 |
Association internationale
d'orientation scolaire et professionnelle International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance Internationale Vereinigung für Schul- und Berufsberatung Asociación Internacional para la Orientación Educativa y Profesional |
| Stuart Conger,
Vice-President . . . 572 Highcroft Ave., Ottawa K1Z 5J5,
Canada Phone: 613 729-4913, Fax: 613 729-8984, E-mail: dsc@titan.ccm.emr.ca. |
The purpose of this paper is to define and describe requirements for Internet sites that are intended for the use of youth and adults seeking information and advice on career issues. There may be some surprise at the word "advice" but some sites now purport to provide career advice via e-mail correspondence in response to questions of users. In time, advice may also be offered via video conferencing on the Internet. Therefore, it is necessary to cover this topic as well.
The style of this report will be to pronounce each criterion in bold italics. In most cases an explanation is added.
1. The contents of a site should be developed according to the needs of the user, and not the convenience of the information provider. Current practice is in opposition to this principle as much of the information has been prepared without systematic analyses of the information that people actually require. Information providers should define the target audiences for their information. Periodic needs analyzes should be made with prospective users and with their advisers to determine the types of information actually required. Similarly, critical incidents should be collected which indicate useful and misleading knowledge and use of knowledge in important choice points in a person's vocational life. These techniques will indicate the kinds of information that should be provided. The critical incident technique may also reveal entire areas of information that might not become known even with traditional needs analyzes or focus groups.
2. The information must be adequate to the user's needs and intentions. Many users (most, according to telephone career hotlines) seek information on learning opportunities. The information that they need is more than that provided in a calendar. They need to know the actual marks (not just the minimum) required for admission. They also should have access to data on the percentage of students who quit the program in the first 30 days, and the percentage who fully complete the program. The information that people need is not just what has been prepared for public consumption, some much-needed information is kept quiet and may only be obtained upon application under freedom of access to information provisions about topics already suggested and other issues such as the record of students' ratings of instructors. The system manager must seek it out. Information that is prepared to meet arcane or obscure standards by various authorities must be challenged, and the developers must be encouraged to make their information more relevant and useful.
3. The index to the contents should not be a standard "table of contents". Tables of contents are classical print media indexes. In some cases they are enhanced with an alphabetical index at the back of the book. The electronic media use a variety of indexing systems that should be made available to the users of Internet-based career information systems. The simplest method is for the user to type in one key word and the system will provide a list of words or phrases that the user can click on to bring up the appropriate file. Another system is to insert more than one key word and the system will give a selection of files that are likely to be appropriate. There is a great deal of commercial activity in this area with various retrieval systems ("intelligent agents"), and it is recommended that they be applied to obtain the required information at one time from various files and home pages comprising the system. The use of key words in indexing must be done intelligently, and not just by electronic scanning to see if the word is used.
4. There should be a clear indication of which contents can be of immediate use to the user. Some programs provide enticing labels for some items, but the user discovers that they are intended for professionals, must be purchased from a publisher, or one must go to an office for a program or service. The products and services offered through the site should be clearly described, including distinction between free and priced; and between learning materials, reference sources, and advertising for service providers. The labels must be transparent in meaning.
5. Information providers should prepare for the system manager "ideal" patterns of usage appropriate for various users of the information itself, and also in relation to other files in the system. Many information providers have not adequately clarified for themselves how their information can be or should be used by a client, and how it relates to other relevant information in the system. The work of preparing the model usage patterns may prompt the developer to make modifications in the information or the way it is presented. The patterns will also serve as criteria when collecting the data on actual usage. The design of the presentation of information should be based upon sound career development theory and research.
6. The reading level of the contents must be no higher than a measured grade8 unless they is intended for highly educated users.
7. The information must be accurate, up-to-date, unbiased, non-discriminatory and gender-fair.
8. Contents should be presented in multi-media format.. Internet users expect the contents to be multi-media and not just print presentations.
9. The system should have information on career development trajectories. Many developers of career, education and labour market information generally have an understanding of the career development processes, and endeavour to put their information in the appropriate sequence within their files. But users can select bits and pieces of information from many locations. It is possible that the information thus garnered has serious gaps. Therefore users need a structure to determine the completeness of the information they have accumulated.
10. Interest and other tests should be available for users of the system. Testing of interests, aptitudes, work values, skills/competencies, and other characteristics form an important part of traditional vocational guidance or career planning and their use can be extended to the Internet. At present a good many psychological tests have been computerized to the point where they are administered, scored and interpreted by computer. Therefore they can readily be adapted for Internet delivery.
