Forum for Advancing Software engineering Education Volume 6 Number 3 Friday 9 Feb 1996 Contents: Evaluating Training--Let Your User Group Talk to You Feedback sought on course material Reminder: CSEE Preliminary Program CFP OOPSLA96 Educators' Symposium CFP 5th Reengineering Forum post doc in Software Engineering Ad CFP First Australian Conference on Computer Science Education ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Feb 1996 09:13:39 -0600 From: sdmce@access.digex.net (sdmce) Subject: Evaluating Training--Let Your User Group Talk to You Standard training evaluation techniques such as the Level 1 evaluation conducted at the end of a training session or a Level 2 follow-up evaluation a few weeks or months later yield valuable insights into training effectiveness. However, they provide only one viewpoint, that of the individual student or student's manager. At CDSI, we implemented a User Group to complement our written evaluations. Modeled it after the User Groups sponsored by commercial software vendors, our User Group, which is currently comprised of all local graduates of our Software Process Management Training series, generates suggestions for improvements and recommends new training services and products. The User Group is a highly interactive evaluation technique. Before each meeting, held quarterly, our SEPG polls the group for agenda items. The top 2 items become the subject of the large group "town meeting"; the next 3 topics of interest are the subject of spirited group discussions held over dinner. Our SEPG chairperson leads the large group meeting, and SEPG members facilitate the small group discussions. After dinner, the full group reconvenes for a report on suggestions made during dinner. We also use a trained facilitator to help keep the meeting on track, to encourage participation, and, most importantly, to help us hear the suggestions objectively. We have already experienced noticeable benefits from our User Group meetings. The Group has generated more than 100 recommendations to date. For example, the User Group recommended that we survey students' tools skills prior to our hands-on workshops and assign a skilled tools user (of project management software, for example) to each student team. Implementing this suggestion solved a problem that had frustrated some of our student teams. The Group also requested two slides per page, double-sided copying of course materials; heeding this request reduced our reproduction costs and saved trees. At our next meeting, User Group members want to make presentations on how they're transferring training skills to their individual projects. This activity will help our SEPG, which sponsors our training, evaluate how well students are able to use the training materials to produce project plans and documented procedures. For information on the CDSI Software Process Management User Group, please contact Kathy Beckman, Training Manager, Computer Data Systems, Inc., 301-921-7027, e-mail: sdmce@access.digex.net. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Feb 1996 09:12:09 -0600 From: "Bo I. Sanden"