G-1) Guiding Principles
1) There are two key concerns in dissemination: make the knowledge accessible and usable.
2) Traditionally, researchers disseminate their findings only to their colleagues via refereed journals and conferences. But EvNet will produce applied findings and tangible products of interest to a broader audience. EvNet is not a collection of 'ivory tower' professors doing pure or abstract research, with no practical applications. We are an applied network, focusing on the evaluation of tangible products and outcomes. Out of this evaluation will come tangible products and policy recommendations to disseminate. We will develop tangible training and instructional materials, much in a multimedia mode distributed by television, CD-ROM or on the World Wide Web, some using Virtual Reality. We will explore the gaming, 3D, animation, video, and virtual reality aspects of educational products, without degenerating into edutainment. We therefore conceive of dissemination and diffusion much more broadly than traditional academic refereed publications.
3) Diffusion will occur at three levels. First, we will disseminate through the multidisciplinary and multisectoral links of our researchers connected to education organizations, training specialists, practitioners, policy makers and public interest groups. Second, EvNet will set up dissemination vehicles at the level of the network. These are discussed below. Third, we will set up dissemination ventures with other funded networks. We make specific proposals below.
4) Our communications strategy will make use of print, multi- media and event-centred dissemination techniques; they will be part of our electronic strategy. Increasingly the dissemination strategy is one of producing for on-line access and deriving print materials from there. There are a number of reasons for this approach. First, electronic networks strengthen access over distribution. Second, it is cheap and quick to update an electronic entry; it is hard and costly to correct a printed error. Third, electronic distribution promotes group participation in feedback, peer-review, and the testing of 'best practice' findings. Everything will be configured to allow feedback, and stakeholder discussion. The central part of the communications strategy will be to make EvNet's on-line site its virtual workspace, a 'best practices' model of how research networks, researchers and stakeholders should conduct themselves in the ?virtual workspace' (see Project 4c).
G-2) Hardware, Software, Warmware: Best Practices, Worst Practices. Successful dissemination and EvNet's evaluation research focus are two sides of the same coin. We cannot disseminate products built on worst practices in which learner needs take a back seat to administrative fiat, budget cutting, and 'technological determinism'. Only through rigorous evaluation can we differentiate between the following worst and best practices, and then decide what to eliminate and what to disseminate:
G-3) Dissemination and Networking Committees: As noted under the Management section, we have set up Dissemination and Networking Committees. The dissemination committee consists of publishing and media practitioners, the networking committee of INTERNET and communication specialists. See Part E for more information.
G-4) Central Web Server We offer to set up and run a central web server for all five funded SRNET networks. This server capacity could be used to link the other SRNETS into a common home page interface with links to all the on going research pages in Canada. This is a joint cash and in-kind contribution from the Centre for Landscape Research Network (CLRN) at the University of Toronto and the Arts Research Board, McMaster University. The CLR will provide $5,000 per year in administrative support, and McMaster will provided $7,500. We expect the other networks to contribute $5,000 per year to support this central server. Content and organization will be co-ordinated from McMaster which has several award-winning web sites. CLR will provide graphical design, technical support and tools. The CLR has extensive World-Wide Web server experience years in teaching and courseware development, and support for local and international organizations with over 400,000 file accesses per month (see http://www.clr.toronto.edu:1080/clr.html). This support has been built on a strong foundation of WWW server tools adapted and developed for dealing with textual and image documentation (collaborative or automated web-transfer), databases (local and/or distributed resource compilation), web discussion boards, mapping, and 3d dynamic environments. CLRNet is running on a Silicon Graphics INDY server with CGI program capability and C, PERL, CSH development tools. EvNet researchers with considerable experience in web page design, production, and maintenance will also participate in this server maintenance. EvNet's Program Leader, Carl Cuneo, constructed and maintains web sites for the official World WWW Virtual Library of all Sociology Departments and Institutions in Canada, the Technology-Based Learning Network Canada, SOCNET (global index of sociology courses on the INTERNET), and McMaster University's Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences Teaching and Learning Committee, and the President's Task Force on New Learning Technologies. At Athabasca University, Peter Holt has constructed web-based courses and talker facilities for the Masters in Distance Education Program and Centre for Computing Information Systems and Mathematics. At Mount Allison University, Brian Campbell has constructed web pages for the Faculty of Social Sciences.
