Features
UW-Extension helps extend the knowledge of the university around the globe
Given the worldwide impact of the economic downturn, organizations are seeking cost-effective solutions to lean budgets. In the following two articles, News & Ideas readers can learn how UW-Extension's Instructional Communications Systems (ICS) makes training, meetings and conferences available to groups and individuals around the world through WisLine Web, which simply requires an Internet connection and a phone line.
For more information about WisLine Web:
http://www.uwex.edu/ics
info@ics.uwex.edu
Mike Jones
Educational Outreach Specialist
(608) 265-8911
mike.jones@ics.uwex.edu
Engineers in west-central India heard and saw UW-Madison instructor Kevin Hoag as he delivered an engineering seminar in Madison, Wis., via Instructional Communications System's WisLine webconferencing technology.
Distance-education expertise spans 8,000 miles to bring professional development to engineers in India
This is a story with a happy ending. If you consider the mission—connecting engineers in Pune, India, with an instructor in Madison, Wis. (a distance of more than 8,000 miles)—and an almost half-day time difference, forecasting a happy ending might have seemed downright optimistic.
University of Wisconsin's distance-education expertise is known worldwide
That's where UW-Extension's Instructional Communications Systems (ICS) staff members and their expertise in distance-learning technology come in. This real-world scenario demonstrates the far reach and effectiveness of distance education, in this case, webconferencing, and highlights how ICS helps clients in Wisconsin and around the world.
Syed Shahed set the scenario in motion. He received his doctorate at UW-Madison and remains a good friend of the university. A few years ago, Shahed, currently living and working in India, was elected president of his country's Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). One of his goals as president was to offer a professional development seminar for practicing engineers under the auspices of SAE India. The course proved popular, and he added similar seminars, one of which he co-presented with Kevin Hoag, an instructor in the Department of Engineering Professional Development (EPD) in the UW-Madison College of Engineering.
ICS employees work into the early-morning hours on a holiday weekend
Because the EPD uses WisLine Web to successfully deliver its online master's degree in engineering in engine systems to participating students overseas, Shahed and Hoag decided to use WisLine Web to offer an engine design and development seminar in conjunction with SAE India.
The biggest concern was the 11 1/2-hour time difference between Pune and Madison. For Hoag to begin his presentation at 9 a.m. Pune time, he and the ICS WisLine Web operations staff had to begin their work at 9:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Madison. With breaks and questions, the seminar would run until about 12:30 a.m. Madison time. The course started on a Sunday in India, so the ICS operations staff and Hoag worked Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights over the January 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend.
Satisfied customers in India and Wisconsin
This is what ICS's clients had to say about the seminar results:
- EPD instructor Hoag: "[The WisLine Web] worked flawlessly. Audio quality was very good, and the Internet worked perfectly... We used the new camera feature, so that workshop participants could see a small camera inlay of my 'talking head.' While I did not think this would be important, the feedback from India is that it helped tremendously in making it feel live."
- SAE President Shahed: "The technology worked very well and the visual image was of high value. I cannot emphasize enough the need for such courses in emerging regions. If long-distance technology can work as effectively as it did this time ... then the number of people who can be reached is vast."
Optimism justified
And here is the happy ending: Fifty-five people in India were extremely pleased with the course and its delivery and got the knowledge they were seeking.
By Mike Jones, educational outreach specialist, Instructional Communications Systems, UW-Extension
Web conferences help transcend time and travel limitations
When the New South Wales Nurses' Association (NSWNA), a 51,000-plus member nursing union in Australia, needed help in determining how to provide effective professional in-service and other training, collective-bargaining representation, and legal and other services to its rapidly growing membership, it reached across 15 time zones for the expertise of John Lund. NSWNA staff members knew Lund, a professor at the School for Workers in the Continuing Education, Outreach and E-Learning division of UW-Extension in Madison, Wis., from his extensive on-site involvement with Australian unions during several previous visits to Australia, including his 2007 sabbatical.
Overcoming time and travel constraints via technology
As the NSWNA and Lund began their planning in May 2009, Lund was appointed by President Barack Obama to head the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards in Washington, D.C. This development might have ended the collaboration, but Lund and the union agreed to do an online organizational climate survey of the NSWNA staff, with Lund tabulating the results and sharing them with the union's officers and staff in a series of Web conferences using UW-Extension's Instructional Communications Systems WisLine Web.
"While I have used online research programs before," Lund explains, "I have always felt the opportunity to share the findings and discuss them face-to-face with the group is an essential part of this type of work. But that wasn't going to be possible in the face of very tight time constraints, and so the only possibility for personal interaction was through ICS' webconferencing services."
Convenient technology encourages employee involvement
Nearly 80% of the organization's staff completed the online survey, and Lund immediately e-mailed a tabulation of the results to all of the union's staff members. Three Web conferences were scheduled for the mornings of June 2 and 3, Sydney, Australia, time, which was evening of the previous days in Madison, Wis. The Web conferences brought together groups of approximately two dozen union staff members who reviewed the results of the survey, discussed their significance, and suggested possible action.
Robyn Morrison of the New South Wales Nurses' Association says that the Web conferences allowed union employees to feel included in the overall climate-survey process: "The webconferencing facility allowed participation of all employees who wanted to be involved to do so, thus providing additional input and feedback."
Deadline met, thanks in part to WisLine Web
Gathering comments gleaned from nearly six hours of Web conferences plus the qualitative and quantitative data results from the online survey, Lund prepared a final report with recommendations for improving the union's organizational climate in time for him to begin his new job in Washington, D.C., in late June.
By John Lund, professor, School for Workers, Continuing Education, Outreach and E-Learning, UW-Extension, and Margaret E.(Peg) Davis, senior university relations specialist, University Relations, UW Colleges and UW-Extension