During 2009 the Board is working on the following major projects.

Project Name: Online Learner Competencies
Project Leader: Michael Beaudoin
Project Team: Michael Beaudoin, Robin Yap, Insung Jung, Gila Kurtz, Barbara Grabowski, Katsuaki Susuki, with Jan Viser & ileana de la Teja (Fellows).
Project Description: In light of current interest in online learning, the ibstpi® board decided in February 2004 to embark on a new project to identify and validate learner competencies in online settings, at different levels and for multiple purposes. Growing interest in online learning is reflected in an increased number of related conferences, research/publications, and web forums. The general focus however tends to be around technology, management, or instruction in online environments, rarely addressing the learner's experience. The board believes that online learning environments provide learners with a range of challenges that are potentially more diverse than in face-to-face settings and that these are not currently addressed in proportion to other online topics.

In addition, the board believes that online learner competencies and their specific performances will also be relevant for learners in more traditional contexts. In fact, establishing the set of competencies and performances that learners in the 21st century should master is hoped to contribute to changing learner and instructor behaviors in face-to-face learning settings as well and to provide guidance to educators regarding learner preparation in general. Preliminary results of study were presented as invited paper at European Distance Education Research Network Research Workshop, Paris. Oct 2009. A team of board members is currently leading this effort and reports to the board regularly.

Project Name: Evaluator Competencies
Project Leader: Darlene Russ-Eft
Project Description: In June 2004 the Board launched a project to identify the competencies needed by internal staff or external consultants conducting evaluations in the following settings:
* For-profit and not-for-profit organizations
* The military
* Government agencies evaluating their own internal programs.
The competencies needed by such individuals may be somewhat different from those needed by evaluators examining the effectiveness of large scale state-wide or national programs often funded by government departments or agencies. Competencies for such large scale evaluations are provided by American Evaluation Association for example, and are covered in numerous textbooks on program evaluation.

The new Standards for Evaluators have been released, and the following book provides details on the competencies:

• Russ-Eft, D., Bober, M., de la Teja, I., Foxon, M., & Koszalka, T. A. (2008). Evaluator competencies: The standards. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Project Name: Instructional Designer Competencies - Update
Project Leader: Tiffany A. Koszalka

Project Team: Tiffany A. Koszalka, Robert Reiser, Darlene Russ-Eft, Marcie Bober-Michel, Fernando A. Senior

Project Description: The ibstpi Board commissioned this group in 2008 to investigate the need to update the 2001 Instructional Design Competencies. The team, using a survey administered to practicing instructional designers and a review of the current literature, determined that an update is necessary. Advances in emerging technologies and new performance expectations of workers as well as the insurgence of global, interdisciplinary, and collaborative work environments are impacting the activities and measures of human performance. Workers must be more flexible in their thinking, consider their own expertise in relationship to other’s in solving complex problems of their work, and communicate more effectively using different media with multiple stakeholders. Many are in need of just-in-time learning solutions to help them maintain high levels of performance.  Instructional solutions therefore are in need of becoming more fully integrated into the workday of quickly changing and highly flexible work environments. Instructional design professional therefore may need additional competencies to develop instructional (and non-instruction) programs and materials to help performers meet expectations. Our team is in the process of revising, identifying, and validating ID standards and performance statements that more closely align with the roles that instructional design professionals take on in this emerging global, interdisciplinary, flexible, and collaborative working environment.