Fall 2009 
Fall 2009
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Fall 2009 |
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Fall 2009 |
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Volume 4, Fall 2009, Issue 4
Quality Assurance Summit Group Showcases the Community of Practice Approach to Technical Assistance and Continuing Education
Michael J. Millington, NCRTM Director
With all of the talk these days about “communities of practice” it is very heartening to actually see one that is alive, well, and producing meaningful outcomes. They call themselves the “Summit group” or alternatively the “QA Summit” or the Vocational Rehabilitation Program Evaluation Summit,” having never seriously contemplated a formal name. In their evolution we can see how communities of practice form and their value to the profession. Michael Shoemaker, program evaluation specialist from Utah and one of the founding members spoke to the origins of the group in their newsletter:
The 2008 Summit on Vocational Rehabilitation Program Evaluation began with one state Vocational Rehabilitation Program Evaluator speaking to another. When I entered my role as Program Planning and Evaluation Specialist for the Utah State Office of Rehabilitation at the end of June 2007, I was encouraged to contact other states’ evaluators and have one-on-one conference calls with them. As part of these conversations, I would regularly ask about what resources in the form of training, internet sites, books, articles, tools and instruments that they have found useful in their roles as program evaluators. There were a couple of program evaluators that gave resources that were helpful in those first few months, but the great majority of evaluators seemed to be in a similar position as I was. They were searching for additional resources and particularly resources that would provide overarching models of how to do program evaluation for a complete agency.
I would typically ask how evaluators were developing new tools. The most common response at that time was that they were doing what their predecessors had done or they were independently creating their own tools. When asked about interaction with other states, almost always the response was that there was little or not contact with evaluators from other states and that they had not been using ideas from other states’ evaluators in developing new tools.
As I continued to make these calls, I went about developing an email group of the evaluators I had spoken to. In October 2007, the idea came to me that we could get together at a summit where program evaluators from different states could come to learn from nationally recognized experts and presenters to improve how they do their work. However, more importantly, at the Summit there would be significant time for program evaluators to become acquainted and then start discussing what they thought that they were doing well, but also share where they felt they were stuck and be able to get feedback from others about how to find solutions.
In November, 2007, I sent out an email proposing the Summit to evaluators from 11 different states. All of these states expressed an interest in participating the Summit or a similar conference. In December 2007, the Summit Planning Committee was formed with representation from 9 different states and plans for the first Summit on Vocational Rehabilitation Program Evaluation began.
On September 25th and 26th, 2008, 47 of us came together from 26 different states to talk, share, listen, get know others, learn, inspire, plan and grow. Don Uchida, the Executive Director of the Utah State Office of Rehabilitation spoke at the beginning and set the expectation that we as state vocational rehabilitation program evaluators will define the direction of the quality of program evaluation for the next 20 years and that Summit participants will be the group of experts others will look to for direction in the future and for the completion of an IRI on Quality Assurance.
The first conference in Salt Lake was very well received, providing the model and impetus for growth in the second year. The conference content became the seed for a special issue on Quality Assurance to be publish in Spring 2010 (Journal of Rehabilitation Administration). A growing committee began to teleconference regularly in preparation for the 2009 Summit conference in Denver. Scott Sabela, Region 8 TACE director and founding member of the Summit group took a leadership role in planning and hosting the event. The Clearinghouse became involved by setting up a webpage, posting the conference materials, and joining the planning committee.
As the year progressed, the scope of the webpage grew. A forum was started, and while it did not generate much discussion, it was the start of a public dialog. Other raw materials were posted from teleconferences, and the first shared documents. The site became more popular among those who had attended the first meeting and more documents were posted. As the site got more traffic and needed some organizing, the group began to see it as a “community of practice” and created a second committee structure to discuss its development. The need to sustain interest and increase sharing through the year pushed the development of the website. Links to educational sites were added. Documents were sorted by topic. A newsletter was developed. The new committee piloted a webinar series. Development has not been without its bumps but by the opening of the second Summit conference, the website was fully integrated with the larger Summit Group.
