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Faculty Ambassadors for CIT (FACIT) Pilot Program

Background

CIT wanted a way to connect and hear from tenured faculty in A&S in particular, so we piloted the "Faculty Ambassadors" program in 2007-08. The program was conceived as a way to gather a small group of faculty from certain A&S departments monthly, to hear about CIT programs, provide feedback and information about their needs, and to communicate information back to their departments.

The departments for the pilot were chosen based on current activity levels and size. The intent was to expand to all A&S departments in 2008-09 if the pilot were successful. CIT requested that department chairs identify faculty participants (rather than CIT choosing and requesting specific faculty to participate) in time for a spring 2007 kick-off meeting, and those members continued to serve through the 2007-08 academic year. Members who attended all meetings (or talked individually with a CIT consultant if unable to attend a meeting) received a $200 deposit to a Duke account each semester.

Program and Pilot Goals

Program goals:

• Increase CIT's knowledge of needs and interests of tenured faculty at Duke with regard to instructional technology
• Build relationships between CIT, A&SIST and tenured faculty with whom we may not have worked before
• Generate a communications conduit within A&S departments for two-way relay of information about instructional technology which, due to the departmental roles of the persons involved, may reach faculty and departmental administrators which CIT doesn't easily reach otherwise.

Pilot goals:

• Try out program communication methods between Ambassadors and CIT
• Get feedback from Ambassadors about the program's value to them
• Analyze the program's value to CIT (did the program, as piloted, appear to meet the program goals above)
• Determine whether and how to continue the program in 2008-09 

Process

Faculty Ambassadors in A&S were identified from 4 humanities departments, 3 sciences departments, 4 languages departments, and 0 social sciences departments (each pilot social sciences department was contacted 3 times but no faculty were proposed from any departments). The group met once in April 2007, three times in Fall 2007 and two times in Spring 2008. Meetings were generally modeled around an agenda which included:

• information about CIT or technology happenings,
• gathering feedback from ambassadors on any topics proposed by CITers or ambassadors, and
• discussion of department-specific or discipline-specific needs related to instructional technology (sometimes conducted as discipline-specific "break-out" group discussions).

Pilot Outcomes

Feedback from the Ambassadors at the end of Fall 2007 suggested that faculty participants found the meetings valuable, especially the opportunity to hear about teaching issues in other disciplines. They appreciated the opportunity to hear about and discuss technology programs and issues with us and each other. They were willing to fulfill the communication role back to their departments but found it easier to do this if CIT provided written text for them to modify and distribute (rather than asking the Ambassadors to create it). They suggested that meetings be reduced to 2 per semester, a change implemented in Spring 2008.

We noticed that Ambassadors usually didn't submit agenda items ahead of time, although topics for discussion did arise during the meetings. Some items which arose in meetings were things CIT could work on immediately but other times Ambassador's comments were used a one of several inputs on an issue and may or may not have affected change in CIT.

Spring 2008 members provided similar feedback in terms of the meeting contents and value to them.

Based on the outcomes and feedback from 2007-08, CIT made a decision to continue the program, but expand the program by extending invitations to all departments in Arts & Sciences. Based on feedback from the pilot members, CIT will attempt to continue with whole-group meetings at least part of the time, but this may depend on the size of the resulting group.

Last modified August 21, 2008 12:41:03 PM EDT

Center for Instructional Technology, Duke University Libraries | Box 90198 | Durham, NC, 27708
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