Piloting of an e-learning readiness assessment tool for public health professionals in countries with limited resources

Distance learning has been shown to be an effective strategy to address the many barriers to continuing education faced by the U.S. public health workforce. Increasingly, public health agencies in countries with limited resources are looking toward Internet-based training to deliver educational opportunities to their workforce. Given that Internet-based training is a newer approach in many of these countries, the need to determine the e-learning readiness of potential participants must be assessed prior to fully incorporating this innovative modality into training programs. To address this need, the North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness (NCCPHP) in the North Carolina Institute for Public Health at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health developed an e-learning readiness assessment tool for use in countries with limited resources. The development of this tool was based on 12 years of experience in Internet-based public health preparedness educational programming, as well as a review of existing e-learning readiness assessments and thorough literature searches. This tool, unlike other e-learning assessments, takes into consideration the culture and technology infrastructure unique to countries with limited resources. The assessment tool is comprised of questions pertaining to 5 basic categories: (1) demographics and background information; (2) available computer and Internet resources; (3) computer skills; (4) prior distance learning experience; and (5) life and learning styles. In this presentation, we will discuss the development of this assessment tool and the results and lessons learned from piloting this survey to participants in 11 countries with limited resources.