learning materials, (4) discuss the importance of learner
support in distance education, (5) differentiate between counseling and tutoring, (6) explain
how to organize support services using various modes (face-to-face, audio-visual media,
computer etc.), (7) discuss how to conduct academic counseling sessions at learning centers,
(8) discuss how to write tutor comments on assignment responses, (9) describe how to organize
support services for educationally disadvantaged and disabled students, (10) describe basic
applications of technology in support services (e-mail, internet etc.), (11) engage in in-built
activities to develop skills for tutoring and academic counseling and (12) locate educational
resources on the web.4.1 ACT-Online: Curriculum
The ACT-online program has 90 hours or three „credits‟ workload. The minimum duration of the
program is 45 days and the maximum duration is 90 days. In order to fulfill the objectives of the
program, the curriculum has been designed and developed. The curriculum is divided into three
parts, namely Part-A, B, and C. Part-A covers the basic knowledge of ICT for academic
counselors. Part-B provides the knowledge of Open Distance Learning (ODL) concepts,
theories, tutoring, counseling, assessment and so on. Part-C engages with various activities,
case studies, evaluation of assignments, collecting feedback from students, and so on. Figure 1
shows the detailed curriculum of this training programme.
Figure 1:ACT-Online: Curriculum
4.2 ACT-Online: Technologies
The ACT-Online has been developed in fully online environment. The contents have been
uploaded in the website which the participants can download and study in asynchronous mode.
The contents are properly hyperlinked which includes text materials, PowerPoint presentations
and video clips and a few others. The online training environment includes interaction, individual
and team-based activities related to cognitive and psychomotor domain, online discussion
board, and collaboration. This online training program designed in ASP Dot NET as front-end
and MySQL as back-end. The online environment is developed by eGyanKosh, IGNOU.
Figure-2 shows the website of ACT-Online program.Figure-2: ACT-Online: Website 4.3 ACT-Online: Tools The ACT-Online program adopted the orientation and organizational tools as discussed earlier to provide learning environment for participants. In the ACT-Online program, e-mail, discussion forum and online chat are used for interaction between peer to peer and mentor. Email is very effective tool for communication. A separate institutional mail id is created for ACT-Online program to communicate with participants. The mentors of ACT-Online program provide support to the participants starting from entry to exit. Each and every participant receives tutor comments on their assignments and also receives academic support and additional web resources whenever required. Since many participants are not much familiar with technology, the ACT-Online team provides all kinds of help required to take care of technology use in online learning including browser compatibility. Each participant receives individual mail about the technology and the user guidance and also online supports through telephone/mobile, email and possibly through real- time chat. 4.4 Collaboration in ACT-Online Peer to peer interaction using collaborative mode would appear to be a promising source of timely and cost effective leaner support (Lee, 2000). Engaging everybody to participate is very important in the online training. Providing collaborative environment in the online training leads to peer to peer interaction and peer to teacher interaction. Online interactions not only go beyond academic requirements and expectations but also motivate, demonstrate willingness to comment, and encourage others to continue interacting is important (Patrick, 2003). Academic
counselors of IGNOU are a divertible group placed in every corner of the country. Every one
has some experiences to deal with distance learners. The ACT-Online programme provides the
environment where, the counselors can share their experiences, technologies used for their
tutoring/counseling process in the discussion forum, and through email. The facilitator to
participant interaction also takes place in Announcements and the Calendar. Figure 3 shows
the collaboration activities in ACT-Online program.
Figure-3: ACT-Online: Collaboration
4.5 ACT-Online: Assessment
The empirical rules of online activities design involve: (i) the teaching process must be simple
and concise; (ii) teaching activities shall be kept consistent. The two rules are aimed to focus
the learners‟ attention on the learning task instead of on the technical platforms and teaching
means (Wang et al, 2009). There are four types of assessment in-built in the online training
program (Figure-4).
In between the contents, the self check questions have been incorporated for self assessment.
The academic counselors have to complete the following tasks/activities during their program:
A lesson plan of three counseling sessions (organizing counseling session for
distance learners).
Experiential essay on his/her experience as an academic counselor.
Five samples of assignment-responses evaluated by him/her. Preparing a report on student feedback with the help of a student feedback
questionnaire.
After completing their tasks, the participants upload the tasks in their portfolio and also get their
results online.
Figure-4: ACT-Online: Assessment
To fulfill the second objective of the paper, a feedback study was conducted following the
methodology as discussed below:
5.0 Methodology
a) Sample:
The academic counselors (Total 65) who have successfully completed the ACT Online so far
have been selected for the study.
b) Tools:
(i) Likert type scale
A Likert type scale was prepared by the researchers consisting of 20 items. The main
purpose was to collect information with regard to their satisfaction level related to various
components of the online training program including: accessibility, e-contents,
collaboration, duration and assessment.
Each scale has a brief description associated with each response category. The
categories are typically arranged in some logical order, and the respondents are required
to select the categories that best describe their reactions to whatever is being rated. In this
scale, 5 points were used („very satisfied‟, „just satisfied‟, „undecided/neither satisfied nor
dissatisfied‟ „just dissatisfied‟ and „very dissatisfied‟). The respondents were asked to
indicate their degree of satisfaction by checking one of five response categories.
