Staff Development Fitness Project Team

1. Staff Development “Fitness” Project Team May 16, 2000

2. Accomplishments Completed first of three assessments on “technology fitness” Nearing completion of the second assessment instrument on “instructional” fitness. Beginning design of third assessment instrument on “library and team” fitness. Received support from subject experts reading and improving instruments.

3. How the Scores were Figured Results of the “technology” fitness assessment: Scoring: # of responses times the number value of each of the five points on the scale ? the maximum score possible. Example:Likert Scale 5 4 3 2 1 N=9# responding x4 x2 x 2 x1 x0 20 + 8 + 6 + 2 + 0 = 36 9 x 5 (maximum possible of 100% if everyone gave a response of “5”) = 45 36 ? 45 = .80 or 80% of the maximum possible score. 9 x 1 (minimum possible of 20% if everyone gave a response of “1”) = 9 9 ? 45 = .20 or 20% of the maximum possible score. Since the lowest score possible is 20%, the range of possible scores is actually only 80, from 20 to 100. Therefore the true midpoint of the scoring range is 60, not 50.

4. Key to Total Average Fitness Score: 80 – 100 = High levels of expertise throughout team. Every category is strong. 70 – 79 = Most members report strengths in all but one category. 60 – 69 = Several categories show gaps among high and low fitness members. 50 – 59 = Many categories show gaps among high and low fitness members. 40 – 49 = Significantly low fitness scores among a majority of members.

5. TECHNOLOGY FITNESS CATEGORIES USE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ACCESSING INFORMATION RESOURCES ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING LEARNING NEW TECHNOLOGY UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGY USE AS IT RELATES TO THE LIBRARYAND SOCIAL VALUES EVALUATING THE USEFULLNESS OF TECHNOLOGY

6. Results Importance of Categories Average importance score of all teams responses to all six categories = 82 Highest average importance score by a team was 93 (FA/H) and lowest average importance score was 68 (FAST). Highest importance score given a category out of six categories was Category 4: Learning New Technology with a combined teams average of 88. Team averages for this category ranged from 68 (RAMSC) to 100 (LIST). Lowest importance score given a category was Category 6: Evaluating the Usefulness of Technology with a combined teams average of 71. Team averages for this category ranged from 54 (FAST) to 93 (FA/H).

7. Fitness Self-Assessment Average fitness score of all teams responses to all six categories = 66 Average fitness score = 79 (LIST) = 77 (FA/H) = 70 (RAMSC) = 69 (SET) = 65 (UST) = 63 (SST) = 60 (FAST) = 58 (MAT) = 53 (TST)

8. CAUTION! Winding Road Ahead! The variation among teams may reflect decisions made by a team about how to staff to technology needs. This assessment is focused on capabilities judged necessary for a broad range of teams and positions, and is not always relevant to a specific team or position. This assessment does not assess for highly specialized capabilities, nor should the scores infer anything about performance. In some cases (“setting up a personal computer and peripheral hardware”) we are actively discouraged by LIST from performing such acts. In others (“access and retrieve information through SABIO or associated data base”) some of us are engaged in this activity as a central part of our work, and others are not.

9. ¡CURVAS PELIGROSAS! We are returning the individual surveys to team members so that they can interpret the overall team scores in terms of their own responses. We are asking each team to set aside some time at a team meeting to review the overall team scores and come to some agreement about how to best interpret the scores. We ask that each team report back to the Fitness Project about the next steps or responses coming out of discussions, and suggest to Fitness what training programs or services we might recommend be supported.

10. ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS  There are few agreed upon standards or performance measures related to these categories of knowledge and skill. Can I use a word processor to create a text document? Is it a strength of mine? The answers these questions raise other questions about what it means to be skilled or proficient. This assessment doesn’t tell what “Preserving Intellectual Freedom” looks like, or how to judge if you were able to “develop a perspective on socio-political issues.” There are a wide variety of interpretations about what “fitness” means. Resist the urge to use these scores as if they were finely honed. They are very rough indicators.

11. Additional Thoughts Individuals and Teams may not know what they don’t know. I may think that I am “fit” when it comes to file management, because I can open a new folder and put a file in it. At the same time, I may be creating names for files that will become easily lost, and not aware that I could do better. The self-assessments behind the scores are useful, but not perfect indicators of what we need. While these categories are fairly well understood to be important (as affirmed by the generally high importance scores), they are not static. Some will become more important in the future, and some less.

12. Yet Another Additional Thought Remember, what you know today can always become useless tomorrow. Recent example: moving from Pine to Outlook.

13. Next Steps .The Instructional Fitness Assessment will be ready to administer soon. Fitness team members need to get scheduled to administer this assessment at each Team’s regular meeting no later than May 26. .Teams provide the Fitness Project with feedback on their interpretation of the technology results as soon as possible. .The results of the Instructional Fitness assessment will be returned to teams at the same time that the third and last assessment is administered the week of June12-16. .Teams provide the Fitness Project with feedback on their interpretation of the instructional results along with the third assessment no later than Friday, June 23.

14. Next Steps .The results of the “Library and Team” fitness assessment will be returned within two weeks of the receipt of the last assessment. .The team will work on a final report based on findings of all three assessments and the feedback received. We will seek an empty slot in a team reports session in July. .The Fitness Project team will hand-off the implementation phase of this work, involving development of programs, services, and informal learning approaches to S.O.S. and all teams by late July (10 months after teamstart).