Executive Summary

The major problem was definitely the time required to complete all the assignments. On average, participants spent over 8 hours per week working on the various lessons. This made it especially difficult for those with full time jobs or who were traveling extensively during the course. We also learned that some of the time constraints might have been due to the timing. It seems that the course was offered during the busiest season. Implications are that the course must be redesigned so that it requires less time to complete (no more than 5 hrs per week), that future courses should be offered in off periods and that participant supervisors and HRD managers be informed of a staff member's participation and agree to provide some compensatory time to learners.

Respondents also gave good feedback on topics they wanted to see more of in the course. Chief among these were MRLs and their implications and how to prevent, recognize and treat chemical poisoning (not limited to insecticides). Another major area was application technologies including sprayer maintenance and calibration. These will be strengthened in subsequent offerings. There were also some changes that were recommended in content including the pit wash method (do not recommend) and color schemes used to distinguish different classes of pesticides (vary from country to country).

In regard to the functioning of the class the main area of concern was the group work and its facilitation. Participants seemed to have a hard time forming and working in online groups. This situation was aggravated when individual group members did not contribute to group efforts or were late in submitting their parts of group assignments. While shortening the time requirements and getting supervisors to grant compensatory time will help, the real need is to get a greater commitment from students up front and also to get facilitators to devote more effort into keeping the groups and their members on task. Facilitators should also do more to get 'lurkers' involved and keeping everyone motivated. Facilitators' knowledge and advice did get high marks.

It also appears that a lot of work needs to be done on restructuring the course. Many participants indicated that insufficient time was given to work on assignments and that some of these exercises might better be spread over two or more weeks. They also seem to be somewhat uncomfortable with the use of discussion boards although these were used extensively by many participants. A listserv might be a more attractive way to foster interactions.

There was almost universal agreement that e-learning was an effective mechanism for improving knowledge but also that it might be enhanced with some face-to-face and demonstration training. The topic is certainly important - all respondents indicated that they and their colleagues needed more training on Safe Use. All but one respondent indicated that they would be interested in participating in another APRTC online course.