Review by: Strell, Monika (2005-05-09)

This article is in essence a case study of the support provided to staff before and during the large-scale transition of professional writing courses to online delivery at North Carolina State University. In addition to providing detailed information and assessment of the methods used, it develops a model for this kind of support – called the ‘Triangulated Faculty Support Approach’.

The authors start by outlining the background to creating a special triangulated support approach, which was basically a Higher Education institution’s decision to move a number of courses to online delivery, requiring more staff to adopt a distance/online education approach. The rest of the article is taken up by exploring in some detail the three elements of the triangular support approach: Administrative Support; Peer Support; and Professional Development. In the section on Administrative Support, issues that are addressed include concerns about intellectual property and the general necessity of providing a strong level of administrative involvement in moving courses online.

A much more detailed and multi-layered account of events is then provided in the Peer Support section. The sharing of experiences between early adopters of distance/online education, and those new to this approach, took place at various stages of the support process, in different formats. Methods used included presentations, mentoring via peer-to-peer workshops and through input to a website of shared material. Two important reasons for its success are stated: on the one hand being positive about the potential of online delivery whilst not ‘sugar-coating’ online teaching; on the other hand treating the transition process as a ‘shared process’ where things would be allowed to unfold, and not ‘explode’ and where support was provided depending on the needs arising.

The third part of the triangular support approach is access to Professional Development. In the initial stages of the project, the majority of it took place through an intensive week of training in the form of a ‘Summer Institute,’ providing a variety of training options from technical issues to online pedagogy. A detailed account of the various elements is provided, but one of the lessons learnt was that it was the team learning experience that was particularly appreciated by participants.

The article concludes with the assessment that a successful and smooth process of transition from ‘traditional’ to distance or online methods of teaching requires support from department, faculty peers, and university support staff. This combination allows the successful addressing – in a collaborative manner – of any barriers to online instruction.

This is an interesting case-study style article, which should be particularly relevant to two groups of readers – practitioners in Higher Education institutions who face a similar challenge of needing to create effective support structures for staff who need to deliver teaching online – often within a relatively short period; and those who look into support structures from an organisational development or professional development angle, whether as service providers, or with an academic interest.