Stephanie Martin

DETC 620
Section: 9041
April 7, 2010
Multimedia Proposal

1) Introduction
a) UMUC Asia Enrollment Management Division
This division of UMUC is responsible for the development and training of a team of 25 academic
specialists on more three continents and five small islands. Due to the growth in students in the
Asia area and the area that needed to be covered the need for more field academic advisors arose.
Due to the demographic makeup of our university it and the economic down turn it has become a
burden to send academic advisors on location to do their training, both initially and as continued
training.
Field academic advisors are the first line of defense for student advising to ensure the student is
following the correct path for their degree, so proper training of these academic advisors is
essential. Field academic advisors are responsibly for answering all student phone calls, emails,
creating preliminary evaluations and meeting with students on a daily basis to discuss their
options for college.

2) Problem Analysis
a) Initial training as an academic advisor involves observing current advisors on location and doing
practice evaluations using past student records for three weeks; with your final week spent with
the academic advisor supervisor being assessed. No official training schedule was setup, no
structure and no exit check list was available to the person conducting the training to be sure all
information that UMUC required you to know was taught.
After several months of training new academic advisors using this program and them working in
the field issues began to arise. This was due to wrong information being given to students
pertaining to their preliminary evaluations, graduation and transfer classes; even the basic things
like who to contact when you had a problem or question were issues that had not been covered in
training. It was at this time that the student affairs office decided that a new way of training its
academic advisors must be formulated and that it must be cost effective.
This proposal will set forth a program to train academic advisors using our current Webtycho
system. The training will be developed using our current paper version and modified to be used
as an online tool. The initial training will be a four week module which will be given to all
academic advisors as a refresher course and to all new advisors as initial training. The modules
will be self pace to allow academic advisors who have been with the company to touch on the
material that they need brushing up on and for new academic advisors to be able to touch on all
items.
The training will be open ended training, allowing the opportunity to add modules to the initial
training as continued training is needed.

3) Instructional Design Model

a) ADDIE+R
i.Analyze
ii.Design
iii.Develop
iv.Implement
v.Evaluate
vi.Revision

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4) Advantages of blended learning
a) Flexible in terms of time, space, pace
b) Supports different learning styles
i.Kinesthetic – Interactive Activities
ii.Audio – Script voiceover accompanies course
iii.Visual – Script in text; imagery, animations, video to support the learning content and
facilitate learning
c) Supports the need to sometimes do onsite training events but mainly the learning will be online
i.Facilitating both onsite learning and multimedia learning
ii.Due to the particular demographics of our location it is beneficial for trainees to be able to
training online in their designated sites due to the distance between locations and the cost to
travel between them.

4) Disadvantages of blended learning

a) Some training still has to take place onsite initially, with the most of the ongoing or follow up
training being facilitated online. This could create some cost but not the type that would be
associated with strict face to face training.
b) Trainees may feel that the blended learning is a bit distance in the fact that they are use to a one
on one face to face atmosphere.
c) There could be different levels of knowledge in trainees so the material will have to be adapted to
this by being able to start not only in the beginning but also in the middle and towards the end.
Due to this fact there may be challenges for some learners who need more training to do this type
of training on their own.
d) The blended portion of this training may still be a burden on the economics of training. Due to
the budget for training being cut the program may need to move to strictly DE training. The cost
of the program will be accessed after one year.

5) Multimedia learning environment rationale

a) Training will be developed using the currently DE avenue of Webtycho, this will cut the cost of
development
b) The Webtycho is also the main working area for DE courses offered through UMUC so it is
important for academic advisors to have a working knowledge of this site and how it impacts
learning.
c) Webtycho enables the trainers to add material as needed and keep the learning environment for
each trainee an open ended one.
d) Trainees are able to submit material as a collaboration that can be worked on by all who are
involved in a project no matter where they are located.