G-5) Listserv The purpose of a listserv is to provide a voluntary forum on the INTERNET to which people can subscribe and from which they can download archived files on specialized topics. We will draw on the vast experience of Sam Lanfranco, an EvNet member cross-appointed between York University and IRDC / (Bellanet). He runs several popular listservs in health, labour, and development, with many international participants. We will initially create four listservs. They will be modelled on Steve Gilbert'sAAHESIT TLTR (Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable) listserv for the American Association of Higher Education (AAHESGIT@GWUVM.BITNET). They will have four goals. First, to act as a general moderated forum among researchers and partners for the conduct of EvNet business. Second, to facilitate special topic discussion areas among network members (such as evaluation, training, dissemination practices, etc.) Third, to provide a forum for disseminating EvNet research findings to the general public. Anyone will be able to subscribe to such a listserv. One of our partners, Web Networks (NirvCentre), has offered to set up a listserv for EvNet for the purposes of disseminating research findings. Fourth, to offer educators and school teachers advice on instructional technology.
G-6) Interactive Data Base: We will convert the TBL.CA web site (which we control) into a much more interactive web data base specializing in the distribution of advice and materials on the evaluation of instructional technology in a more systematic fashion than what is being done in American evaluation sites, such as ERIC, the California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse (http://clearinghouse.k12.ca.us/) or Flashlight (http://www.learner.org/ed_strat/eval/evalflash).
G-7) An Electronic Newsletter containing synopses of major events, findings and news within Event will be distributed across Canada and internationally.
G-8) Electronic Refereed Publishing: Event's program leader, Carl Cuneo, was one of the founding members of the Electronic Journal of Sociology (EJS) in 1994, and is on its editorial board. It is the first refereed on-line electronic journal in sociology in the world. Since 1994, we have grown to a distribution network in 40 countries. We publish in html, ascii, and winhelp formats on the world wide web at http://olympus.arts.ualberta.ca:8010/. As a partner to EvNet, we are making two offers to all five funded SRNET networks: (1) Annual workshops by the EJS editor, Mike Sosteric on the academic, professional, and technical procedures of electronic refereed publishing. (2) Subject to our scholarly adjudication review process, publication of special EJS Issues on education and training from the best research findings of all five funded networks.
G-9) Workshops and Conferences: Although most of our internal communications will be electronic, we propose three national EvNet face-to-face workshops in Years 1, 3, and 4. Year 1 will be devoted to finalization of agreement on the specific details of our research agenda and evaluation methodology. At this conference, two of our evaluation collaborator specialists will be giving workshops on evaluation methodology. Dr. Greg Brown, an evaluation specialist in the Research Services/Strategic Policy and Planning Division of the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services. He is author of PEAT (Program Evaluation and Analysis Technique, 1996), an evaluation methodology design software package. The other person is Dr. Lynette Gillis, Director of Evaluation and Design, Knowledge Connection Corporation, one of our partners. She has produced a manual for evaluating computer-based and multimedia training programs for Industry Canada, Human Resources Development Canada, and Nortel, which is now being field tested (see Gillis, 1996b). She also directed the evaluation of the Interactive Learning Distributed University Course Delivery for the Space Network (Gillis, 1996a). The Year 3 conference will be devoted to an intense discussion of preliminary findings and products, and dissemination plans. The Year 4 conference will be entirely devoted to dissemination. The Arts Research Board at McMaster University will partly underwrite the costs of these conferences. In addition, to reduce costs and achieve inter-network collaboration, we propose that the five funded networks meet in conference at each annual Learned Societies Congress at various locations in Canada. We also propose meetings at special conferences, such as CADE (Canadian Association of Distance Educators) which is meeting at one of our member institutions, Athabasca University, in 1988. We will add a day for EVNET. We have had preliminary discussions with the organizers of the Scholarly Communications in the Next Millennium Conference, to be held at Harbour Centre, Simon Fraser University, in March, 1997. We propose that a joint presentation by the five SSHRC funded networks be made at this conference on the topic of its joint dissemination plan. Some of our publishing partners are involved in organizing this conference.
