Leader & co-designer input to develop & refine
To initiate the project draft designs for development pathways were created based on the current offerings from within each member institution. Draft designs were produced to share with faculty and leadership to help them provide input to the reward process and the Faculty Development (FD) Passport space. Co-designer input also helped to beta test the FD Passport, in order to assure its ease of use, and value to both parties (faculty and their institutional leaders).
The process of leadership involvement
Including senior leadership from the teaching and learning centres created the opportunity to ensure that institutional perspectives were included in the space design, as they identified key priorities and alignment with strategic objectives common among universities. They also assisted in creating and embedding appropriate language to support and reflect the institutional perspectives, while aligning with and being accessible to faculty users. Importantly, they also Identified potential barriers to faculty participation and engagement related to contractual obligations and the comprehensive nature of faculty positions.
The process of co-designer involvement
Faculty as co-designer
A set of 12 faculty co-designers were identified from across all 4 universities within the alliance. An agreement was set up to make transparent their expected contribution to the project. Three tasks were asked of each co-designer;
- Share their current state of practice, and their prior knowledge/expectation around reward and recognition,
- A 2 hour small group discussion, guided by design documents, in order to gather detailed feedback about their current practices for professional development, their expectations of their institution for assistance, their thoughts about the proposed design/goals of the system, and
- Use of the FD Passport in its beta form in order to refine the space prior to it being made accessible to all NOUA faculty.
Faculty co-designer Badge in recognition
Initial feedback was provided by co-designers in the form of a questionnaire, and as a follow-up a focus group discussion was implemented to gather detailed feedback. These elements helped to build the initial space for reward and recognition of faculty development activity.
Once co-designers utilized the space, the final feedback mechanism was implemented (built into the space). Each co-designer shared their response to a series of questions through the platforms ‘badge application’ functionality. These answers formed the final co-designer feedback element: their perceived value of the space they explored. Based on the completeness of their answers, by review from an Alliance Lead, a badge was issued for their contributions.
Co-designers prompts in the badge application, as a method of collecting final feedback data, and reward members for their contributions:
- Describe your favorite map/pathway. Why are you interested in it? In attempting to co