3-Os/Operations Research Capacity Building/ToRs

1. Building a Sustainable Community of Practice post-workshop

Objectives

Support the establishment of an effective and high-performing Community of Practice (with the same group of 12 Fellows and 1 tutor, and induct newcomers); facilitate the growth of a scalable and sustainable Community of Practice and an education repository as part of capacity building activities of health professionals, with the principal focuses being:

• applying a community-of-practice approach to sustain continuous knowledge sharing and collaboration after a one-off training workshop
• increasing both the breadth and depth of participation from (organization) members in the community,
• incorporating online mentoring - to support meaningful application of knowledge and skills learnt to do OR in clinics, and mutual learning among all participants, partner agencies and research networks to increase the quality and quantity of relevant research conducted by those on the frontline of the global health response, presented at International level and in peer-review open-access scientific journals.
• creating a sense of pride and ownership, more dynamic continuous engagement on practice issues, increased performance and faster ROI on training

Benefits include:

• Designing the approach in alignment with (organization) strategic objectives and operational and financial metrics (Goals x, y, z)
• Stakeholder involvement, buy-in and feedback throughout CoP implementation
• Strengthening networking and collaboration via stakeholder communities of mutual interest (institutes, NGOs, networks, centers, societies, etc.)
• Faster return-on-investment and sustainability in delivering completed OR projects

Statement of Work

Pilot Phase

The CoP will launch over a 9-month period with XX full-time equivalent (FTE) days required, starting in the week of January, 15, 2010, with the following deliverables due on, or before September, 15, 2010 (or as indicated below):

The Community Developer shall:

• Work proactively with (organization) and any designated partners

• Guide the development of the CoP on (WikiEducator), particularly in terms of organizational strategy, aligned to operational and financial objectives, communicating objectives and key messages, and layout and site navigation;

• Actively support the participation and contributions of individuals and groups and proactively facilitate discussion and networking and advance collaboration among individuals and groups in the (subject matter) CoP (i.e., dyads, clusters, local community groups and networks);

• Actively support, and mentor participants to increase their skill development and proactively facilitate discussion, networking, engagement, and advance their learning and collaboration in conducting and sharing operations research;

• Identify, survey, engage, and connect potential new contributors to and users of the OR CoP; support new members to fully engage in the community and to individuals sharing mutual interests and increase their performance, including developing both technical and programmatic skills (i.e., research doing and writing, mentoring for publishing, advocacy for policy change);

• Identify suitable new materials and facilitate their development and or inclusion in the OR CoP; communicate with partners for this purpose and mobilise resources in the further development of the community;

• Leverage use of social (new) media to foster and enhance participatory engagement and content creation for meaningful, retained and actionable learning experiences;

• In close collaboration with (organization) and other designated partners, contribute to the planning of further research training workshops, at conferences and in-country.

Deliverables (Outputs) & Time Frame

• Participants Learning Needs Analysis, Strategy & Action Plan
• Expanded community of practice, both in terms of numbers (20+ new organizational and 50+ individual members) and depth of participation (50+ new substantial postings by members);

• Increased quantity and quality of content on the OR CoP particularly:
  • The full range of capacity building materials associated with and developed for the (NGO/IGO) Capacity Building Program at (event);
  • OR protocols developed through online mentoring posted by (NGO/IGO) members;
  • Materials posted by the Community Builder and Mentors (50)
  • At least 30 draft abstracts based on operations research submitted for a conference
  • At least 10 manuscripts in preparation for open-access scientific journals

• (NGO/IGO) members and partner agencies have new skills in relevant areas (using CoP for learning, online mentoring dialogues, collaboration and networking etc.)

• (NGO/IGO) capacity building partners are actively supported in engaging with the Operations Research community, the repository and in executing future workshops; and

• Monthly updates and final report (2-3 pages) on outputs, challenges and lessons learned; also a critical assessment of the strategy to develop an effective and high performing 3-Os model for continuous professional distance education (CPDE).

Phase II

In the 3-Os model, a set of explicit objectives will be derived collaboratively, and evaluated using summative, situated and formative evaluation processes (McPherson & Nunes, 2001).

With holistic evaluation within an action research framework, practical concerns of participants and educational goals of the programme can be quickly addressed, in an ethical framework.

Thus after the Pilot Phase I, a Phase II of deeper engagement can be initiated as the project is taken to scale.