Finally, we propose three 'Chain Letter Workshops', similar to those run by Shad Valley (http://www.shads.org/) and NorTel , to create a dissemination network of 'best practices' in instructional technologies. We will invite and review applications from institutions and organizations, and select 20 people from various disciplines/locations, to attend a 10-day intensive, hands-on workshop with members of EvNET in Years 3, 4, and 5. A condition of acceptance/attendance is that each attendee return to their home institution and conduct, on their own, a similar (perhaps abbreviated) workshop on the same issue. The costs of $1000.00 registration per person, plus travel and lodging, will be covered by attendees' home institution. We do not foresee difficulty obtaining a sufficient number of appropriate applicants because, by Year 3, we will have a prominent national web site (replacing TBL.CA's site). Additionally, there is widespread dissatisfaction with educational software and courseware. This feeds into a desire by potential participants for high quality ?best practices' information based on findings from our evaluation research.
G-10) Chat Rooms: On the basis of software contributions from Softarc, partner to EvNet and Canadian producer of the world-renown First Class Client educational software, we will run three synchronous chat rooms. First, to conduct frequent EvNet business meetings. Second, to run virtual EvNet conferences on selected research topics (evaluation, problem-based learning, courseware development, collaborative learning, dissemination strategies, training). Third, as a critical research component in Projects 2b, 3a, 3c, 3d, 4a. Additionally, we will run webforums in which members of the public can post messages and receive responses from EvNet experts. We already have experience using NetForum (http://www.biostat.wisc.edu/nf_home).
G-11) Focus Groups: The perceptive reader will by now have detected two substantially different outcomes from our research projects - tangible products with potential commercial value, primarily in Themes 2 and 3, and empirical data with policy relevance, primarily in Themes 1 and 4. Dissemination of these two outcomes is different, though overlapping. Tangible products are distributed in national and global commercial markets, and are subject to the vagaries of supply, demand, prices, and profit/loss. On the other hand, policy recommendations are best disseminated in focus group meetings with targeted decision makers and clients. These will be primarily educational and training organization administrators and managers in Project 1, faculty and teacher associations and unions in the Theme 2 projects, and trade unions in Project 4c. Theme 2 and 3 projects that produce courseware and training modules will also arrange focus group meetings with potential clients and consumers.
G-12) Educational TV: We have had discussions with TVO (Ontario Educational Television) about the conversion of our courseware and training modules to video format and their dissemination through its airways (see http://www.tvo.org/tvontario/tvontario.html). We have not finalized agreements on specific products because of their early development stage. Discussions will continue.
G-13) Media Consultant: Academics are not skilled at disseminating information outside academia. Research findings are published in refereed academic journals read by narrow scientific communities. Disseminating such findings to wider audiences requires their conversion to a format suitable for public consumption. To do this, we have recruited Karen Bertelsen, a practitioner inside the television industry. She has produced her own television videos, and currently hosts three daily television spots (9:57 am, 11:27 am, 10:26pm) on CFMT, Channel 47, Cable 4, in Toronto. As a collaborator, she has agreed to sit on our Dissemination Committee. As a media consultant, she will advise us on which projects, products and findings might appeal to the public and what steps might be taken to convert them to a format suitable for public consumption. Having a person in EvNet from inside the television industry will open doors to a different network of media contacts in the educational television and entertainment industries.
G-14) Multimedia Workplace Training Module The TeleLearning Research Network (TL-RN), through its theme area in Workplace TeleLearning, is planning to assemble a "train the trainers" module on Managing Quality for Multimedia Instruction. This project is headed by Tom Carey, a member of the TeleLearning Board of Directors, and Director, Learning Technology Support, a joint appointment between Teaching Support Services and Office of Open Learning, U. of Guelph, and Teaching Resources and Continuing Education, U. of Waterloo. Tom is an academic member of EvNet. EvNet has entered a joint venture with TL-RN on this project. The plan for the module currently includes an overview of current best practices as well as some specific results from the TL-RN research program. Most of the planned content is on design practices. The module is scheduled for development in 1998. It will be made available to Canadian companies producing training software, with the possibility of subsequent commercial distribution elsewhere. EvNet will add some of its results on evaluation to complement this content. Potential results from EvNet include 'best practices' from its research on the influence of means of delivery on collaborative learning. This will be useful in designing training practices with computer-mediated communications. The training module will draw on findings and lessons from a variety of EvNet Projects, such as the evaluation of distance courses in the Institute of Canadian Bankers ( 4b), Athabasca University (3b), the Michener Institute (3c), and Centre for Continuing Education (3a). By sharing expenses with TL-RN for the development cost of the presentation and navigation architecture, and by using some of the tools under development within TL-RN, the costs to EvNet will be held to $25,000 from its dissemination budget.