11. Adults have different career information needs than students and they must be accommodated in the system. Generally, adults have different education/training needs than high school and university students. These needs are, for example, for information on short-term training programs that provide specific career-related advancement skills, and job vacancies at various levels in occupational ladders, and particularly interoccupational mobility (what jobs can a chemist get if jobs for chemists are not available; what jobs do engineers get when they tire of engineering; what jobs do hairdressers and nurses get when they can no longer work on their feet all day; what can professional sports aspirants do when they realize they will not reach stardom, etc.). Some of these issues are also very relevant to graduating university students. Thus, while adults will recycle through the traditional career stages many times due to rapid change, and therefore undertake again and again career development tasks such as awareness, exploration, decision-making and implementation, they will require different information about themselves and the world of education, training and work than high school students.
12. Because many counsellors have not had formal training in career and labour market information the system should include instructional modules on the subject for counsellors. The IAEVG code of ethical standards for practitioners calls upon counsellors to obtain the initial training and maintain a process of continuous learning in those areas of knowledge and skills required to be a qualified and competent practitioner in educational and vocational guidance; that they should function within the boundaries of their training and experience; are responsible for monitoring and maintaining their professional competencies and obtaining training on a periodic basis to ensure that they are able to provide competent services to culture diverse clients and to effectively use new theories and intervention techniques, computer applications, and assessment processes.
13. Career, Education and Labour Market Information should include many components including:
Occupational Information including: occupational descriptions; pay levels; education and training required for entry into the occupation; advancement opportunities and routes from the occupation; aptitudes important to performance in the occupation; interests important to performance in the occupations; certification, registration or licensing required by the occupations; future outlook for the occupational group; typical duties in the occupation; training programs of related and required competencies offered through tertiary level institutions; cross index of education/training and occupations; "stocks" of students at different stages of training for the occupation; work environment conditions; titles of jobs typically found in the occupation; types of experience required for occupational entry; number of people employed in the occupation in the labour market area; names and addresses of employers who engage workers in the occupation; current vacancies; etc.
Education and Training Information to be included comprises: programs of study; school marks required according to the calendar; lowest marks of anyone who entered the program last year; percentage of applicants accepted last year (sometimes as low as 10%); percentage of people who start the program and actually complete it; duration of the program; schedule of the program especially if it is a cooperative program; reputation of the program; jobs that a degree, diploma or certificate leads to; if examinations are required after graduation in order to enter the occupation; transferability of credits; local part-time courses. Information should also be provided on good study practices.
Educational Institution Information would include: institution description; dates applications are due; documents and portfolios required; availability of campus housing and date applications are due; reputation of the institution; and, date of notification of acceptance or rejection
Work Experience Programs (including training provided jointly by employers and professional associations): occupations for which onthejob training is available; employers who offer or sponsor the training; credits/qualifications provided by the training; terms of entry; duration; course load; and instructional methods (go to class, distance education, etc.)
Cost information should include: costs of training to the individual; costs of housing, meals etc.; costs of transportation; possibilities of student loans, bursaries, and scholarships; amount of spending money required; costs of offcampus housing; costs of on-campus housing and meals; and, costs of supplies and equipment
14. The files should load quickly. It is an annoying waste of time to wait for some artwork to download. Developers should use colour and artwork that downloads efficiently. Current research in graphics technology may resolve this problem.
15. The program should be able to recognize users who are lost in the maze of data. Some users skip from topic to topic with very little time spent on any. Either they do not know what they are looking at, or cannot find what they want. The system should be able to recognize such a "skipping" pattern, and interrupt the user with a question or suggestion. A navigation aid at the bottom of the screen might be helpful to many users.
16. The system should have a career information needs identification process to help users identify and clarify their career information needs. The needs identification and clarification interview.
17. The system developer must have an understanding of the ways in which the users will or can integrate the information into their planning and thinking, and how the information might cause a re-evaluation of the person's existing information. The system developers should design agents into the system that will be able to recognize types of users (users who appear to skip from topic to topic without a plan; users who access a very narrow range of information; users who appear to seek partial information; etc.) and to respond to them accordingly including volunteering suggestions to them on how they might navigate the system.
18. As a minimum, users should know where to seek further help via addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers. In addition, an e-mail facility should be a part of the system. Many users have questions that need to be answered by a counsellor as a supplement to the information that is available on the Net. The service should include private conversations and open ones so other users can learn from the questions and answers.
19. A conferencing facility should be a part of the system. At scheduled times experts in career development should be available on the system for discussions with users. Each session should have a specific topic or focus.
20. Telephone counselling should be made available for those people who have self-defeating behaviours or have a complex series of options that render them unable to benefit from information without having a few in-depth interviews. Telephone counselling can be an in-depth experience. It is much more convenient for many compared to having to travel to another location for interviews. Telephone counselling is free from many of the inhibitors to honest discussion found in personal interviews - the client and counsellor are not involved in assessing the other person's dress, appearance, gender, race, ethnicity, etc. and adjusting their responses to accommodate these factors. Telephone counselling will also be very useful in identifying those users who have a significant degree of "career indecisiveness" and in providing appropriate counselling.
