Webcasting CILIP events and the CILIP CDG collaboration on webcasting CILIP Qualifications Event

This could equally have been titled ‘Watching London Evening Events from Glasgow Afternoons In The Office Is Lovely’!

Yesterday I FINALLY got the worktime peace to watch the recorded CILIP CDG event on Certification, Chartership, Revalidation and Beyond from last month. A wide-ranging event that concentrated on portfolio building techniques useful for all CILIP qualifications.

Background

In the last few months there’s been a few CILIP experiments at webcasting CILIP events live (the CILIP AGM in September) and last month at webcasting live while also recording events (e.g. this event and the eHustings for the CILIP Trustee Elections).

Now, I’ve attended a fair number of these qualifications and portfolio building events physically down the years in a whole variety of locations, initially as Candidate, and then subsequently as Speaker at various (being a long-time CILIP quals specialist even if I don’t have the time I used to have to give to it anymore).  So I was really curious about how it would come across taking a physical event replicated in main components around the country regularly and broadcasting it as a live webcast.

So what’s different about watching it as a live webcast?

I had tried to watch the qualifications event live over the websteam, but I got interrupted so much work-wise (joys of open plan offices) that I called a halt to that plan as I was missing a lot more than I was catching which was a bit frustrating.  Watching the recorded version at a very quiet date seemed a lot more conducive to concentration!

So watching it live was quite difficult for me, but it did allow the real-time interaction of the ‘viewing’ community and being able to see what they were commenting as we watched. The questions of the ‘viewing’ community were also picked up very well in the room real time and fed into the discussion and asked, so there was interaction between real and virtual world, there were answers.  Which was all really good.

How does that compare in experience to watching the recording later instead?

Viewing it over a month after it actually took place was actually excellent.

I love the fact that –

• It’s there for anyone who can’t make a physical event for whatever reason.
• It can be accessed anytime from any location as long as the IT set-up to view it is there.  

This is really important as there are Candidates all over the country and abroad for whom this is valuable useful content. New Candidates start the process all the time, it may be some time before there’s a course physically close to them that runs, and that might not be practical to attend for various reasons.

Specific Benefits of  Recorded Webcast Over Physical Attendance

Having watched it I also think it gives some different benefits to what you get out of the actual event compared to attending in real time. I definitely interacted slightly differently with it.

• It can be viewed whole, or done in bits if you’re flagging.
• You can pause proceedings at any time to catch up in your scribbled note-taking.
• You can pause while you go have a quick look at that web resource or document that’s just been mentioned while you’re actually thinking about it.
• You can pause for reflection on something interesting that was said that has a specific resonance for you before you lose the thought.
• You can easily go back a few minutes if you didn’t quite catch the end of a segment.
• You can go back and re-view particularly relevant parts of it another time to remind yourself of key aspects you’re currently working on.

Does it replicate entirely the experience of physically attending an event? 

Well no, it doesn’t. The physical event has benefits that the webcast view cannot replicate.

• Ability to meet fellow Candidates in person and chat to them and set up informal networks.
• Ability to look at physical Portfolios that have been successful (there are various ones on the CILIP website, but it’s not the same as leafing through something).
• Actually physically meeting key people involved in delivering the qualification (e.g. Qualifications Adviser).
• Can see the actual powerpoint slides and the presenter (though the powerpoint is on the CILIP website so can fairly easily access both at same time if watching online but more fiddly).
• Can participate in the groupwork and individual work exercises. This section of the overall event wasn’t broadcast as webinar because it wouldn’t have worked as a straight webcast, or not so easily.  It’s probably do’able, but it would require a bit of thought on how easiest to do it and integrate.
• Coffee breaks in the programme seem a lot less long when you’re actually there. With the webinar view the coffee break was three quarters of the way through the parts of the event being broadcast over the web, but half-way through for physical delegates doing the workshop elements. So on the webinar view there’s kind of a lot of twiddling thumbs as you can’t just go for coffee and gab with fellow attendees the same way, and then there was a very short session for the second part.

Conclusion

While the physical event and the webcast cover much of the same material the experience is different and not all aspects of the course are catered for by the webcast. However the webcast has advantages over the physical experience too as discussed above. 

So I think it comes down to try and attend a course that is running locally (because they all have variations, for all they seek to reinforce the same key things) if possible, but the webcast is a really good reminder that can be gone back to at any point to be used in addition.

If a physical course just isn’t very feasible it’s also the next best thing to view this, it replicates a lot of the experience content-wise.

This event has had over 400 views so far. That has to be worthwhile.

By the by....

If after this discussion of Physical v Virtual attendance you're now wondering what the actual content of the events is...

The courses essentially talk Candidates through the key qualifications, what’s involved in them, highlight key things you need to know and be aware of, discuss where the sources of help and support and additional guidance are, what the process is, how to put together portfolios that meet the requirements and the award criteria, why it all matters. The courses  highlight common elements across qualifications in terms of what is required to be submitted and concentrate on demystifying those. They often have workshop elements to them. Courses may be on one specific qualification or they may discuss a whole range as this one did.  There are always local variations in content and amount of detail depending who's speaking on what for what intended audience.  But core aspects are covered by them all.