September 2012 – Saul Carliner

September 19, 2012September 19, 2012

Learn@Work Week and Informal Learning Basics Profiled

Concordia NOW, the online news source for Concordia University, recently profiled two special projects:

Learn@Work Week Being Celebrated Across Canada talks about Concordia’s recognition of Learn@Work Week, which is spearheaded by the Canadian Society for Training and Development. (Concordia is a sponsor of Learn@Work week): http://www.concordia.ca/now/what-we-do/research/20120919/learn-work-week-being-celebrated-across-canada.php

Learning at the Water Cooler explores my recent book, Informal Learning Basics: http://www.concordia.ca/now/what-we-do/teaching/20120918/learning-at-the-water-cooler.php

September 19, 2012September 19, 2012

Slides from September 19, 2012 Presentation to the Quebec Chapter of CSTD

Follow the link below for a copy of the slides from the presentation, Who Links the Learning Team and the People We Serve? A Preliminary Report of a CSTD Study of the Job of the Learning Consultant, which my students and I delivered September 19, 2012 to the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Society for Training and Development.

http://education.concordia.ca/~scarliner/visuals–september-2012.pdf

(And congratulations to my terrific students–Andre Valle, Emily Sheepy, Chantal Saylor, Hiba Sabri, Ofelia Ribeiro, and Chantal Castonguay–for their terrific work on this presentation.)

September 8, 2012

September 19: Presentation on the Job Description of the Performance Consultant

Please join my students and I as we present the results of our study on the job of the performance consultant to the Montreal Chapter of the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD):

Wednesday, September 19

6-8:30 pm

John Molson School of Business, Room MB-2130

1450 Guy Street (southwest corner of Guy and DeMaisonneuve)

Montreal

The presentation, which presents the preliminary results of our study into the job description of the performance consultant, won’t be a boring research presentation–it’s geared towards practitioners.

More significantly–if you agree with our conclusions, it strongly suggests that the Training and Development profession has some serious re-thinking to do about this important job role.

Visit this link to enrol:

http://cstd.site-ym.com/events/event_details.asp?id=253037

Still need more information? Check out the information below (it’s also at the link).

Who Links the Learning Team and the People We Serve? A Preliminary Report of a CSTD Study of the Job of the Learning Consultant

Wednesday, September 19

6-8:30 pm

John Molson School of Business, Room MB-2130

1450 Guy Street (southwest corner of Guy and DeMaisonneuve).

About the Session: Since Dana and Jim Robinson formally identified the role in the 1990s, many workplace learning and performance specialists have aspired to work in the value-added role of a performance consultant. But what does the performance consultant really do?

After comparing popular notions about the job with evidence from actual job descriptions, this presentation provides participants with a research-validated, general job description for the role and links that description to the CSTD Competency Model. Using that information, this session concludes by suggesting specific hiring and performance management strategies that learning leaders can use with their performance consultants, and professional development tactics that aspiring performance consultants might consider.

Objectives

Using research-validated information as a guide, differentiate a performance consultant from other jobs in workplace learning and performance.
Using a research-validated job description as a guide, identify specific hiring and performance management strategies for working with or as a performance consultant.
Using the job description and the CSTD Competency Model as guides, identify specific professional development strategies for aspiring performance consultants.

Speakers: Saul Carliner, CTDP, Chantal Castonquay, Ofelia Ribeiro, Hiba Sabri, Chantal Saylor, Emily Sheepy, and Andre Valle

Directions:

By Metro: Guy-Concordia Metro. Take the Guy Street exit to the street level. Exit onto the street. The building will be opposite of you when exit the Metro station. Cross Guy street (the wider street). Enter the building. Go to the second floor. Look for Room MB-2130. (There is an information desk near the main floor entrance should you want to ask someone for directions.)
Street address: 1450 Guy Street. Although no parking is available in the building, several surface lots and on-street parking spots are available nearby.

September 4, 2012September 3, 2012

Learning at the Water Cooler

Is chatting by the water cooler or engaging in an online conversation wasting time on the company clock? Not necessarily, says Concordia’s Saul Carliner, director of the Education Doctoral Program and associate professor in the Department of Education.

Both can be valuable learning experiences — what education experts call informal learning.

Read the entire feature about Informal Learning Basics at Concordia University’s Alumni website: http://www.concordia.ca/alumni-giving/alumni/news/announcements/2012/08/learning-at-the-water-cooler.php

September 4, 2012August 21, 2012

What Does the Transactions Publish? What Do Transactions’ Readers Want to Read?

What does the Transactions Publish? What do Transactions’ Readers Want to Read?, which I co-wrote with Nancy Coppola, George Hayhoe, and Helen Grady and was published in the fourth quarter 2011 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication,characterizes the state of the material published in the peer-reviewed literature on technical communication and contrasts it with the preferences of readers of the Transactions.

As the abstract of the article notes:

Research Problem: The change in editorship of the Transactions on Professional Communication provides an opportunity for investigate the match between the content published by the journal and the content sought by its readers and to assess the uniqueness of the niche that it fills among peer-reviewed journals on professional and technical communication.

Research Questions: What content does the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication publish? How does that compare to the content published by other journals in the field? And what content do readers of the Transactions want to read?

Literature Review: Researchers in most fields occasionally analyze the entire body of literature within their disciplines as a result of a particular request or a research initiative. The general purpose of these analyses is to assess the current state of the literature, although each analysis usually has a more specific focus that affects the entire field it covers. Such reviews have had goals like identifying the leading works in a field, assessing the state of the literature of the field, providing a basis for changing the direction of a journal or body of literature, and assessing the alignment among different parts of a body of literature. This study is rooted in a particular study intended to prepare for a transition among editors of a journal.

Methodology: To identify what the Transactions publishes and its unique niche among peer-reviewed journals in the field, researchers identified all peer-reviewed articles published by four major journals in professional and technical communication between January 2006 and December 2010: the Transactions, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Technical Communication, and Technical Communication Quarterly. Using the STC Body of Knowledge schema, two researchers coded the subjects of articles and adapting a schema by Klein (1999), they categorized the type of research underlying the articles. To identify reader preferences, the other two researchers surveyed members of the IEEE Professional Communication Society (publisher of the Transactions) about their preferences for content and types of research (using the same schema).

Results and Discussion: The studies provide insights into the extent of alignment between the material published by the Transactions on Professional Communication and the preferences of its readers on the types of topics covered and the methods used to generate them.

To see the complete article, visit http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=47. (Note: Only free to members of the IEEE Professional Communication Society and to those entering through university libraries with a subscription to IEEExplore.)