6) Know your audience: Target group characteristics

a) This training will be for professionals already in the field of academic advising who may already
have previous training from another university or college.
b) Professionals will use this training to become familiar with UMUC policies and procedures; it
will also familiarize the trainee with Webtycho.
c) The academic advisors are adults who have experience in the field so they will be motivated to
use this type of self start system to enhance their learning.
d) Some trainees will have more experience than others. This blended learning program will enable
the trainee to start at different areas of the training program; whether that is at the beginning or
the middle.
e) All trainees will have the opportunity to use the Webtycho as an ongoing training environment
for further development in their skills as an academic advisor.
Stephanie Martin
DETC 620
Section: 9041
April 7, 2010
Multimedia Proposal

7) Presentation modes
a) The learning will take place asynchronous in order to allow the trainee to access the material
when they need it and around their work schedules.
b) The first four weeks will start out in a structured basis and then the trainee will use the online
environment as a tool for everyday use to stay up on their academic advisor skills.
c) The online forum will be used continuously adding modules as further training is needed for each
individual trainee.

8) Content/schedule of the program

a) The course will consist of Modules to coincide with the weeks in academic advisors initial
training
b) Ongoing training modules will be added as needed and assigned to particular academic advisors,
another reason for the choice of Webtycho
c) The training will also work with links to advising sites, academic reference sites and manuals

Course Modules Topic Areas

Module 1:
Overview of UMUC academic policies, types of
courses and academic procedures
Trainees will be required to test on this material
and pass with an 80% before moving on to next
module.
Read UMUC student Catalog pg. 1-68.
Read through Academic Advisors manual (most
will seem foreign until put into use)
Start getting familiar with the various parts of the
academic buddy CD and the links available on it.
Test #1, policies, procedures, and academic plans

Module 2: Use manual to navigate the PeopleSoft and DMS

Overview of UMUC computer network and
document storage system, looking up documents
using this system. Learn how to navigate
articulation system and do searches for
colleges/universities curriculum.
Trainees will be required to test on this material
and pass with an 80% before moving on to next
module.
system.
Locate school legends and how to use them
Locate student information, dropping/adding
courses and looking up non-empl students.
Use the articulations system for transfer credits.
Searching the ACE guide.
Test #2, transfer credits, student records, and
queries.

Module 4: This week will be spent presenting the academic

Implementing Modules 1-3
Setting up preliminary evaluation sheet
Must pass final test with 80% in order to be
released from training.
plans that you put together last week to students
in counseling sessions on your own.
Observe counseling sessions with your trainer.
Choosing career paths
Final test

Table 1. Academic Advisor Training Content

9) Project team members: Roles and responsibilities

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 a) Director of Enrollment Managers
i) Will give directive on the material that will need to be covered in the training process and any
added training material
b) Training Manager
i) Will oversee the development of both the training material and the upload of material on to
the Webtycho system
c) Training Material Development
i) A team of two will develop the appropriate training material as direction by the Enrollment
Manager Director
d) IT Development Manager
i) Responsibly for the upload of the training material onto the Webtycho system

10) Giving the roll-out plan

a) Analyze – 2 weeks
b) Design – 4 weeks
c) Develop – 2 weeks
d) Implement – 4 weeks
e) Evaluate – 4 weeks
f) Revision – 2 weeks
g) Total – 18 weeks

11) Conclusion
The development and implementation of this training program will cut down on the amount that is
spent to train each academic advisor. It will also save money by eliminating the time away from
work due to travel for training. At current time we lose time at work for the academic advisor who
does the training and also for the new academic advisor that is being trained.
This type of blended learning also benefits the training in an ongoing training atmosphere due to the
fact that new training sessions can be added as needed, such as if new policy is rolled out.
Due to the budget of our training program being cut and little to no training being offered at this time
you can see that the advantages definitely outweigh the disadvantages of this program.
With this program in place we can once again precede with the much needed training of the
additional academic advisors that have been added in the past year; plus the ongoing training process
for all academic advisors to keep them abreast of new data for advising.

References:

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Effective teaching with technology in higher education. San Francisco,

CA: Jossey-Bass.

Leary, J. & Berge, Z.L. (2007, fall). Challenges and strategies for sustaining elearning in small

organizations. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 10(3). Retrieved from

Stephanie Martin
DETC 620
Section: 9041
April 7, 2010
Multimedia Proposal

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall103/berge103.htm

Miller, D. (1991, September). Trim travel budgets with distance learning. Training &

Development, 45(9) 71-74.

Morrison, G.R., Ross, S.M., & Kemp, J.E. (2007). Designing effective instruction. Hoboken:

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.