These are the listserv questions, and responses to the following questions as posted by Andreas:
| Q1. Do institutions use a centralized or decentralized model to house instructional designers. In other words, are such people located in academic units/departments or centrally, for example, within the institution's Instructional Technology department? | |
| U of Kansas | We are centralized, and have two full-time instructional designers (and I am an ID person, but also am the center director, so I didn't count myself). |
| Ursinus College | We have a centralized model. All IT's are within the Computing Services Dept (our Director reports to the Pres. not via the Library organization) and are responsible for tasks other than just instructional. We have a laptop program and the IT's help with that when necessary. But most of all, we work directly with faculty. |
| U of Richmond | Centralized; we use the argument that while a given liaison is assigned to your department, having them live and report centrally allows a team to develop. Therefore, your need is brought to the team and your liaison gains the benefit of everyone else's expertise. There is also the chance for a person with better expertise to be assigned your project and that is better for you. |
| Johns Hopkins | Each academic division has its own centers that employ instructional designers based on divisional need. |
| U of Denver | At the U of Denver, we have two instructional designers that are located in specialized departments who could afford to hire someone for their own use and then two in the Center for Teaching and Learning (http://ctl.du.edu/). |
| Creighton U Medical Center | We have both, Our School of Pharmacy and Health Professions (SPAHP) has 2 instructional designers, there are another that are centralized available to the entire University, however all IDs collaborate to problem solve and make best use of resources. |
| Q2. Are such positions funded centrally or in a decentralized fashion, i.e., do academic units, the Information Technology department, or the institution fund the positions? | |
| U of Kansas | We are funded through Academic Affairs and I report to the Vice-Provost. |
| Ursinus College | Funded within the Departmental budget. But specialized software needed for a specific faculty project is purchased by that dept. either with dept funds or with grant money. |
| U of Richmond | Funded centrally; we look for school and department letters of support when we are asking for new positions to demonstrate need, but the funding always comes centrally. |
| Johns Hopkins | Each academic division funds the instructional designers its faculty can access. |
| U of Denver |
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is a centrally funded unit.
The CTL was established in 1998, and now has on staff a Director
(an active Chemistry Professor), Administrative Assistant, 2
Instructional Designers, Manager of Faculty Technology, Multimedia
Developer, Educational Software Engineer and one graduate and
undergraduate student. Other institutions who preform similar
functions may have a larger staff through the use of students on
short-term projects.
A faculty advisory board chooses projects that the CTL funds/supports (http://ctl.du.edu/about/advisory.cfm). The process is highly competitive. |
| Creighton U Medical Center | Both |
| Q3. Are such positions created bottom-up through grants, lobbying, etc. or top-down by the administration? | |
| U of Kansas | This was more of a top-down situation, although there was some lobbying from the grass-roots, so it's probably a combination. |
| Ursinus College | This was more of a top-down situation, although there was some lobbying from the grass-roots, so it's probably a combination. |
| U of Richmond | Both and in the middle if you count me as the middle. I write grants that bring in some folks on soft money and then I work to demonstrate the need for that person to be kept on permanently. When positions come down from above, it is usually because a new building or center has opened and the upper administration is worried that it work perfectly to keep the donor very happy. They will then provide more assistance to ensure that we can meet the new demands. |
| Johns Hopkins | hard funded positions created by the senior administration. However, we support our project-based work through grants. |
| U of Denver | Demonstrate the need and obtain funding from grants etc. Then move the position into the regular budget if an increase in the centralized funding is achieved. |
| Creighton U Medical Center | Administration, the SPAHP positions were originally funded by a grant, but are now funded from the School budget |
| Q4. What are the qualifications of instructional designers? Do job descriptions include discipline-specific requirements in addition to technological/pedagogical ones or mostly technology and pedagogy? | |
| U of Kansas | I'll attach the qualifications we used to hire our instructional designers. You really should try to get someone with a degree (Master's, at least) in instructional design or a similar field. Because we serve the entire university, we don't specify disciplinary expertise of a particular kind. But, teaching experience (especially at the postsecondary level) is very, very helpful. |
