—Richard J. Cox, September 22, 1999
I briefly examined (with the assistance of one of my graduate students, Judy Silva) what a group of national professional associations are doing in the area of continuing education. The associations included the American Library Association, Special Libraries Association, Medical Libraries Association, Assoc. of Records Managers and Administrators, National Assoc. of Government Archives and Records Administrators, American Society for Information Science, Assoc. of Canadian Archivists, Society of Archivists (U.K.), and Australian Society of Archivists. This examination was based only on information provided at web sites. Please let me know if there is other information needing to be obtained or potentially useful in our deliberations.
ANNUAL MEETINGS AND CE. All of the organizations primarily focused on offering CE at their annual meetings. This corresponds to what SAA does, although it appears that SAA's offering of courses around the country is unprecedented in scale.
EDUCATION OFFICERS. Some associations have full-time Education Officers while others do not. Groups that have such a person, such as MLA, have more elaborate CE programs. It is obvious, however, that there is no need to fear comparison with other associations since every type of staffing (from full-time to volunteer to no-staff) is in place.
COSTS. There was not considerable data on costs, although they seemed to be in the same range as normally charged by SAA. Brief partial and day-long workshops ranged from $45 for members to $255 for non-members and from $530 to 1250 for special and distance education courses.
DISTANCE LEARNING. A couple of associations offer either distance learning, online, or home study courses. ARMA offers, for example, a home-study course on "Advanced Records and Information Management." This can be completed in nine months and costs $300. It seems that SAA's current experimentation with the ERM online course puts it out in front in such efforts.
PHILOSOPHICAL STATEMENTS. Most of the associations have some sort of philosophical statement about what it is doing in the area of CE. Below is an example of ASIS's statement:
"The purpose of ASIS Continuing Education is to help practicing information professionals develop and maintain the rapidly changing set of critical skills demanded by today's (and tomorrow's) information operations and by the changing needs of information users. As a result of ASIS' multi-disciplinary nature, we offer a unique array of short courses. Our courses are designed to help information professionals (regardless of their work setting) stay on top of the latest techniques and technologies for information management.
Most of ASIS' courses are held in conjunction with ASIS conferences. We also schedule some courses for regional presentation. Of course, we don't offer all of our courses all the time and we are always developing new courses as the issues and problems faced by information professionals change and as the tools and technologies change to meet the new challenges. Be sure to check our schedule of Upcoming Courses."
Other professional associations have fuller statements (such as the ACA with its CE guidelines and Education strategy). SAA, with its PACE guidelines, is certainly in the forefront with the comprehensive of its CE philosophy. A matter of continuing worry, and certainly one not being addressed by the other associations, is how CE relates to graduate education.
INTERESTING CE FEATURES. I noted a number of CE activities SAA might consider or we might consider putting in our report to Council. They are as follows:
1) Special targeted institutes. SLA offers a "State-of-the-Art Institute." This is "designed to provide a unique forum for the exchange of ideas on timely and thought provoking issues affecting the information industry and the business community. The target audience for the State-of-the-Art Institute includes senior-level information specialists and business professionals involved in their organization's information structure." This suggests the idea of SAA trying to offer higher cost, intensive institutes focused on reaching non-archivists such as policymakers and others.
2) Online, continuing surveys. SLA offers a Web based brief survey on professional development needs, allowing for ready communication of needs (http://www.sla.org/professional/websrvy.html). SAA could do the same and have steady feedback about what it is doing or needs to do.
3) Clearinghouse functions. MLA offers a searchable clearinghouse of all courses approved by MLA for its CE contact hours. Is a clearinghouse the most critical role SAA could take on? I will look into what clearinghouses exist and what they cover.
4) Charging for course approvals. MLA, in supporting its approving function, provides an elaborate mechanism by which programs offering CE are evaluated and approved, at a modest cost for review and listing. Perhaps this is a logical role for SAA, although given the propensity of SAA members and other archivists to complain about any additional service charges this might not be a good idea. This might also be a more appropriate role for the Academy of Certified Archivists.