EFFECTIVE PRACTICES DATABASE
title	"TieVie" - a national staff training programme for ICT skills
background	Due to the Internet, to fast technological development in several fronts, and to new demands from students, there was an urgent need to improve teacher's skills and understanding in using information and communication technology in Finnish universities. In 2000, the Ministry of Education started to fund a wide national project organisation - the Finnish Virtual University (FVU) - to promote networking in universities. One of FVUs projects is named "TieVie",a national staff training programme for information and communication technologies.
practice	The TieVie staff training programme is jointly provided by the participating institutions. Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) is a member of TieVie training programmes coordination group and also responsible for one module in this program. The training provided by TieVie helps university teachers to apply information and communication technologies in their own teaching in a pedagogically sound manner. The focus of the training program is to increase the readiness of the teacher to use information and communication technology in teaching and learning more effectively and in expedient ways. To improve teachers eCompetences in other words. The training groups have participants from every Finnish university (21) and the program is thus national and interdisciplinary. Methods used are national workshops, virtual study modules, collaboration, individual and group work. Between 2001 and 2004, more than 700 teachers passed TieVie courses. There are two different programs available. In the "TieVie Teacher Training Programme" (5 credit units), participants work on a personal eLearning production project. The "TieVie Expert Training Programme" (10 credits/15 study points in future) is designed for faculty members who are willing to act as trainer/mentor for other teachers, or as specialist in a more administrative function of their home university. (See also Ruotsalainen, Tenhula and Vaskuri (2005)) There are no strict criteria for applying to the program. In the "TieVie Expert Training" (10 credits), one should be in position to be able to act as tutor, mentor or developer in his or her working community and organisation.
benefits	Concrete collaboration and co-operation between Finnish universities, both among all participants and among people in the coordination group; Coherent understanding and equal skills in a large community (no other ICT training programme in Finland has reached a comparable number of university teachers) by improving the competencies of the individual seems to have an impact for organisational development as well; Promoting the development of a joint teaching culture, building a "common language"; Providing tools from concrete course planning to strategy work and policy making in universities.
shortcomings	The existence of the TieVie training programme has depended on funding from Ministry of Education. The need to disseminate national training into local training in universities has been under discussion but not exactly implemented yet. The real connection between attending the training programme and participant's day-to-day work in their working communities is not obvious in every case. The TieVie training programme misses information and feedback about the practical applicability of the trained eCompetences.
future plans
other references	Ruotsalainen, Merja, Tenhula, Tytti, Vaskuri, Paula (2005) TieVie - Nationwide Training in Educational ICT Use for University Staff. Paper presented at the annual EDEN conference, Helsinki 2005.
urls	TieVie-portal  Finnish Virtual University  Helsinki University of Technology Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli
costs	For people in coordination group (about 11 persons): xx hours of working time, approx. 5 planning meetings per year, preparing for and training in face-to-face seminars (3-6 times) For participants: xx hours of working time, 2-4 face-to-face 2-days seminars in different cities in Finland (travel cost etc.)
replicability	4
effectiveness	4
notes
contact	Riikka Rissanen, coordinator Teaching and Learning Development Helsinki University of Technology Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli  riikka.rissanen@hut.fi>riikka.rissanen@hut.fi

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