The impact of ICT on staff development

This paper opens with a survey and discussion of recent publications on the impact of ICT on staff development. This is followed, in section 2, with a description of the approach to staff development adopted by Aalborg University, Denmark. The significance of an examination of the situation at Aalborg is that their staff development programmes (involving ICT) are well developed and their experience with them may help other universities to process their own programmes to a successful outcome. This case study is complemented by descriptions of two projects from Oulu University, Finland: the first involves the promotion of the use of ICT in teaching; the second involves the use of ICT in tutoring. The former is already offered nationally, the latter will be offered nationally in 2001. Finally, a case study is described from the Helsinki University of Technology,Finland, which was started early in 1999 and highlights the issues that arise when a university makes a decision to develop towards a virtual university. Section 3 provides a concise summary of the main potentialities of using ICT in development programmes targeted at teaching staff in higher educational establishments, including the results of a SWOT analysis conducted amongst members of the Aalborg working group. The main conclusions are contained in section 4.