FORUM for WEBIN@R CHECKLIST

Dear Wenbin Ji,

thank you for posting your ideas in the padlet for step 5 - Wrap up!

We can agree also on the fact that one challenge of the wrap up phase, compared to the previous steps, is the longer time frame in which actions shall be carried out, in a certain order. And many actions depend on other. It seems like teh structure of your mindmap tries to take in to consideration this timeline.

When I look at your mindmap I can clearly see this sort of action timeline. for instance, in order of time I would say:

1. "Deliver record, documents and survey"

2. "Ask suggestion from participants"

would come first, that is they are the very first step of the "after seminar" phase. Immediately after that we could proceed to:

3. "Summary on how did the webinar work"

And these steps naturally lead to "plan for the future" and "execute what decided on the webinar".

Also some other remarks:

• I like your suggestion of interrogating the participants and ask them what did work and what did not. Organizers and facilitators might often be so used that they do not have an exact perception of the "participants" view. Also, we are depending on technologies, and there might be as different settings as the participants which we should be aware of. For instance Java proved to be an issue: next time we shall address it more carefully... and so forth. I also think that no.show-up registered people, if a registration process has been adopted, shall be interrogated: it might be that their absence was prevented by issues we should avoid next time.
• I like also very much that you consider in "make plan for future" not only needs but also ideas... new ideas. We shall always try to be exposed to new way of doing things and implementing them in our practices.

thank yo very much for your input, Wenbin Ji!

Alessandro 

Hi,

here we are with new ideas, this time from Ivan. Small advices... I am not sure they are small! Quoting a famous guy: "one bubble can make the difference" ;-). 

Also Ivan gave great and precious ideas and suggestions to Mike. Organizers are so full of all kind of work... and TSOs know it, don't we?? That's why I find it very wise to allocate working time not only for the planning and delivery itself, but also for the wrap up phase. If there is not time, there is no wrap up: simple like this!

And yes, another good point: distributing the surveys is one thing... analyzing them, extracting the main messages and applying them to future planning is another process indeed.

And regarding not to force Mike to hard, I agree... but I also suspect this is a point where "Differennt in Cultures" might play  a role. I come from a culture where "power distance" is high... (do not tell anybody: that guy sleeping was actually me ;-)). 

Great guys, keep on like this! It is lovely to see so many inputs. 

Alessandro

Hi Ladislav,

how many ideas!! You provide us with very different layers, wonderful. 

First of all I appreciate you have introduced a stakeholder (or better group of interest?) which had not been considered so far: the lecturers. Great! They are actually a very important factor affecting the success (=meeting our objectives) of the event: definetly they should be part of the feedback process and also improvement process for future events.

Then you have touched a topic that is causing not little headache to the community of trainers: testing the knowledge and providing certificates. These topics are connected with the context we are delivering the webinar in, and the planning/objectives. And also here we can incur in cultural differences: in some countries it might be desirable to prove some sort of knowledge from the event. But the ball bounces back to organizers: how to test the knowledge? I am not sure this would be the right forum for discussing these issues, but we definetly should take into account in our checklist these significant topics: certification and knowledge testing. I am sure we could go how much further to lower levels, as well as I think many factor would depend about the context we are working in: cultural, professional, etc.

As many others you also stress the importance of collecting and using the feedback in a systematic manner for improving future events. We definetly agree all with this: we are not just running a webinar as itself, instead the webinar is a tool for delivering something (training, knowledge, etc.) therefore we need to improve it. 

I see also your point in addressing "bad" and "good" lectures. This is the way very often and naturally, I would say, we go ahead: if someone is good, we just keep asking him/her to give webinar lectures, if not... we discard him/her unless nobody can replace. BUT: are we sure the problem is in the lecturer? Maybe some training, why not a webinar could help him/her designing the lecture webinar in a way that it would make it a "good" lecture webinar. and again the responsability bounces back to the organizer and planning phase: how do we instruct lecturers to give online lectures??

  Thank you gain for your great ideas and source of discussion!

Alessandro

Dear Izolda,

the format does not really matters, because the content is really worthwhile sharing with other folks. Thank you!

I guess that you, with the sentence "Do not rest on your laurels!" agree on the fact that often the wrap up phase could be improved, but not easy because most of the time and energy has been spent in planning and running the event.

I especially like your reference to "keep contact wit participants". Again, this might depend very much on the context and objectives, but it is definetly a topic to bear in mind when thinking of "what after the webinar".  

And true, organizers and facilitators deserve a rest as well, after the huge efforts: maybe you recall from my video that Mike fell asleep, till the boss woke him up ;-).. We shall not forget this!

May I ask yo a clarification: when you refer to "Share your experience with colleagues" do yo refer to the organizers or participants? In case you meant participants I would fully agree with you that this would be a very important step, somewhat connected with Ladislav's comments "certification and knowledge testing". However this is more an aspect to be handled on the participant's employer side... Well , in case the organizer is the employer this would fully apply: I, as organizer and employer, I wish my employees to share what they have learned from the seminar by briefing other colleagues who did not attend: great!

Thank you Izolda!

Alessandro

Hi Anna,

I just saw you added your thoughts to the padlet of step 5 (event wrap up): thank you! You are another one with great experience on running webinars.

You also address some topics which were raised by others, hence stressing their importance. We all shall agree that it is a kind of dilemma: are the speakers appropriate or shall i instead "blame" myself for not giving enough support/guidelines to them in delivering online lectures/contributions? I guess that in this domain the truth might be on both sides.

You, Anna, also point out that it should be important to investigate whether technology played properly or not, and if not what were the issues. I see here that a well designed survey to be sent to students shall make us wiser on most of these aspects. But we shall also interrogate fellow colleagues on this aspects, those who have experience on running webinar (if they would be available, though). Same for the feedback of the content: who, better than the participants, would be the candidate for giving feedback n the content, for instance via survey?

Do yo agree that a wel designed survey could solve most of the issues you 've raised?

What I find new in your comments is the "Was the advert adequate?". This has not been really addressed before, and I personally find it a very important point of the wrap up process to be investigated and analyzed. 

Thank yo again, Anna!