Hello Colleagues,
NOTE: In addition to being distributed to identified contacts throughout the University, this invitation is being cross-posted to the ID Lounge and Trainer’s Forum lists to ensure that the right people have an opportunity to participate in these focus groups. Please accept my apologies if you receive duplicates.
Recently, we conducted a survey to get a preliminary glance at the needs concerning training and professional development management across the University. You may have filled out this survey, or you may have been listed as a contact by your budget executive or someone else in your unit who completed a survey.
Some of the preliminary needs identified thus far include a systematic approach to searching, registration, tracking, and reporting of professional development activities for individuals and departments; the tracking and reporting of certification compliance; the ability to provide training tracks based on a particular certification, job description or band; and e-authoring tools that allow for rapid creation and housing of Web-based tutorials.
We will be conducting focus groups in late February and early March in order to gather more specific information on needs.
These needs will then be transformed into technical and functional requirements and integrated into an RFP. It’s imperative that we incorporate as many of the diverse requirements as possible upfront in order to achieve a solution that works for all participating units at Penn State (acquiring an LMS would be contingent upon receiving funding, of course).
In order to do this, we will schedule several focus group sessions at UP over the lunch hour (lunch provided), as well as several phone conferences (not during the lunch hour) for those who are unable to make the lunchtime sessions.
In order to schedule enough small sessions that will accommodate everyone’s schedule, I’m asking that you commit to attend one of the sessions by forwarding this email to lml8@psu.edu with YES in the body no later than Thursday, February 14, 2008.
Those who have responded by the deadline will then receive an email early next week with a link to register for their session choice.
Thank you in advance very much for your participation.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at 814.863.5769 or lml8@psu.edu.
Cheers,
Lisa
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Lisa Lacombe, Director
ITS Training Services
http://its.psu.edu/training
itstraining@psu.edu
814.863.5769
23 Willard
Penn State
University Park, PA 16802