21. Interactive multipoint video conferencing can also be used for individual or group "face-to-face" counselling.
22. In-person counselling should be made available to those people who have used telephone counselling and in collaboration with the counsellor decided that one or two individual in-person interviews are required. It is therefore important that telephone counsellors have reliable information on counselling services in most communities.
23. Evaluation of the usage of the system should involve a system of recording the files that users access, and the time that they spend with each. Files that are seldom used, and files that are visited in such a short time that the users must have instantly decided that the site did not contain the information expected need to be evaluated. These kind of data can be very valuable to information providers and system managers.
24. Evaluation of the usage of the system should involve composite patterns of file usage made by examining the tracks that users followed in the system. Composite pictures of the sequence of files visited and the time spent with each file will reveal a certain number of "types" of users including: the "skipper" who apparently wanders about the system quickly but without apparent aim, the person who examines an area rather completely, the user who goes to one or two files and spends sufficient time that it appears as if actual use is being made of the information, the number of users who appear to abruptly stop, etc.
25. Satisfaction questionnaires should not be used. Evaluation in guidance services typically consists of satisfaction questionnaires, and generally give encouraging but useless information. It is a waste of the counsellor' and client's time.
26. The system should be promoted for use in many related programs and services. The Internet is ideal for individual use at a time of convenience for the person. On the other hand there are great opportunities to increase access and usage through schools, public libraries, and career services. In the case of schools, for example, it should be possible for a class in a career education subject to go to the computer lab or other classroom with many computers, and obtain from the Internet information that is relevant to their studies. There may be many courses that might have an Internet attachment like this.
27. Counsellors attending demonstrations of the system should receive disks with selected bookmarks. A common way to promote the adoption of an Internet system is to make presentations at meetings of counsellors and career educators. It is usually expected that the audience will access the system when they return to their office, and hopefully demonstrate it to their colleagues. It is sometimes a very different experience from seeing an excellent presentation to repeating it some days later without problems. A means of assisting the delegate is to provide each with a computer disk containing bookmarks to selected Internet sites or home pages so that they can visit all sights in a meaningful order and without a hitch. As the person gains skill and confidence they can venture to other sites. The disk with the bookmarks can also include one or two sentences reminding the person of certain information about the site.
28. Budgets must include funds for the development of original material. Some sponsors of career related sites believe that there are many relevant sites with much useful material, and therefore it will be necessary only to set up a home page with pointers to all these very useful sites. The fact is that there is not a great deal of usable material on the Net, and there is a need to create new material As needs analyzes, focus groups, and critical incident analyzes reveal there are many more components that need to be created. In addition local, regional or national information about careers and the labour market that have been prepared for print media frequently need substantial reworking for the Internet.
29. Cost Recovery is a reasonable expectation Newspapers, magazines, and television programs are subsidized by paid advertising. It is a fact of daily life of every citizen. Certain information-rich Internet sites now carry advertising as a means of covering some or all of their costs. There is no reason why career sites should not do the same. The decision to carry advertising has implications for the layout design of the pages. Typical advertisers could include: post-secondary educational institutions and programs; books, magazines and other publications; clothing; computers and other equipment; sports equipment; automobiles; foods; hotels and other accommodation; careers (e.g. accounting); transportation; radio and television programs; office supplies; photographic equipment; fitness equipment and programs; personal products; health advice; government agencies; recreation; etc.
30. Advertising in the system must meet certain standards. Advertising must meet or exceed the ethical standards of the advertising industry. If links are allowed from an ad to the Home Page of the advertiser a clear disclaimer must be inserted by the system: such as "CIN (Career Information Network) does not endorse the contents of the site you have selected". The advertising should never consume more than 25% of the screen, usually in one quadrant, although it may also appear in ribbons moving across the top or bottom of the screen.
31. Advertising may be solicited from commercial sectors
particularly compatible with the objectives of guidance Guidance
is oriented to helping the individual prepare for the future.
Certain companies have the same orientation: banks want people to
save for the future, mutual funds and other investment brokers
want people to invest for their futures, insurance companies base
their business on the readiness of the individual to think of the
future, colleges and universities rely on students training for
their futures, funeral companies.... These firms can all carry a
version of the messages of: "become all you can be, take
responsibility for yourself, work at creating your future
etc." These advertising messages can reinforce the guidance
message, and could be sought out.
Prepared by Stuart Conger, Vice-President,
International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance
572 Highcroft Avenue, Ottawa, K1Z 5J5, Canada
Phone: 613 729 4913, Fax: 613 729 8984, E-mail: dsc@titan.ccm.emr.ca.