Published Thursday 04 January 2007 by Dave Hartland

Netskills has completed a study into the provision of training, staff development and accreditation for IT/IS support staff. The study investigated the nature and extent of continual professional development and formal accreditation provided for the UCISA (Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association) community.

Working with the Staff Development Group (SDG) of UCISA, Netskills conducted an online survey of over 300 staff, 25 in-depth interviews, produced three case studies and interviewed providers of professional development and accreditation.

Staff completing the survey included senior managers, computing officers, trainers and educational technologists.

Netskills also ran two discussion forums with assistance from SDG to discuss the initial results from the survey and provide further good quality data for the study.

Recommendations from the study included the need to develop a CPD framework specifically for the UCISA community, bringing together the wide range of schemes available, establishing the value of current offerings and identify gaps in the provision of training and accreditation.

After completing the survey, participants were entered into a draw for an Amazon voucher. The winner was Colin Bryce, Senior IT Services Manager, University of Southampton (pictured receiving his voucher from Netskills’ own Will Allen).

The study was funded through the JISC Organisational Support committee.

The full report from the study is available in a PDF format (600k).

Find out more: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/projects/it-services-cpd/it-services-cpd-report.pdf