2015-11-23 and 2015-11-25 ELAG Meeting

David Markwell went through the Work Plan asking for comments. There were some questions related to clarification of application prioritization and sharing of materials. These related to current practice and earlier advice from the ELRG and have been included under item 5 below. Others were initial suggestions for some of the Work Plan items and these are included in the separate expansion section below.

Suggestion - Another criteria for success could be - How we manage the information and get feedback about other countries? 

Response - The main thing we want in criteria of success is that they are measurable so anything we add but we need to be able to measure it. This does not seem to be an easy item to measure so prefer it to remain as a general intent rather than a success criterion.

Note - This response was accepted with not further suggestion for change.

There were no further comments on or suggestions for changes to the Draft Work Plan in either of the two calls.

Question - Can we make suggestions on parts of the course that are valuable and others that are less useful.

Response – It would be good to get feedback on which features should we keep in future courses (such as Implementation course) and working out what we can put in or change. However, one factor in determining usefulness is audience and we know current course has a general focus (as it is the only Implementation oriented course). One thing in 2016 will be seeing if we can repackage for needs of different audiences.

Question - Can we divide course assignments into mandatory and optional? – Need to link the questions to what skills they are testing? 

Response - ELAG should discuss this as part of this Work Plan item. There are broader questions about modules, optionality and repackaging to consider and this is just one part of this discussion. We should plan to discuss this in the longer face-to-face meetings next year. Looking at what ELAG recommends and what is feasible for the team to deliver.

Question - Will we be packaging course feedback information for review by ELAG.

Response - We have a lot of feedback still to review and will only want to draw ELAG attention to feedback that is not related to minor issues such as grammatical mistakes but more about the content of the course and feedback that is useful to know.

Question - Can we send out the surveys to the Member countries and Vendor - not just the course participants.  We could send out surveys at end of course including needs assessment part what could possible be made into offerable E-Learning modules. Also surveying Vendors and what they are looking for from the Elearning.

Response - We need to avoid creating expectations we can’t meet through survey questions.  There is a general Member survey already being done on a yearly basis.  We already have a survey for the end of Foundation course and will create something once the Implementation course when it finishes - it is more difficult for those not involved in the course to respond to such question.  The Implementation Course questionnaire may identify what is missing and not needed by people. So we may need to look at the questions being used to get that information.  The MF review of budget proposals identified priorities for 2016 and some of these relate to E-Learning additions.  Almost all members currently involved in the ELAG which is another avenue that will provide insight.

David Markwell provided update on the applications for Implementation and Content Development Theory courses starting in January. The team will be asking for input on prioritization in the next few days. Note that we will not allow people to take both courses at once.

Question - Will the team be getting in touch with everyone regarding course applications? 

Response - The team will be get in touch with regards to prioritization of places if required.  The Implementation course applications don’t close as such but we allocate places to people who have applied by a certain date then if anyone applies after this date they will be looked at for later course dates.

Question - Who will the team contacting in the Member country?

Response - We contact the ELAG representative with this information.  It is up to the ELAG representative if they don’t want to do the prioritization themselves to delegate this should they wish.

Comment - Suzy Roy – For USA we don’t prioritize due to lengthy process so we just let IHTSDO do it on our behalf.

Question – Are there any general guidelines for prioritizing the number of applicants? 

Response – Prioritization is in place as some countries wanted to ensure people who would be beneficial to the country’s knowledge in this area get the opportunity to do the course as soon as possible.  The criteria of how students are prioritized is up to the individual country / organisation themselves not IHTSDO.  Also not all countries prioritize (eg USA) and leave it up to IHTSDO to arrange places.

Question – Nwe Ni Tun - can we have the information about who’s applied?

Response – Yes. If we need you to prioritize, we automatically send this information. Otherwise, we provide the same information about application from a Member country when requested by the representative.

Question – How do people get qualified to do the webinar supporting role for the Elearning courses.

Response - It would only be people who’ve been through the Implementation role who could then do the role of supporting delivery.

Question - What is expected in terms of supporting the webinars from a country if they want to support them?

Response - We would want them to attend a webinar with the tutor first for each module and then run a webinar with the tutor in attendance.  So at least one of each, but depends on the person if they would like to attend more than this.  The second session where they are running the webinar would be a live session or if the person would like to do a demo session first we could discuss this. 

Question - Ian Spiers In the UK we are getting to the point where some of the slides would be useful in general in terms of giving implementation advise to suppliers etc.. be useful to use for our own material to encourage Implementation in the UK. 

Response - IHTSDO have a policy on sharing materials for the ELAG group, currently because of maintenance the only slides available in the source share area are the Foundation slides but the Implementation slides will also be shared in the future.  We have a concern about sharing relating to control over any errors in current slides or updates that need to be rolled out we need a way to ensure that once we share these updates can be rolled out successfully and efficiently to any copies that are being held elsewhere.  We are wanting one contact per country to ensure any updates are passed on when needed.

Shared Material is currently on the Elearning site in a course called ‘Source’ you will be able to find Foundation course slides and hopefully in the future Implementation course.  These are downloadable.

PDF’s do not contain all the information that is within the course presentations but are easily downloadable.

Question - Ian Spiers in some countries they might be producing lower level education material could the Elearning site also capture member countries material. 

Response – if you go into Elearning server and look at “My courses” and go to other resources you will find a link to member resources and you will find a link to the UK resources.  There is only one link at the moment to the UK but we’re happy to put other links in to other countries.  The links go to pages maintained by the provider of the material so should not need to be updated (unless the Member services in relocated).

Question - Can we get in touch that we’re interested in helping out with the Tig etc…?

Response – The TIG is going to move and be in Confluence and until we’ve done the migration we won’t be looking into TIG after migration to the new platform there will be opportunities to contribute.

Question – We hear that in 2016 there will be document update, some of the users said that the glossary will be updated in 2016 is this correct?  Some students struggle with some of the terms that aren’t in the glossary terminology that are used in the courses. 

Response - The Glossary is not top of the list at the moment due to other priorities.  However, useful to know what glossary aspects are not addressed, so that when we do update it we address this, there are the feedback forms for the presentations that can be used to feed this back or our general email address.

Question - Is IHTSDO in the UK now has everything moved over?

Response - IHTSDO will become a UK entity from January 2016 they are still currently a Danish company but the legalities should be completed in January 2016, we have moved office to London already.

Question – RE:Confluence - We seem to get an email each time there is a change and it would be helpful to know what that change was. 

Response – you will most likely only get updates for certain spaces.  You are able to remove yourself from the watch list by clicking on the Watch icon and adjusting settings.

Action – DMA will check with Rory if when updating and saving the changes notifies everyone and whether we can reduce any noise from updating the content on confluence.

Anything on ELAG confluence page is public anyone can see it even outside of the ELAG group if you want it set as private contact DMA however our view is that nothing should be private if possible.

Question - Suzy Roy – Reported that David Markwell forwarded an enquiry for Foundation Course student about Continuing Education Credit, I have enquired about this?  If this is something that we want to pursue there are a number of questions to answer but could also set up a meeting and they are very keen to be able to offer this to our courses. 

Response – David Markwell thanked Suzy for looking into this. We are interested but it is something we should look into however we will not have time until the new year. 

Note - Susy agreed to list all the questions and forward to David / Linda to answer. The team will then consider and decide how much work is involved in setting up.