The draft rating scales were given to 5 experts in the field of distance education for their
comments and suggestions. Based on their comments, 16 statements were short listed
for the present study.
(ii) QuestionnaireThree (3) open ended questions were also prepared to collect information with regard to
their expectations, utility and further improvement of the program.
c) Procedure of Collecting Data
The data was collected online. As soon as the participants completed the training successfully,
both tools were sent to them online and they were requested to respond to all the items without
any hesitation.
Altogether 35 academic counselors responded to all the items, and finally, responses of 35
academic counselors were analyzed and presented in this paper.
d) Statistical Analysis
The responses obtained on the Likert type scale has also been analyzed quantitatively.
Frequency, Percentage (of each item) was calculated. Chi-square test to find out the group
differences in perception, if any, was applied.
The responses obtained on the questionnaire have also been analyzed qualitatively.
6.0 Results and Discussion
i) Demographic Characteristics of the Participants
71.43% participants were male and 28.57% female.
74.29% participants resided in urban area, 25.71% resided in rural area.
22.86% participants were single, and 77.14% were married.
8.57% belonged to below 30 age group, 91.43% belonged to above 30 age group.
8.57% were academic counselors of arts, 28.57% of computer science, 20% of education,
22.86% of management, and 20% of science discipline.
All the participants were computer literate.
The responses of the academic counselors were analyzed with regard to various aspects and/or
components of the online training program. The findings have been detailed below.
ii) Information on ACT-Online Website
All information related to ACT-online program, including: objectives, duration, eligibility, credits,
procedure to apply, fees, registration form, contact address and technical requirements are
available in the ACT-online website. An attempt was made to know the satisfaction level of the
respondents about this information. Around 31.43% participants were very satisfied and 45.71%
just satisfied with the information (total of very satisfied and just satisfied is 77.14%). However,
22.86% participants were not satisfied with the information.
iii) Activation Time
Once the academic counselors register online, the course coordinator verify authentication, and
then activate the user name and password of ACT-Online website and send relevant
information through mail. This activity generally takes one to two weeks of time. Participants‟
response about the activation time was examined. It was noted that 31.43% participants were
very satisfied, 42.86% were just satisfied with regard to the activation time (total of very satisfied
and just satisfied is 74.29%). However, 25.71% were not satisfied with the activation time.
iv) AccessibilityAccessibility was studied from two points of view: (i) on the basis of local internet connectivity of the academic counselors from where they took part in the online training, and (ii) on the basis of IGNOU connectivity from where the online training was conducted. It was noted (Table 1) that around 25.71% academic counselors were very satisfied and 51.48% were just satisfied with the local internet connectivity (total of very satisfied and just satisfied is 77.19%), where as 22.85% academic counselors were very satisfied and 62.85% were just satisfied with the IGNOU connectivity (total of very satisfied and just satisfied is 85.70%). Table 1: Satisfaction level of the academic counselors with regard to accessibility of the online training program Scale Local Connectivity IGNOU Connectivity Very satisfied 25.71% 22.86% Satisfied 51.43% 62.86% Undecided 14.29% 5.71% Dissatisfied 2.86% 2.86% Very dissatisfied 5.71% 5.71% The academic counselors were divided in to different sub-groups on the basis the area (urban and rural), gender (male and female), age (below 30 years and above 30 years), and discipline (Arts, Computer Science, Education, Management and Science) and analysis were done. Significant differences in responses were obtained on the basis of gender (chi-square 9.683, df = 4, P
programs etc (total of very satisfied and just satisfied is 77.14%). It is interesting to note that 14.28% academic counselors have not given any comments on support materials. Table 2: Satisfaction level of the academic counselors with regard to e-contents and support materials of the online training program Scale e-Contents Support Materials Very satisfied 51.43% 37.14% Satisfied 34.29% 40.00% Undecided 2.86% 14.29% Dissatisfied 5.71% 2.86% Very dissatisfied 5.71% 5.71% While the analyses were done on the basis of area, gender, age and discipline, no statistically significant differences were obtained, though apparently there were differences in the responses in some cases. For example, while 100% participants (taking very satisfied and just satisfied together) from rural area were satisfied with the e-contents, in comparison to 81% from urban area, again around 42% urban participants were very satisfied with support materials in comparison to around 22% from rural areas, however, while the just satisfied category was taken together the percentage was almost same for urban (77.00%) and rural (78.00%). vi) Collaboration Seven aspects have been studied under collaboration. An Announcement is an important element of online course (Williams, 2002) through which interaction between the facilitator and participants takes place on regular basis. In this training program, an announcement is made to perform course related information, to submit activity, assignments, to take part in discussion forum, changes in schedule, to update contents, and so on. Around 31.42% participants expressed that they were very satisfied, 37.14% just satisfied with the announcement (total of very satisfied and just satisfied is 68.56%), and 14.29% expressed they were not satisfied, whilst around 14.29% did not give their choice (Table 3). While the responses were analysed on the basis of the sub-groups, no significant differences were obtained. A discussion forum has already been identified as an important tool for interaction and collaboration (Panda & Mishra, 2008, Reeves et al., 2004). Around 25.71% participants were very satisfied (Table 3) and 34.29% were just satisfied with discussion the forum (total of very satisfied and 60.00%) was just satisfied. However 14.81% stated that they were very dissatisfied as with the discussion forum and 8.57% were just dissatisfied (total of very dissatisfied and just dissatisfied is 22.86%). While the responses obtained from different sub-groups were analyzed, no significant differences were obtained.
