| The study had three purposes, first to identify a set of competencies that should be included in professional development programs for Virtual College of Texas (VCT) faculty. Secondly, to establish a priority for those competencies that will allow those responsible for professional development to tailor training based on need, resources, and time available. The final purpose was to determine to what degree the Virtual College of Texas Delphi panel and the national Delphi panel in Williams' study (2000) agrees on the competency identification.; The Virtual College of Texas Delphi panel initially identified 152 competencies. In subsequent survey rounds these were reduced to 70 competencies classified into 11 separate categories. The categories were identified as; Learning styles, needs, and theory, Content expertise, Presentation and teaching skills, Multimedia, Instructional design, Interaction, Copyright, Evaluation, Web design and application, Technical, and Administrative and organizational skills. The panel established a consensus opinion for 50 of the 70 competencies (71.4%) and 49 priorities (70.0%) relating to those competencies.; Williams' (2000) panel was in agreement with 24 of the 50 VCT panel's results representing 48.0% of the total. There was disagreement on seven (14.0%) of the competencies identified. The remaining 19 competencies (39.0%) could not be associated with an existing VCT panel identified competency.; Williams (2000) did not attempt to assign priorities to competencies in his research. Therefore, there were no comparisons made between the VCT panel and Williams' (2000) panel for the research in this area.; The Virtual College of Texas, community colleges, and four-year institutions of higher education can use this study to target staff development programs for distance learning faculties. |