G-15) Multimedia Instructional Technology Training Module for Higher Education. Instructional technology has somewhat of a bad reputation of being controlled by the 'techies'. Too often, after instructional technologies are installed (video conferencing, student computer labs, statistical software, world wide web courses), we must find ways to fit learning goals into them. This situation must change so that Instructional Development Centres, rather than Computer Support Staff, control whether, how, and in what ways technologies are implemented. We must put the needs of the learner first. Canadian higher education is currently in a crisis over improper utilization of instructional technology. At the June, 1996, Conference of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) at the University of Ottawa, attended by 400 delegates from Canada and abroad, numerous instances were reported of teachers and faculty who receive no or inadequate training from their institutions on instructional technology, with disastrous results. In real classroom situations, when instructors mishandle the technologies, they pass on to students their frustrations and negative attitudes, thereby harming a whole generation of students in the proper attitude towards, and use of, instructional technologies. We think it is vitally important to train instructors on how technology can be utilized to enhance learning by building on best practices rather than contributing to the lengthening list of worst practices.
In adoption and implementation, faculty often individually encounter and solve common problems in isolation from other instructors, with little sharing of lessons learned. This wealth of experience and knowledge should be built into a central resource that can be made available to others. There are two sets of issues:
(a) TECHNICAL. Most instructors outside the small group of ?techies' have never received training on mastering the technical aspects of technologies in such areas as e-mail, computer conferencing, course newsgroups, INTERNET listservs, discussion groups, chat rooms, the wold wide web, html editing, searching the INTERNET, multimedia production and presentations, graphic design, sound and video editing, video-conferencing, and interactive distance TV. While there are workshops on these specialized topics, they are usually devoted to the technical ?how to' aspects, and are not set in the context of a second set of issues, which follows...
(b) PEDAGOGICAL: How can technologies be employed to enhance best teaching and learning practices? Although many administrators and educators assume that computer-mediated technologies enhance learning, anecdotal evidence and some research suggests the opposite. Students and instructors complain loudly, or sometimes suffer quietly, that instructional technologies reduce personal contact between students and instructors, and lower the quality of education by providing administrators withe opportunities to amalgamate courses into larger ones, reduce faculty positions, and increase student/faculty ratios. Most training does not occur on pedagogical issues set in a technical context or technical issues set in a pedagogical context -- ie, how can computer-related technologies be implemented in order to enhance learning and training effectiveness? It is easy to ask this question, but much more difficult to answer it. Training of post-secondary education teachers must deal with both the technical and pedagogical issues; they cannot be separated. As noted previously, the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) has created a Teaching, Learning and Technology Roundtable to deal with the twining of these issues. Similar initiatives must occur in Canada.
EvNet will develop electronic and hard-copy instructional design materials useful for teachers at the post-secondary level looking for help in the integration of technical and pedagogical training in instructional technologies. Once such materials are sufficiently developed, they will be produced as an instructional manual. In order to make quick modifications as teaching practices and technologies change, we will also produce an interactive Web version, and a CD-ROM version. The purpose of these materials will be to develop a set of 'best practices' guidelines in teaching and learning in the context of the adoption and use of some of the major types of learning technologies in use in many educational institutions. Modules will be organized around the following categories:
Development of the modules will be jointly carried out by Alan Blizzard, Director, Instructional Development Centre, McMaster University, Dale Roy, Instructional Developer, McMaster, Cynthia Weston and Cheryl Amundsen, Instructional Developers, McGill University, and Rudi Aksim, School of Applied Arts and Business, Algonquin College. EvNet will use $25,000 of its SSHRC dissemination funds to hire a half-time person. This person will have extensive experience in both instructional design and instructional technology. Support will be sought from McMaster University and from McGill's Royal Bank Teaching Innovation Fund. We will also work closely with Tom Carey who is putting together a similar initiative with the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training. The modules will be based on a thorough review of the literature, part of which is contained in our extensive bibliography, and on empirical findings from EvNet research projects, especially projects 2a, 2b, and 2c under Theme 2: Evaluating Design Roles. Development work will be in 1999-2001 after findings emerge from these research projects.
G-16) Non-SRNETS: We have contacts with international research networks, especially in France, England, Netherlands, Asia, and Mexico. In Canada, our closest working relationships with networks not involved in this competition have been TL-RN and Knowledge Connection Corporation (TRIO) .
