CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
by
Forty-six of the 56 schools
with ALA-accredited programs in library and information studies submitted
data on their 1999-2000 continuing education (CE) activities, the
same number as last year. The ten that did not provide information,
or reported no activity for the year were:
Alabama, Albany, Clark-Atlanta, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma,
Queens, Syracuse, Texas Woman’s, and Western Ontario.
Instructions for this section’s
questionnaire state that only those educational offerings designed
specifically for practicing information professionals should be included. Enrollments in courses that are part of degree
programs are reported in the section on students, in the table “Enrollment
(FTE) by Program and Gender” under “other graduate.”
Continuing Education Events
Continuing professional education
is offered by library and information studies programs in a wide array
of formats. The length of
offerings reported this year range from one-hour lectures to Web-based
programs extending over many hours.
Participation may be recorded as simple enrollment counts,
or may be recognized though the awarding of Continuing Education Units
(CEU's) or academic credit. Below, data on the non-credit events and credit
bearing offerings are tabulated and discussed separately.
Non-Credit Activity
Table V-1 lists the number of continuing education events
that were presented during 1999-2000, the total number of contact
hours of instruction, and the total number of participants. The number of events increased by 28, or 4 percent, and the contact
hours increased by 2,227 (48
percent). Participation reversed the decline reported for the previous
five years, increasing by 7,728, or 41 percent.
These increases are attributable
primarily to two schools, the University of South Carolina and Toronto.
The former produced a two-hour teleconference that garnered
an audience of 5,040 at 282 sites. Toronto, on the other hand, succeeded in a
campaign to vastly enlarge its offerings and audiences, increasing
the number of contact hours by 370 percent and attendance by 122 percent. For a discussion of the Toronto program, see
the continuing education column in the Summer 2000 issue of The
Journal of Library and Information Science Education.(
[1]
) In addition to Toronto, schools that were in
the top in terms of contact hours offering were: Washington, Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan and Simmons. All were among the schools that reported the
highest number of hours the previous year.
The distribution of the number
of non-credit continuing education events is very uneven. Fifty-four percent of the reporting schools
held 1 to 8 events; 23 percent held 9 to 18; and another 23 percent
held 18 to 93 events. The
pattern reflects that of previous years.
In descending order, the schools with the greatest number of
events were: Toronto, Wisconsin-Madison, Simmons, Michigan, and Washington.
The next highest group includes Pittsburgh and Drexel, followed
by three schools that were tied: south Carolina, Maryland, and Rutgers. The list of schools most active in providing
non-credit continuing education has remained stable for considerable
time, although the rankings have varied somewhat.
Table V-2 summarizes non-credit continuing education by
type of activity. As in previous
years, workshops were the most frequent mode of delivery, climbing
by 37 percent after last year’s decline.
The total for “Institutes, symposia, conferences, forums” is
higher than usual due to the fact that Simmons placed all of its 52
offerings in that category, whereas other schools might have reported
these as workshops or tutorial/primers. It may be that this latter underutilized category
needs to be renamed. Since
the “workshop” is distinguished by its inclusion of some kind of active
involvement on the part of participants, there needs to be a category
that covers presentations that demand nothing by listening. The “tutorial or primer” category was intended to be that category,
but it has been defined in a limited way as “a brief remedial exposition
of a subject in order to provide a foundation for more in-depth learning;
generally delivered by an expert in the lecture mode.” This definition seems to exclude the presentation
of new or advanced information in an expository mode. Furthermore, in the form for data on non-credit
CE, the row heading reads “tutorial/individualized instruction,” adding
to the confusion.
The “colloquia/lectures” category
also continues to be problematic, in that quite a few schools have
used it to report presentations open to both students and the practitioners
in the surrounding community. It
could be argued that these are not intended primarily as continuing
education events and should therefore not be included in the statistics. On the other hand, it is possible to conceive of a brief lecture
that expertly conveys a great deal of information and enlarges the
audience’s knowledge. If schools
truly had in mind their practicing constituency in planning and marketing
lectures, and then carefully counted the non-student attendees and
reported only those, one might not object to the inclusion of this
category. Confusion about
this continues to persist, however, and it may be best to exclude
this category.
Another issue in reporting
CE statistics arises from the increasing use of technology-delivered
programs and the fuzzy definition of “distance education.” Under the current data collection method, a school can choose to
report a Web-based workshop under the workshop category and check
the box for alternative delivery, or enter it under “other” as an
Internet course. More CE is becoming available in formats other
than the traditional, where the instructor and the students are together
face-to-face in the same place at the same time. It is time to add categories and definitions to capture a more accurate
picture of schools’ CE delivery.
This need is borne out by the variety of distance education
delivery reported in the chapter on curriculum.
The percentage of events for
which Continuing Education Units (CEU’s) were offered was 35 percent,
remaining about the same as in the last few years.