| Ursinus College | We look for experience in producing technology related products (actual hands-on) and also instructional experience/background, either with a degree in Instructional Systems or Design, or with actual teaching experience in Higher Ed. Here, the technology component seems to be the dominant portion. |
| U of Richmond | We do not require discipline-specific requirements because every liaison has a variety of departments. We are more interested in being sure the person has the technological know-how that we are missing. We work with the faculty to provide the discipline knowledge. We have found that moving liaisons around in different departments doesn't hurt and that success generally occurs by a personality match. For example, in the Arts, we have had success with a complete non-artist because there is never a clash of taste. The liaison never thinks he knows more about Art than the faculty member, so when it comes to design, he lets them design. However, this has not worked in Music at all. The same person who is so successful in Art made no inroads in Music because he was not a musician. So, we have now switched some departments around so that our liaison who happens to be a musician is assigned to Music and we are seeing better results. |
| Johns Hopkins | Masters Degrees in instructional design or educational technology. Staff are not hired with content specific expertise. |
| U of Denver | Mix the technology with pedagogy, for technology impacts all, not requiring these skills will diminish the level of service, and hinder cross-institutional projects. |
| Creighton U Medical Center | No discipline specific requirements, I started as an ID in the SPAHP, and believe some knowledge of the subject area would have been helpful, but quite honestly the greater need was someone to collaborate with faculty on pedagogically sound use of technology in web based course offerings. Having IDs with experience teaching is also incredibly useful, more so than discipline specific knowledge. Our experience has shown IDs with strong technology and teaching backgrounds (someone who has been in the classroom) is essential. Our current IDs both have Master's degrees in instructional technology with lived experiences teaching and using technology. Of the Campus IDs, one has a Master's degree in instructional technology with a background in television production and therefore brings a lot of knowledge of the use of multimedia to the mix, and the other a Master's in education. |
| Q5. What are the staffing configurations and levels? Are there typically teams of computer experts, administrative staff and instructional designers or do designers mostly work on their own? If there are teams, how large are they? | |
| U of Kansas | We work very closely with the university's computing services center for technical support to faculty. My instructional designers work together on some projects and independently on some. I also have a video producer on staff that they work with, as well. |
| Ursinus College | We had 3 IT's and each of us was assigned to a set of disciplines depending on our own backgrounds. However 2 of the 3 ultimately left and when we re-hired, we did not make discipline related assignments. We found that is was not needed and did not provide additional benefit to the faculty. We just took those tasks that fit our technical background and skills. The 2 IT's worked as a team so we could back each other up. We are also considered part of the larger "technical" team of Computing Services and assist when necessary. |
| U of Richmond | Teams are brought together as they are needed (and include students too). A large team would include our professional instructional designer and two or three liaisons with specific knowledge (database, animation, audio/video, as an example) and a student or two who may be actually creating some of the learning objects. The liaisons would interface with people in networking or classroom management, as necessary. Often I, as the boss, are there in some of the initial meetings to speak to the faculty in faculty terms to be sure that they understand the commitment they are personally making and to talk with them about any concerns we might have. |
| Johns Hopkins | project teams vary between 5-10 people. (ID, fac, students) |
| U of Denver | We are a department of 7-9 which includes two students. However, we accomplish a lot for the university and provide a consistent approach for managing projects and achieving outcomes in response to faculty requests. An important note, we do not CHARGE departments for out services. This overcomes the possibility that only the departments who have funds are serviced. For there are many instances when small departments or individual faculty have ideas and visions that will influence the entire institution. I manage the cross-functional projects, at any time we have 2 major projects underway and at least 3 smaller projects in development. The teams on these projects range from 1 to 4 members of the CTL, plus the a team from the department(s) whom the project will benefit. |
| Creighton U Medical Center | We,SPAHP,have a staff of 14, a team that works very closely together. One Network administrator and one assistant to manage all of our servers and to server as second level support to the other team members, 5 PC techs to keep all of the faculty, staff, and student computers running healthy (about 1200 computers) and they also manage our help desk, a graphic artist (essential for creation of great course web sites), a web master who develops web applications for us and manages the School's web site (he also works with the IDs when they hit a snag and need some help), a person who manages our online testing (we have about 80 courses online, and a person who manages our computer labs and servers as the back up for our online testing. |
