Work & Academics

Instructional Design

At a certain research institute, many of the employees collaborate on documents intended for publication. Documents range from short (1,000 to 2,000 words) articles for website or newsletter publication, to longer (20 to 80 pages) reports and working papers. The authorship and editing process is sometimes shared by up to four people. The problem is that these groups of authors working on papers together often have a difficult time managing version revisions of their co-authored papers. Often, the authors are uncertain about which version is the most recent version of the paper.

Most of the learners in this setting are in their mid- to late-twenties. Most of them live and work in different parts of India, but some of them are visiting PhD students or project interns who also spend part of their time abroad at their primary university. In all, there are 47 learners, including the local researchers, the visiting PhD students, and project interns.

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Instructional Design

We have all worked somewhere, perhaps under someone else’s supervision, where we have had the inclination to say—at least to ourselves— “If I were in charge, I would….” During those moments, we are questioning both the ability and the approach of the organization to meet different needs, objectives, and efficiency requirements. Conversely, we may have worked in an environment that was very productive and where objectives were often met—just not with the same level of quality that was intended. Projects produced in such an environment are submitted with a disclaimer like “It was the best I could do with what I had to work with” or something similar. Our critiques of the organization’s approach, or our subtle expression of our needs, may be well-grounded in our firsthand experience; however, these approaches are rarely systematic.

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