You may have seen the serious elearning manifesto. It opens an important discussion in the
instructional design and development world.
It also underlines the chaos that exists in that field; a cohesive field
would not need a manifesto that addresses only a fraction of the work within
the field – only the e-learning portion, in this case. It also begs the
question of why a manifesto is needed and creates a tension between ‘typical’
elearning and ‘serious’ elearning. This
manifesto underscores the fact that field of instructional design and
development has charlatans, wannabes, the tired masses, and top-notch
professionals – within just the learning portion of the field.
The Instructional Design and Development Workforce Marketplace
From the market perspective, instructional design and
development (ID) is a diverse, fragmented, and undifferentiated market. This is an international marketplace workforce
with a wide variety of skill levels competing against each other for work and
recognition. Whether instructional designers and developers work as internal
consultants (a.k.a. staff) or as external consultants, they struggle with the
fallout from this complex market.
What is a diverse, fragmented, and undifferentiated market?
Diverse
Instructional designers and developers (IDs) work in every
industry from military to social work, from finance work to entertainment, from
government to energy, and everything in between. IDs work for non-profits, military,
government, colleges and universities, public schools, every industry every
invented, as well as consulting house that serve the world. They may be one-person self-supporting
businesses or they may members of large teams working multi-million dollar
projects and every workplace variation in between. Diversity in workplace creates a huge
variance requirements and expectations.
IDs come to the field through two paths – higher education
degreed and lateral movers with subject field experience. While the degreed members are on the rise,
the vast majority of the field comes in with native talent and expertise in an
industry’s content field. This highly
diverse background experience makes it difficult to compare even entry-level
candidates.
Then, there is the work itself. Some IDs specialize in one type of solution –
just elearning, or just instructor-led, for example. Others are tasked with creating unique
solution sets that address specific needs.
Some are expected to be expert technical writers, while others are
expected to be graphic artists and technologists, and some must be everything
to everyone. Some use complex software to
create their solutions, with others work with minimal resources in very
resource-restrictive environments. Diverse
working environments and expectations create uneven and often unrealistic
expectations in employers.
Geography, industry, the size of organization
all work to create a very diverse workforce. In addition, this is a creative
workforce that often brings the diversity of the creative -- music, art, color,
flow, drama, and more.
Fragmented
US Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) list one role within
the Professional and Services sector, the Training and Development Specialist.
There is no national labor role for Instructional Designer or Instructional
Developer or Instructional Technologist, even though there are degree programs
in colleges and universities across the United States and around the
world. However, BLS indicates that the
demand for Training
and Development Specialists in expect to increase by 15% between 2012 and
2020, adding more than 35,000 new jobs in the United States alone. That this important government organization
does not even recognize the field of instructional design and development
creates disenfranchisement, as well as misunderstandings between employers and
workers.
Within the field, there is a certain amount of distrust
between instructional designers based on training. Those with degrees, tend to trust and value
IDs with degrees more than those who come to the field without. The lateral movers with field experience tend
to distrust the degreed practitioner who brings academic knowledge of learning
theory, but is weak in business acumen.
Since different backgrounds mean that individuals come with different
languages and ways to describe their work, the wedge of terminology creates an
internal fragmentation.
Undifferentiated
Check out the job boards for Instructional Designer. A quick review of job listings will show that
most instructional designer job listings are wish lists consisting of a general
statement of work asking IDs to be all things to all people – especially,
senior leadership. These job
descriptions go on to list a smorgasbord of tools in which the ID must be an
expert. Then, the typical ID job listing
is capped off with a need for expertise in a specific development methodology –
ADDIE, lean, six-sigma, SAM, etc. – and perhaps even the need to be an expert
in the business field, as well.
Add to this, the growth of off-shoring in instructional
design and development. Many employers
are willing to choose the cheapest ID resources for their project rather than
choosing the ID that best matches their work.
To this, we can add the fact that there are dozens of names
for similar roles – Instructional Designer, Learning Developer, Elearning
Developer, Learning Specialist, Learning Developer, Learning Analyst, Learning
Architect, Learning Strategist, Education Specialist, and more. In some cases, there is an implied career
progress with position titles mark I, II, III, IV.
As with every workforce, there are charlatans. Unless a manager or client is, themselves,
and instructional designer, they will find it difficult to distinguish the
professional who produces quality work from the charlatan with a good line of
schmooze. This inability to
discriminate is the greatest challenge in the industry and increases the
fragmentation.
Standards Guide Capability Building
A key to building cohesion, capability, and capacity within any distressed workforce would be defining standards. The Institute for Performance Improvement,
L3C (TIfPI, www.tifpi.org) has just
completed a practice analysis of instructional designers. Watch for the whitepaper, coming soon.
Out of this analysis comes a set of nine international,
theory-free, model-free standards for learning solution development. Note that these standards focus on
development and do not include front-end analysis (needs assessments),
delivery, project management, content management, or technology. Starting with a definition of development
standards focuses the field on production standards.
TIfPI’s instructional design and development experts working
with TIfPI’s credentialing experts defined a series of certifications for the learning
and solution development portion of the field.
These nineteen certifications are microcredentials – a credential focuses
on a subset of the greater field. Whereas a full certification addresses the
breadth of the field, microcredentials, often called endorsements, highlight a
strength in a specific area. Today,
these credentials have digital icons, called digital badges, which allow
credential earners to promote their qualifications through social media. For more on these credentials see https://tifpi.wildapricot.org/IDBadges.
Coming soon…
Watch this space for more on the emerging international,
theory-free, model-free ID standards and access to the practice analysis behind
these credentials, or attend the free webinar, Overview of ID Badges.
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