G-17) TeleLearning RN (Simon Fraser University): This five-year NSERC Centre of Excellence Network in Technology-Based Learning began in 1995 (TeleLearning NCE, 1995). EvNet has established several cooperative relations with it. As noted previously, Tom Carey from the Universities of Guelph and Waterloo is a member of the TL- RN Board and currently a member of EvNet. He is the author of our namesake, 'EvNet', and has agreed to play a liaison role between the two networks. Besides the previously noted joint development of a Multimedia Training the Trainer Module by the two networks, several EvNet researchers are part of TL-RN projects (e.g., Jane Webster, Gary Boyd).
G-18) Knowledge Connection Corporation (KCC) began as an Ontario Centre of Excellence (TRIO) whose research mandate is evaluation and delivery of distant learnware. Several members of EvNet are also members of KCC. KCC partnered with us our Technology-Based Learning Network (TBL.CA) application to NSERC/NCE in 1995. KCC joins EvNet as a partner contributing its evaluation expertise. In meetings with its Director, Jamie Rossiter, and Lynette Gilles, it was agree that KCC would contribute its management expertise to Project 1, and that Lynette Gillis would assist in running our evaluation workshops starting the first year of SSHRC funding.
G-19) SRNETS: Strategic Research Networks in Education and Training (SSHRC). Having been involved in research networks for a number of years, we understand (with some dose of realism) that these are fragile, complex, yet exciting, organizations that take considerable time, effort, and care to build, maintain, and manage. EvNet's program leader, Carl Cuneo, was instrumental in arranging the merger of two finalist (RITE and LINCS) and 4 non-finalist networks to form the Technology-Based Learning Network Canada (TBL.CA) in the 1994-5 NSERC/NCE competition. Relationships among networks, and their members, must be nurtured carefully over a considerable period of time. It is therefore with some alarm that we witnessed the rather shotgun approach by some networks in the present competition to building bridges by random e-mail and phone blitzes hitting the 14 applicants across the country. In an attempt to satisfy SSHRC's requirement of an inter-network communications plan, several networks have offered us reciprocal insertions of bridging paragraphs in our respective applications. We have declined such offers with the exception of the genuine relationships noted below. We do not believe that this kind of artificial bridging is the way to build lasting inter- network relations. We suggest two other strategies. First, build on past relationships already established between networks and their members. In this light, we discuss our relations with three other networks below. Second, develop an inter-network theoretical and administrative mechanism for future collaborations among the funded networks in the areas of research, dissemination, administration, and networking. We discuss our suggestions along these lines below.
G-20) Education and Training Convergence Research Network (et.crn): In April Cuneo met in Calgary with Tim Buell, network co-ordinator of et.crn (at the time, Bill Hunter, its program leader, was in New Zealand). We exchanged letters of intent and discussed grounds for cooperation. We worked closely together in the Technology-Based Learning Network Canada (TBL.CA) formed out of a merger of the McMaster-based RITE network and the Calgary-based LINCS network. Hunter, Buell, and Cuneo were part of the same writing team that put together the TBL.CA application in the 1995 NSERC/NCE technology-based learning competition. Cuneo at McMaster and Gaines at Calgary were co- leaders of TBL.CA, and we share a common web site. In addition, some partners in et.crn and EvNet were members of TBL.CA. We worked closely in making a 15-member presentation before the international NSERC/NCE adjudication panel in March, 1995. We now feel understandably awkward competing against one another in the current SSHRC/SRNET program. We discussed merger, but felt that both networks had become too large with separate budget requirements. Nevertheless, we remain on excellent terms, stay in regular e-mail contact, and have agreed to explore ways to cooperate after funding decisions are announced in October. The basis for cooperation are excellent, not only because of these close past working relations, but also because of our common interest in delivery technologies. The delivery of programs to the home, office, and school by InterCom Ontario in et.crn would fit nicely with EvNet's delivery paradigm (Figure 1, page 14). EvNet's Athabasca University project (3b), and its link to Alberta's education ministry in virtual adult education, shares a commonality with et.crn's proposed work in the same area, which bodes well for future cooperation between et.crn and EvNet.
