By Blessie Mathew

Over the past few years, CAPS: Your U of A Career Centre, the central career services office at the University of Alberta, has entered the world of online learning. The process involved continued thought and effort around issues like determining the demand for online services and structuring and positioning online learning to balance with and, in some cases, enhance in-person services. We were also compelled to find ways for staff with varying technological expertise to learn new technology, create high-quality career education and translate their advising and facilitation skills to a new environment, all while maintaining previously existing responsibilities.

Using Moodle, the learning management system (LMS) recently adopted by the University of Alberta, we currently offer 10 courses (nine for clients and one for student staff), each significantly differing in degrees of synchronicity with facilitators and other learners. Some are completely asynchronous and serve as a place where clients can access basic career-related information as needed, 24 hours a day. Other courses incorporate synchronous elements like virtual office hours and small group activities, and asynchronous elements like forums and private blog posts. A couple of courses require learners to access online information prior to and after attending an in-person workshop.

Why move online?

A major driver in moving online was the need to increase accessibility of services. As a result of both formal and informal assessment, we learned many clients were experiencing difficulty accessing career services during normal business hours, either due to competing demands on their time or their geographical location. While the decision to build some services online was intended to address the needs of these clients, we found it made sense for our clients overall. Since the University of Alberta adopted Moodle as its only LMS, most students were already accessing it daily and skillfully navigating their online courses. Moving even basic career information online was akin to opening a physical location in a high-traffic spot on campus.

As we explored delivering career services online, we happily discovered the online environment is not simply second-best. Because of the guided reflection required by many career interventions, we realized, in some situations, the online environment might actually better serve clients. For example, students participating in work experience programs (in faculties we partner with) complete online courses that guide them through setting learning objectives, reflecting on their work experience and drawing connections between their newly acquired knowledge and their career plans. Although they are not physically on campus, students are engaged in career exploration and feel connected to and supported by university staff.

Another advantage of moving online is that it helps facilitators use their time more effectively and with more impact. Experience has proven our clients are rarely interested in attending anything longer than a two-hour workshop. This proves to be challenging since facilitators are utilizing precious time providing basic information, catering to the lowest level of knowledge. Although activities are included, facilitators are often unable to give participants the time they need to engage in them fully.

The online environment allows us to provide comprehensive background information as well as meaningful activities allowing participants to synthesize and personalize career information. In the online environment, clients can immediately access various sources of information; reflect upon and craft their responses; and, with the help of the facilitator or other learners, make new connections and revise responses as needed. Clients become active participants in the learning process and regulate both the amount of time they allot to the course and the depth to which they explore each topic. Facilitation becomes less about providing basic information and more about coaching and guiding – a departure from what is common in our in-person workshops.

Challenges and Solutions

Moving online has not been without its challenges. The efforts required to add new services needed to be balanced with the efforts of providing existing services. Timelines were stretched and learning curves were steep as staff took training courses (both about Moodle technology and teaching online) and undertook the creation of their first courses. Making online courses a priority project and hiring two summer students to focus on online courses significantly boosted the rate of development. Workshops with historically low registration were cancelled to decrease workload and ongoing, full-time staff worked collaboratively to cover each other off so they could take turns focusing on development for a couple weeks at a time.

Decisions about course structure (e.g. the degree of synchronicity, length and timing of courses, and selection of learning tools) were laboured at times, mainly because of the desire to maintain high-quality and individualized service while balancing the demands on staff that are still responsible for delivering many of the existing in-person services. Online courses needed to be a valuable experience for learners but avoid consuming too much of the facilitators’ time.

Decisions about structure were also crucial in creating and maintaining a positive and professional online presence. For example, we decided on a consistent layout, created learning objectives and course outlines, selected tools that engaged many learning styles, wrote logical and concise course instructions and set clear expectations about response times. Student testers provided valuable feedback to help us improve and ongoing course evaluations will be created.

Course content was also scrutinized as we sought the balance between delivering useful and meaningful information online while encouraging clients to make use of in-person services. Although our online courses replaced a few in-person workshops, we did not see them replacing all workshops, and certainly not high-impact services like individual consultations, panels, job shadow week and so on. Our solutions varied depending on context and we quickly came to appreciate the flexibility of blending online and in-person learning.

A current area of focus is building staff skills in online facilitation. We recognize it is equally as important online as it is in person to create a safe environment for learning and a trusting and confidential relationship between client and practitioner. Although most in-person advising and facilitation skills translate well to the online environment, we also need to mitigate the loss of elements like body language and tone of voice. Facilitators must learn how to effectively express their thoughts and feelings in written words and be ever thoughtful, purposeful and open in their online communication.

The online environment also requires our facilitators to move seamlessly between roles and responsibilities, including course development and administration, providing technical support to participants, sharing information and resources, encouraging participation in group and individual activities and providing individual advising. In order to build capacity in both technical and teaching skills, staff are taking online courses provided by the university and will be further supported by an in-house online facilitation manual. As always, they will consult with each other and draw on each others’ experience. Student staff (selected to facilitate online courses based on their experience in delivering in-person services) will be shadowed by more experienced staff as they facilitate their first online courses.

For CAPS, moving services online has proven to be a great solution to meeting the needs of our clients and a valuable learning experience for the career education staff. The process was slow and grinding at times as we debated the positioning of online services among our range of in-person services. However, that was important to determine since it provided a touchstone to gauge ongoing decisions about course content and structure. Since they remain indispensible players in developing and delivering services, it was also crucial to address staff anxiety about their lack of skill and restricted time as they learned and applied new technology. As we progressed, we became increasingly comfortable with the online arena. We are now in a place where conversations about the seemingly endless possibilities of online and blended learning abound. Ultimately, we would like to be in a place where the technology is so comfortable that initial conversations about new services centre on benefits to clients rather than the mode of delivery.

Blessie Mathew is Manager, Career Education at CAPS: Your U of A Career Centre at the University of Alberta. She oversees the development, delivery and evaluation of in-person and online career education services. Previously, she spent 13 years advising undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, experienced professionals and newcomers to Canada.