| Q6. How are the services and potential of instructional designers" advertised/promoted" to faculty and academic units to ensure success of such positions? | |
| U of Kansas | Because we are such a small support unit for a large institution, we don't need to "advertise" much to get all the business we can handle! I think it's best to start small and do things well and word will spread. If you start out trying to do a lot of things with a lot of faculty, it will be more difficult to establish credibility and that's one of the most important steps. |
| Ursinus College | Promotional activities don't work. We generally have faculty share accomplishments with faculty and set up these panels, workshops, technical expositions in order to publicize what faculty can do with technology and how the IT can assist them with their goals. |
| U of Richmond | As the leader of the entire group, marketing is my primary job. I am a member of the faculty community and am with them regularly to talk about how we can help. Each liaision has relationships with departments and gets to know the faculty within those departments. We also have regular lunches from faculty development standpoint which deals with many topics, technology being some of the lunches, but not all. We run workshops every spring to show off new projects. I meet with all new faculty at the beginning of every year to talk with them about our services immediately. I ensure that we get involved in all of the main events on campus - no one can miss us! We have been around for 6-7 years now (4 under me), so we are an established entity on campus. |
| Johns Hopkins | Meet regularly with department chairs, email, web sties, and brochures, faculty newsletter, annual symposium, |
| U of Denver |
- Constant presentations to groups of faculty - A wiliness to listen to their needs and be responsive in a timely manner - It's at the core of out mission - No cost to them or their department - Small grants to groups of faculty - A website that is updated frequently |
| Creighton U Medical Center | Via email, flyers, and workshops. Workshops focus on how to use technology in teaching and are usually just presentations that provide faculty with a 'taste' of what is available. We have no problems getting faculty to use our IDs, administrative recognition of the IDs expertise has helped a lot. |
| Contact Person | |
| University of Kansas |
Susan M. Zvacek, Ph.D. Instructional Development and Support University of Kansas, 1455 Jayhawk Blvd Lawrence, KS 66045 |
| Ursinus College |
Our college is 1450 FTE students with approx. 140 faculty. No graduate programs. Paula Laholt Instructional Technologist Computing Services Ursinus College Collegeville, PA |
| University of Richmond |
Patricia A. Schoknecht, PhD Director, Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology and Associate Professor of Biology Boatwright Memorial Library University of Richmond, VA 23173 |
| Johns Hopkins |
Mike Reese Assistant Director Center for Educational Resources Johns Hopkins University |
| University of Denver |
Paul Ross Manager of the Faculty Technology Resource Center Center for Teaching and Learning University of Denver |
| Creighton U Medical Center |
Tracy Chapman, M.Ed. Director, Office of Information Technology & Learning Resources School of Pharmacy and Health Professions Creighton University Medical Center |
2) Are such positions funded centrally or in a decentralized fashion, i.e.,
do academic units, the Information Technology department, or the institution
fund the positions?
4 centralized, 1 decentralized, 1 both
Center for Teaching and Learning
academic affairs, IT, or each academic division
3) Are such positions created bottom-up through grants, lobbying, etc.
or top-down by the administration?
both, based on assessment of need, some grants
grants first, then work into budget later
4) What are the qualifications of instructional designers?
Do job descriptions include discipline-specific requirements in addition
to technological/pedagogical ones or mostly technology and pedagogy?
required: Master's Degree in Instructional Design
desired: teaching experience - pedagogy important
less important: disciplinary expertise (except in some cases - Music)
5) What are the staffing configurations and levels? Are there
typically teams of computer experts, administrative staff and instructional
designers or do designers mostly work on their own? If there are teams,
how large are they?
small teams (2-3) with support from central IT
Denver has "small department" of 7-9
some larger teams (5-10) include faculty, database, animation, av, students
6) How are the services and potential of instructional designers"
advertised/promoted" to faculty and academic units to ensure success
of such positions?
start small, let word of mouth drum up business
faculty conduct panels, workshops, tech expositions - let instructors show
regular lunches with faculty, workshops, fall meetings
regular faculty chair meetings, email, web site, flyers, brochures, faculty newsletter, annual symposium
don't charge them