G-21) Learning for Workers Network (LfW): EvNet exchanged letters of intent with LfW, also based at McMaster University. EvNet thought a potentially strong network could be created by combining our strength in evaluating means of education and training delivery and LfW's strength among trade unions. In April EvNet proposed a formal merger with LfW. However, LfW declined our offer. Nevertheless, we agreed that EvNet and LfW have common interests in literacy, evaluation, and trade unionism, and will explore collaboration once SSHRC makes funding decisions. The international reputation in labour research of Peter Waterman, an EvNet member, Cuneo's extensive publications and research on gender and trade unionism (four SSHRC grants on trade unionism), EvNet's partnering with the Canadian Employment and Immigration Union (CEIU/PSAC), other NGO's and labour and teacher organizations (CAUT), and the global Labor-L listserv run by Sam Lanfranco, an EvNet academic member, as well as EvNet's workplace training project (#4c) and virtual workspace labour project (#4d), all form important bases for future cooperation with LfW.
G-22) Canadian Network on the Measurement of Education and Training Outcomes (C-METO): We have developed a close working relationship with Fred Evers and Sid Gilbert at the University of Guelph. Their C-METO network application (in Education and Training Outcomes) is strong on the methodology of measuring learning and labour-market related outcomes. In fact, we feel their application 'fits ours like a glove': we evaluate the means of education and training delivery; they measure the outcomes of that delivery. One way to evaluate the means of delivery is to measure the effectiveness of their learning outcomes - precisely the area in which C-METO is strong. We have therefore worked out the following grounds for cooperation. (1) EvNet's Program Leader, Carl Cuneo, will sit on C- METO's Advisory Board, along with Alan Wright, Program Leader of Dalhousie University's Learning Factors network. Sid Gilbert, Program Leader of C-METO, will sit on EvNet's Research Committee to offer advice on measuring evaluation outcomes. (2) Fred Evers from C-METO, an expert on organizations, has joined EvNet's Project 1 on Administrative Practices. (3) Stan Jones at Carleton University, an expert in literacy and member of C-METO, will join EvNet's Project 3d on literacy. (4) C-METO will provide consultation on the methodology of measuring outcomes in our administrative practices and lab technologist projects (1 and 3c). In return, if C-METO is funded, EvNet will supply C-METO with its evaluation expertise on the technological aspects of means of education and training delivery.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council requested that each network applicant select one of the five areas of inquiry for its research focus. Most comprehensive models of education and training synthesize many of the elements across the five areas. EvNet proposes that the five funded networks develop an integrated research model to form the basis of cooperation and collaboration among the networks. We think this is advisable not only on the grounds of 'best practices' in the building of a Canadian education and training system for the twenty-first century in a world of rapid global economic and technological changes. It is also prudent economically as a way of sharing scarce resources during an era of lean budgets and deficit reductions in government, educational institutions, and the public, private and non-profit sectors. We would like to propose the model shown in Figure 9 as the basis to begin discussions among the five funded networks. It is a synthesis of SSHRC's five areas of inquiry in the current competition. In this model, the ultimate dependent variable, or the goal of education and training, is Area # 4 - Education and Training Outcomes for learners and job-seekers. In this area, standards of assessment regarding learning and training effectiveness are most relevant. In our model, we view such outcomes as influenced by two immediate areas of inquiry - our own Area # 3 on the Means of Education and Training Delivery (structural economic, social, and technological factors), and Area # 1 on Learning Factors. The way means of delivery are set up, and such factors as the heterogeneity of learners, lifelong learning and skills development, influence in a fairly direct way the Outcomes of Education and Training (#4). But these are not one-way causal influences; the assessment of outcomes (#4) allows the adjustment of policies on the delivery of education and training (#3), and on linkages between formal and informal settings and lifelong learning (#1). Hence, at the core of our inter-network research model in Figure 9 are feedback loops reflective of the complexities of this field of research and policy making. The three areas of inquiry at the centre of our model (means of delivery, learning factors, and outcomes) are contextualized or bounded by two additional areas of inquiry - more immediately by Providers of Vocational and Professional Education and Training (#2), and more remotely by the governance issues in Area #5 on Structures and Processes. How the relations among means of delivery, learning factors, and outcomes are structured vary by Provision Sites (public school, post-secondary institutions, in-house training, and home-study), and by government policies on assessment standards, and the financing of the delivery of education and training. EvNet will use this model as a basis of developing collaborative relationships and joint ventures among the funded networks.