CEU’s are a standard way of reporting non-credit continuing
education, and awarding them constitutes a kind of seal of quality. Each unit represents 10 contact hours of participation
in an organized continuing education activity under responsible sponsorship,
capable direction, and qualified instruction -- elements spelled out
in considerable detail by the International Association for Continuing
Education and Training
[2]
, and reiterated in the American Library
Association’s Guidelines for Quality in Continuing Education for Information, Library and Media Personnel
(ALA, 1988). With the
exception of Toronto and Pittsburgh, the schools that offer CEU's
consistently are also the ones that have generated the most contact
hours in the last few years.
Tables
V-3 and V-4 present nine-year comparisons of non-credit continuing
education data. They are omitted
from this year's printed report but may be found on the web-published
version at http://ils.unc.edu/ALISE/2001/CE/tb5-3.html
Table V-3 - Nine-Year Comparison of Number of Continuing Education
Events by Types of Events in Reporting ALA Schools 1991-2000 and http://ils.unc.edu/ALISE/2001/CE/tb5-4.html
Table V-4 Nine Year Comparison of Continuing
Education Enrollments by Type of Event in Reporting ALA Schools 1991-2000.
Credit Courses
Table V-5 is intended
to summarize credit courses that are specifically designed as continuing
education for practitioners. It
may be more accurate, however, to say that the table reflects participation
by practitioners in credit-bearing courses, some of which may be part
of masters’ programs. The
number of courses rose somewhat over the previous year, and enrollment
increased by 20 percent. The total credits offered increased from 231
to 292 (26 percent). These
credits were less comparable than last year, as the contact hours
equivalent to one credit ranged from 10 to 16 hours.
The method of reporting does not permit compilation of credit
hours per school.
The 11 schools that offered credit-bearing continuing education courses
were: Domican, Emporia, Iowa,
Kent State, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, University
of North Carolina – Greensboro, Rutgers, San Jose, Southern Connecticut,
Washington, Wisconsin - Madison and Wisconsin - Milwaukee.
The top five schools, both in terms of offerings and enrollments
were Kent State, Washington, Southern Connecticut, Rutgers, and Washington. Washington, Rutgers, and Wisconsin – Milwaukee
made heavy use of Internet delivery for their courses.
The Continuing Education Environment
Table V-6 shows that the audience attracted to the schools’
continuing education events was largely local. The pattern of distribution is similar to that
of previous years. Of the
45 schools reporting, 40 (89 percent) drew at least half of their
attendees from within the state or province.
Given the small but steady increase in Internet delivered CE,
one would expect that there would be more registration from outside
the providers’ area in the future. It may be that promotion of online courses
is still locally oriented.
Schools were asked to indicate
percentages of funding sources: for
salaries for the CE portion of administrators and support staff, for
stipends or salaries of instructors, for travel, facility rental,
and other direct costs (the use of one’s own facilities is excluded). The data are summarized in Table V-7.
Overall, 61 percent of the
schools relied on fees for the bulk of their financing. External sources of funding were by far the
exception, a pattern consistent with that seen in previous years. Those schools that were the most active CE
providers were also the ones that relied most heavily on fees.
Table V-8 summarizes information on how instructors are
compensated for their teaching efforts in both credit and non-credit
situations. The pattern is
almost exactly the same as the previous year.
Table V-9 provides a profile of the instructional force
used in continuing education offerings, both credit and non-credit. The pattern is almost the same as the previous
year, with schools’ own faculty and practitioners providing the majority
of instruction.
The last question asks schools
to indicate who administers and coordinates continuing education activities.
The results for this year, presented in Table
V-10, are very similar to the previous year.
Fourteen schools have shown
continuity in designating a CE coordinator.
These were: Drexel,
Emporia, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Puerto Rico, Rutgers,
Simmons, South Carolina, Toronto, Washington, Wisconsin-Madison, and
Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The schools with the most active programs have
coordinators who bear a title indicating that responsibility.
Summary
Contact hours for non-credit offerings and credit hours for academic courses may be used to measure effort in providing continuing education. Thirteen schools fall into the top ranks in one or both categories: Drexel, Kent State, Maryland, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Simmons, South Carolina, Southern Connecticut, Toronto, Washington, Wisconsin-Madison, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Most were in this same last year. Of these schools, nine employ individuals whose titles indicate that they are specifically responsible for the continuing education program. With the exception of Southern Connecticut, the others have used the same faculty member or administrator for several years.
Six of these schools depend on fees and/or tuition to finance their programs 95 to 100 percent of the time, and four derive 75 to 92 percent from fees. Several report income from contracts and grants. Eight of the thirteen awards CEU’s for non-credit activities.
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[1]
Varlejs, J. (2000). “Toronto’s
Continuing Education Program: A
Profile in Innovation.” Journal
of Education for Library and Information Science Education,
41 (3), 230 – 233.
[2]
The
Continuing Education Unit Criteria and Guidelines can be ordered
from IACET, 1200 19th Street N.W., Suite 300, Washington,
D.C. 20036; 202-857-1122. |