CEE CN ONLINE TRAINING
17.10-14.11.2005
THE CONTEXT
The CEE Citizens Network has made a commitment in 2003 to take on a pro-active
role in promoting citizen participation throughout the CEE region. At the
Representative team meeting on May 1st and 2nd 2004 in Zagreb, there was a facilitated
conversation of ideas about how the Network will move forward with this. As the
result of the meeting in Zagreb, a work plan of the CEE CN was developed for the
coming two years. There were three different initial areas prepared for achieving this
task. CEE Citizens Network members organisations agreed, through their
representatives, to build support among non-governmental organisations, citizens and
institutions for taking action throughout the region. The results of the work plan will
also influence the other activities of the Network including the annual training
sessions.
First area for achieving pro-activity is to promote among the CEE CN members the
exchange of best practices. This would be achieved by centralising, from every
country that is represented in the Network, the “best practice” examples. This
material should be, at the most, three pages long and it would contain information
about context (social, economic, cultural, etc), goals, objectives, implementation and
results (achieved impact). This material should contain enough details for raising the
interest of the reader. If more detailed information is needed, the NGO/person who
implemented the described practice would be contacted. For this, it is necessary that at
the end of any material describing a best practice, the author should mention his or her
availability to share more information with those interested. In order to enable the
members of CN to produce these materials, the Co-ordination Team decided that the
topic of CN’s 4th international training should be case studies development with a
focus on best practice presentation.
In time, CN experimented different solutions to improve the organisation of the
international training events: a unique session for all the trainees (Slovakia, 2002),
same location with different topics (Romania, 2003 and Bulgaria, 2004). For this year
CN tried to split the international training into 2 different locations, one in Albania (for
English speaking members) and other in Armenia (for Russian speakers), both with the
same topic: case studies development. The practice proved that in this case the
synchronisation was too difficult, though the backup solution was that one of the
sessions (the one for English speakers) would be online. Actually, this was an older
idea to encourage the members of CEE Citizens Network to use more the Internet
facilities to communicate between the network meetings. In this respect CN developed
in time a web-site (www.ceecn.net), an e-group (ceecn@yahoogroups.com) and an electronic
newsletter.
TRAINING AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of the training was: In 2 months after the training event the participants will
be able to prepare a case study inspired from their organisation/ community experience
for the best practices database of CEE CN.
The learning objectives were: at the end of the training the participants should be able
to:
1. justify the utility of the case study for their organisations and for CEE CN
2. plan the steps of designing a case study to disseminate best practice for CEE CN.
PARTICIPANTS
A recommended selection criterion was that participants should have the opportunity to
implement in their organisation/community the learning from the training session. Of
course, the access at Internet was compulsory for all the participants.
Though the online training have been promoted 3 weeks before its starting, only 8
participants registered until the beginning of the training, other 6 adding after that. All of
them were participating for the first time at an online training.
CONTENT
The theoretic content of the training included:
1. Case study definition.
2. Purposes and audiences of the case studies.
3. Typology of case studies.
4. The steps of a research methodology in the case study.
TRAINING METHODS
The training methods were adapted at trainees’ access at Internet. Though, after an initial
survey resulted that most of the trainees could access the Internet for training purpose
only several hours a week (less than an hour a day). That’s why the main training means
was a discussion list doubled by a workspace opened at
http://www.elearningeuropa.info/index.php?page=workspace&ws=54.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Participants provided 8 definitions for the case study and 5 different purposes and
audiences of this method.
Because 7 of the 8 definitions were different we agreed on a broader and shared one:
An empirical research method that investigates a complex phenomenon in its real
context especially when the borders between phenomenon and the context are not
obvious.
The case study is a qualitative research method that intends to present and to offer a
deep comprehension of a complex reality.
The case study is the preferred research method when the researcher wants to study
reality in all its complexity, without taking certain variables out of context, as in the
case of quantitative research (surveys) or experiments.
A researcher chooses the use of the case study method when he wants to include in his
study all the context details as being extremely important for the studied phenomenon.
The case study allows the researcher to keep and handle detail and context information
important for event understanding.
The case study is used in many situations to contribute to the understanding of
individual, group, organisational, social or political phenomena. The case study is used
in different fields: psychology, sociology, political sciences, business, community
planning etc. [Robert K. Yin]
Among the purposes and audiences of the case studies were mentioned:
didactical/educational (for trainees), sharing good practices to NGOs’ staff, sharing
experiences/solutions to people who look for different solutions of problems they face in
their community.
The participants received a guideline (workbook) for designing their own case study
inspired from their organisation’s/community’s best practice. As training follow up the
participants should write and send to CEE CN a best practice case study from their
organisation/community by December 15th.
COMMENTS & RECCOMENDATIONS
Being the first online training in Citizens Network the participation wasn’t too high
(neither as trainees’ number nor as inter-activity). For all the participants this training
represented a novelty, though they didn’t have a comparison term for evaluation.
Although, I consider a progress the fact they learned to use a workspace and searched
themselves for definitions and bibliography on Internet to present to their colleagues.
Though it is obvious that the online training can’t and will not replace the network
meetings (including training events) I think this method should be encouraged in order
to fill the communication gap inside CEE CN between these meetings.
Nicolae Cuta,
trainer
Craiova, November 2005