We propose that the EvNet administrative structure be generalized and applied to the relationships among all five funded networks. The inter-network administrative structure would consist of the following committees and summary duties:
a) The SRNET Management Committee would consist of the program leader from each of the five funded networks plus their administrators and a SSHRC staff officer. Chaired by someone from a partner organization, it would devise a business plan for working out the administrative basis on which the five funded networks are to cooperate, especially in the areas of sharing resources and developing a common policy on intellectual property rights. SSHRC must grant this committee some authority. Otherwise, the communications plan among the five SRNETS is doomed for failure.
b) The SRNET Research Committee would consist of the program leader and one researcher from each network, and a SSHRC staff officer. One of its tasks would be to examine the linkages between projects across the networks in terms of a theoretical model, such as in Figure 9, in order to establish some basis for collaboration among the research teams between the networks. This committee will review all research projects across the five networks in order to encourage, where appropriate and with the consent of the principals involved, their merger into larger teams, or at least the establishment of closer working relationships among them where they are working on common topics. The Committee will consider whether it should have any oversight function in reviewing and monitoring the progress of research projects within and across the networks. Should it develop some basis on which funding may be withheld from those projects that seriously fail to perform according to their schedules and milestones? There are two rationales for this: (1) Out of all the projects funded by SSHRC in this program, some are bound to fail, simply by the law of averages. It seems appropriate to use EvNet's formative evaluation methodology to 5 detect the early warning signs of trouble in research projects in order to take corrective measures before they fatally fail in such a long period of funding (five years). There seems little justification for continuing to 'throw money' at projects that have suffered 'cardiac arrest'. (2) In a period of tight financing and limited budgets, there must be some mechanism for accountability. Standard self-report mechanisms internal to networks quite often do not have the teeth to eliminate under performing projects, and to route their monies to projects that are clearly performing well and may be in need of additional monies.
c) The SRNET Networking Committee would consist of five members, each of whom would be a communications/ networking specialist from each network. EvNet would like this committee to meet as soon as possible after funding decisions are announced in October, 1996. As previously noted, we propose setting up a common SRNET INTERNET server from the contributions of several of EvNet's researchers and institutions, such as the Centre for Landscape Research at the University of Toronto (Rob Wright), Sam Lanfranco at York University and IRDC, Jon Baggaley at Athabasca University, and Carl Cuneo at McMaster University. We feel that EvNet has the experience, expertise, and infrastructure already in place to quickly create a central node server. We simply ask for a minimal contribution from each network for the maintenance of such a server on an ongoing basis. Additionally, this committee should develop a communications plan for the five funded networks, such as the types of listservs and INTERNET chat facilities that should be set up to share discussions about business and research topics across the networks. It should also plan common conferences and workshops, such as on the occasion of the annual Learned Societies Congresses.
d) The SRNET Dissemination Committe would consist of one member from each network's dissemination committee, or other appropriate person with a specialization in dissemination. We propose that the publisher contacts we have made in EvNet be shared across the networks so that the SRNETS develop a common dissemination plan and distribution outlets in which all can share equally.
e) The SRNET Training Committee will consist of one representative from each network whose specialization is training. EvNet proposes three new subnetworks or programs: (1) The creation of a common Summer Internship Program for graduate student research assistants across all funded networks, such as at Mount Allison University's Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies. (2) The creation of a national RASNET (graduate student research assistant electronic network) across all funded networks. Through a common grad student listserv, research assistants could quickly share information, experiences, and problems working on separate and joint research projects across the country and across different SRNETS. We feel part of the training of graduate students is the sharing of information among one another, thereby learning from each other, and training one another. (3) We think our proposal to develop a Multimedia Graduate Student Research Assistant Training Module would be much better were it to be built on the collective experiences of ALL research assistants in the five SRNETS, not just EvNet. We therefore propose that the research assistants of the other four funded networks participate in the development of EvNet's training module.
G-25) Evaluating SRNETS as Networked Invisible Colleges: Finally, as part of our communications plan for the five funded SRNETS, we would like to propose an evaluative research project that would be sponsored and jointly financed by SSHRC and the five funded networks. It would be an evaluation of the functioning of the networks, and their collaboration with one another, across the five years of funding. This essentially ties research with dissemination of 'best practices' around SSHRC's networks in the area of education and training. The critical question is whether they are effective vehicles for conducting applied research, with deliverables, in the area of education and training. The principal investigator of this study would be one of our researchers, Barry Wellman, from the University of Toronto. EvNet has been unable to recruit partners willing to commit substantial resources to such a project. Therefore, we suggest that the sponsoring partners of such a project be SSHRC and the five funded networks. We further propose that this suggestion be put on the agenda of the first meeting of the five funded networks in late 1996 or early 1997. We have the text description of such a project which we are willing to share with SSHRC and the other networks.
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