Table 3: Satisfaction level of the academic counselors with regard to various
components of collaboration of the online training program
Components Very Satisfied Undecided Dissatisfied Very
satisfied dissatisfied
Announcemen 31.42% 37.14% 14.29% 14.29% 2.86%
t
Discussion 25.71% 34.29% 17.14% 8.57% 14.29%
forum
Facilitator- 17.14% 42.85% 14.29% 14.29% 11.43%
participant
interaction
Participant – 17.14% 42.85% 22.87% 11.43% 5.71%
participants
interaction
Response 22.86% 45.71% 25.71% 2.86% 2.86%
promptness
(telephone)
Response 28.57% 48.57% 14.29% 2.86% 5.71%
promptness
(online)
Contents of 22.86% 42.85% 22.86% 8.57% 2.86%
the responses
How far the participants were satisfied interacting with the facilitator and other participants has
also been studied. Around 17.14% participants were very satisfied, and around 42.85% were
just satisfied with the interaction (total of very satisfied and just satisfied is 59.99%).
Providing prompt responses to the queries of the participants is important in any online training
program. The participants received answers to their queries from the facilitators through
telephone and online as well. The analysis of the responses reveal that 22.86% participants
were very satisfied, and around 45.71% just satisfied with the prompt responses through
telephone (total of very satisfied and just satisfied is 68.57%). Similarly, around 28.57% were
very satisfied, and 48.57% just satisfied with the prompt responses received online (total of very
satisfied and just satisfied is 77.14%).
Whether the participants were satisfied with the contents of the responses received from the
facilitators were also studied. Around 22.86% participants were very satisfied, and around
42.85% just satisfied with the contents of the responses received from the facilitators (total of
very satisfied and just satisfied is 65.71%). However, around 22.86% did not express their
reactions with regard to the contents of the responses.
As the ACT-online training program is a 3 credit (90 hours) program with a minimum 45 days
and maximum 90 days duration. An attempt was made to study the perception of the
participants with regard to the above mentioned duration of the training program.
Around 29% participants were very satisfied with the duration whilst, around 54% were just
satisfied. When the analyses were made sub-group wise, it was noted that 25.71% urban
participants were very satisfied in comparison to rural (2.86%) participants, 22.86% male werevery satisfied in comparison to only 5.71% female participants, 28.57% participants who
belonged to the above 30 age group were very satisfied whilst no one from below the same
age group was very satisfied.
In response to an item with regard to assignment and assessment components of the online
training program, 25.71% participants reported that they were very satisfied, 40.00% were just
satisfied (total of very satisfied and just satisfied is 65.71%). Around 22.86% participants were
neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.
As mentioned earlier the participants were asked open-ended questions to know in what way
the online training program met their expectations.
Some of the responses are worth mentioning here:
“I came to know that how to attend and qualify the online training program. Definitely I
reached on this conclusion that such programme is also very beneficial to those who has
no time to attend in day time”.
“Makes me understand the difference in real classroom and virtual classroom. Counseling
is different from normal interaction in classroom.”
“Helped to appreciate the diverse responsibilities of the academic counselors of IGNOU”.
Most of the participants benefitted and their needs and expectations were fulfilled. However,
there were also some suggestions for improvement. Some of comments are noted below.
“You may send notes of tutorials on word file/open office file and/or PPT mode directly to
the learners.”
“Open source topics should also be included so that those academic counselors from
fields other than computer science too can realize the potential of free and open source
software.”
“Process of evaluation took a long time. This aspect should be taken into consideration.”
While the participants were asked to comment freely about the online training as a whole, some
of them reacted as below:
“Every counselor of IGNOU should join the course. This course has unique potential to
improve the quality of counseling and transform even an ordinary counselor into an
excellent one”.
7.0 Conclusion
The successfully completed participants of the online training program expressed their
satisfaction on accessibility, contents, collaboration and support provided by the facilitators. This
program created an opportunity among the academic counselors irrespective of their discipline
to update their knowledge and skills in the respective areas of ODL and help them to perform
their tasks effectively.
There is a need to conduct a similar kind of study with a large number of academic counselors
in future as they successfully complete their online training program from IGNOU.
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G.Mythili
Analyst (SG)
Staff Training Research Institute of Distance Education
Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi
gmythili@ignou.ac.in
P.K. Biswas
Professor of Distance Education
Staff Training Research Institute of Distance Education
Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi
pkbiswas@ignou.ac.inYou can also read
