Introduction

This chapter is concerned with the activities that need to take place in order to ensure that training events are well designed and evaluated, and also marketed and promoted. The starting-point for thinking about any training event is the learners and their needs, and this is explored under the headings: library and information users and their needs; supporting learners with disabilities; and working with international students.

This is followed by a detailed section on designing training events. Why spend time designing learning and teaching activities? There are a number of reasons for taking the time to work out the detail of your training programme and these include:

The section covers basic design principles and explores different approaches to structuring face-to-face training events. (E-learning and blended learning programmes will be considered in Chapter 7.) The design of a training event involves thinking about evaluation and incorporating this into the structure of the event. Frequently, evaluation is considered at the end of books on training, but if it is to be properly designed, then it needs to be considered at the same time as the design process. The Kirkpatrick (1994) model is used to describe different levels of and approaches to training evaluation.

The last section in this chapter focuses on marketing and promoting training events. It describes common approaches to ensuring that the appropriate participants attend training events and ends with a series of case studies which explore current practice.

Example 5.1 Planning and designing training events

Harding (2012) writes: