Digital resources for faculty development in e-learning: a self-paced approach for professional learning

Abstract

Since a growing number of universities have adopted e-learning or blended solutions, faculty development is increasingly seen as a crucial strategy to prepare faculty members for innovative teaching practices. However, a number of barriers prevent faculty from attending training programmes, including scheduling and logistic constraints. Offering a flexible online format for training should provide opportunities to fit user needs better. In this regard, while literature exists on on-site interventions, studies on self-paced online courses are still limited. This paper presents a self-paced online programme for faculty development on e-learning, and explores its correspondence with users’ needs. The contribution starts with an examination of the literature and an explanation of the design strategies adopted for the programme. It then presents the methods used and analyses the main findings. The results show that, depending on their levels of experience and motivation, users demonstrated diverse patterns of use with regard to the contents and activities selected. From this point of view, the results confirm the importance of adopting design approaches based on self-paced principles.

Keywords

• Faculty development
• Higher education
• Self-paced learning
• E-learning
• Online training
• Educational technology