MMU put the 'e' into equality & diversity training

By: Julie Powell

How do you provide equal opportunities and diversity training to nearly 45,000 people without hiring an army of trainers and spending an amount equivalent to the GDP of a small country?

That was the stark question facing Josie Moores, Assistant Development & Training Manager at Manchester Metropolitan University, last year. "All our equal opportunities and diversity training had traditionally been delivered through classroom based events." explains Josie. "While this had worked reasonably well when we were just training staff, one of our key objectives was to provide a briefing to students too. And with nearly 40,000 students, classroom training just wasn't an option."

Josie and her colleagues quickly realised that e-learning could be the answer. "We knew that e-learning could be a highly cost-effective way of providing training to large numbers of people." remarks Josie. "Given how busy people are, its flexibility was also attractive and we liked the idea of the training being available on demand. Also, by linking the e-learning in with WebCT - our online learning delivery system - we could track usage and results, which was very important for us."

Having identified e-learning as an ideal medium, the next step was to evaluate a number of potential products and suppliers. "We wanted an online e-learning solution that met our specific needs as a University and provided a highly interactive and engaging learning experience for both staff and students." says Josie. "We also wanted to be able to offer different courses to specific groups within the University, so that everyone received training that was directly relevant to them."

After an extensive evaluation process, MMU chose bespoke e-learning development specialists Cylix to develop a series of three courses on equal opportunities and diversity. "We chose Cylix because they had past experience developing e-learning materials on equal opportunities and diversity, and we really liked all the ideas they had for meeting our requirements and making the courses interesting and engaging." says Josie.

Steven Price, Managing Director at Cylix, elaborates: "The problem with many courses that deal with legislation is that they simply itemise points of law, which makes for dull and ineffective e-learning. We wanted to actively engage users and provide them with a practical understanding of how the law applies to everyday situations in the workplace." Central to Cylix's approach were:

• High levels of interaction to engage users and actively involve them in the learning process.
• Interactive case studies and scenarios to explore how key issues apply in a range of 'real world' situations.
• Reflective questions and 'discovery learning' sequences to raise people's awareness of their own preconceptions, attitudes and beliefs.
• A range of advanced accessibility features for users with disabilities.

One particular challenge Cylix faced was providing people with good and bad behavioural models. "If we'd been developing the courses for CD or DVD deployment, video would have been a viable option." remarks Steven. "However, video requires a lot of bandwidth, which ruled it out for this project." Undeterred, Cylix suggested implementing an innovative low-bandwidth alternative to video in the form of photomation. "Photomation is basically a series of animated photographs timed in to actor dialogue." explains Steven. "Done well, it can be as effective as video when it comes to illustrating different types of behaviour, but consumes only a fraction of the bandwidth."

Josie agrees: "We loved the idea of photomation. It's an excellent way of illustrating people's behaviour and demonstrating how legal concepts apply in practice." she says. "What's more it gave some of our drama students an opportunity to act in the scenes, which was great!" she adds.

MMU and Cylix worked together closely over a period of nearly 6 months to develop the three e-learning courses. Once each course was initially developed, it was piloted with a cross section of staff and students at the University. "We wanted to ensure the courses were hitting the right mark with the people they were aimed at." explains Josie. Importantly, the pilot response questionnaires didn't just ask users to provide qualitative feedback, but also to rate the courses on a quantitative scale. The results were extremely positive:

• Over 94% of users stated that the courses had enabled them to achieve all pre-defined learning objectives, a figure reflected in the online quiz results.
• Nearly 90% of users rated the courses as good (13%), very good (27%), or excellent (47%) in terms of interest and presentation.
• Over 90% of users rated the courses as good (7%), very good (33%), or excellent (53%) in terms of how easy and logical it was to work through them.
• Over 90% of users stated that the courses were delivered at an appropriate level.

Josie was delighted with the feedback from the pilot: "We'd never deployed e-learning before, so we were a little bit apprehensive about how people might react to it. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive. People really liked the way the courses were presented and felt that they managed to get the learning over very effectively."

With the pilot successfully completed, the courses are now about to be launched across the whole University. For Josie, this has meant that the focus of activity has shifted to raising people's awareness of them. "We'll be writing to every member of staff and promoting the courses with senior managers." she says. "For students, we'll be promoting the courses during their induction, and through posters that will be put up in every University building and Hall of Residence."

So how does Josie feel about what's been achieved so far? "We're really pleased with the final courses and excited about launching them to staff and students. We're confident that they're going to enable us to deliver equal opportunities and diversity training more effectively and to more people than ever before. We'll be closely monitoring usage levels over the coming months to make sure we're getting the results we're expecting."

Background notes

Manchester Metropolitan University (www.mmu.ac.uk) is committed to the achievement of equal opportunities and diversity, which is central to its mission as a University and as a provider of higher education.

Cylix (www.cylix.co.uk) specialises in producing highly interactive and innovative e-learning solutions that improve the performance of people and organisations. The company has recently launched a series of courses on equal opportunities and diversity.

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