Institutional Web Management Workshop 2004:
Strategic Staff Development for the Web-enabled Organisation

The Web is transforming educational institutions but the skills of the staff are not keeping pace with this transformation. Ad hoc and small scale training courses are the most that many institutions offer to improve staff skills. Staff development and training plans need to be created at a strategic level.
A majority of staff now need to be able to use the wide range of Web-based services that have become "mission critical".
Information provision, documentation, management systems, e-learning, marketing, e-commerce are just some of the services provided in many institutions.
There is a need to create strategic staff development plans and programmes in order to take full advantage of these services. An integrated programme will provide the appropriate level of training for the appropriate staff at the appropriate time.
Examples of training and development might include:

• Technical training programmes for web service managers and providers
• Content provision training for administrators and teaching staff
• Policy, standards and legal issue seminars for managers
• Information skills sessions for students

A staff development plan will aim to integrate programmes of this type in a complimentary way.

This presentation will provide an insight into developing such a plan and how it can help in terms of providing career development and staff retention. It will also discuss the issue of convincing senior managers of the need for this strategic approach to staff development and training in a web-enabled institution.