The 2009 conference was even more successful than the first. The theme evolved from definition to application and the number of participants grew. State Directors, administrators; counselors, and staff in policy & planning staff, data, and quality assurance were in attendance. All indices of satisfaction were very high (4.83- 4.70 on a 5 point scale) following the event. Comment themes centered on the value of networking, sharing strategies, and the direct applicability of the content. The group expressed an interest in moving beyond foundational knowledge and skill in 2010. Audio recordings were made of the main presentations and NCRTM is creating asynchronous training modules based on them. These will be posted on the website in December.
The Summit Group is now moving to expand to a national identity as current leaders take mentoring roles and recruit other state agencies and TACE centers to take the helm. The NCRTM continues to sponsor the bimonthly webinars. The next speaker is Dr. Andrew Houtenville from the University of New Hampshire (November 24, 2009). He will speak with the group about the potential of generating state- and local-level statistics on the population with disabilities for use by state VR agencies. Such statistics encompass topics such as the prevalence rate, employment rate, and median labor earnings, and would be derived from national surveys, such as the American Community Survey and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey. This presentation may serve as the start to a dialogue that would result in the StatsRRTC estimating a specific set of statistical tables that would address the needs of state VR agencies.
All of these activities and resources are available on the NCRTM website at: http://ncrtm.org/course/view.php?id=100. This is the forum for the QA Summit community of practice. It is open for anyone who is interested in the subject matter and contributions are encouraged. Take a moment to view it…even if program evaluation and quality assurance are not your areas of interest. It is a testament to the power of the group, given that the entire initiative was a grass roots effort. The concrete and positive outcomes, even at this early stage, are proof that communities of practice are effective structures for professional advancement and innovation. And the history of its progress is a road map for others.
Elluminate is the New NCRTM Webinar Platform
Michael J. Millington, NCRTM Director
RSA continues a second year of sponsored webinars through the NCRTM and we are making efforts to improve upon last year’s service. The lack of accessibility inherent in the Webex system, along with the prohibitive cost of integrated phone conferences were shortcomings of the service last year, and we looked for ways to deal with both as we searched for a new vendor. The new vendor, Elluminate addresses both of these needs. The shell of the webinar is screen readable and the captioning feature is built-in. The whiteboard feature is still not screen readable, but that is the case with every other provider out there. What was particularly impressive about Elluminate was their commitment to inclusion. The company is primarily aimed at educational environments and has accessibility built into their mission. The system uses java and as such it requires that you update your machine prior to attending your first session (You can have your computer checked and find updates here: http://www.elluminate.com/support/index.jsp), and that your computer downloads the link each time you enter the room. This has not been a problem with most IT folks, and it is perfectly safe.
The system allows for a phone bridge, but is not so dependent on integrated teleconferencing. The primary means of communicating is through the chat function. Voice over IP is available and works very well, if you have a working headphone and unidirectional microphone. This results in a huge cost savings, as long as phone use is minimized. With an increased the maximum attendance and an unlimited number of events possible, we will be able to provide RSA with as many webinars as they need…and begin to make the service available to other groups for a very low cost.
We are presently working through the system, testing new functions and trying to set up a new registration system using the NCRTM directory. The next Webinar using Elluminate will be for the QA Summit in November. RSA is expected to begin its series of TA trainings in December or January.
Clearinghouse Team
Michael J. Millington, Director
Jared Schultz, Principle Investigator
Jennifer Robinson, Office Manager
Ken Tingey, Research Fellow
Kristi Openshaw, Graduate Assistant
Zhu, Chenyong (Jessie), Office Assistant
Cassie Walker, Office Assistant
Marie Elegante, Office Assistant
Larissa Terry, Office Assistant
Rebecka Gregory, Office Assistant
Erica Jackson, Office Assistant
Kalyan Mekala, Project Intern
Contact Information:
National Clearinghouse of Rehabilitation Training Materials
6524 Old Main Hill
Utah State University
Logan, Utah 84322-6524
Phone: 866-821-5355
Fax: 435-797-7537
Email: ncrtm@usu.edu