Our transition to FOLIO is planned for summer of 2022, and it’s time to start thinking about staff training!  Today, we’re going to share what has been happening behind the scenes to make sure all staff at Duke Libraries feel comfortable transitioning their work to FOLIO.

Building training infrastructure

Beginning in early 2020, a series of FOLIO Implementation Teams and Working Groups spun up at Duke to begin coordinating efforts around the FOLIO transition. The Documentation and Training Working Group was charged with establishing best practices and support materials for FOLIO-related documentation and training. The DTWG met through the first half of 2020 and created a series of resources to guide the development and delivery of documentation and training (Duke login required):

• Documentation Guidelines and Toolkit
• Training Methods Toolkit
• Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
• Translation Guides from Aleph to FOLIO

With this infrastructure ready, the task became to establish a group to oversee the development of training content.

Building training content

What kind of team would be needed to build training materials that cover all needed FOLIO functionality, acknowledging that current FOLIO team members are already heavily committed? A small group began meeting in the fall of 2020 to discuss possible training development models. The options considered included separate training teams for different groups of FOLIO apps and a small core team with rotating experts to help in different content areas. In the end, the small group proposed staying a small group – a newly formed Training Development and Delivery Team, made up of Karen Newbery, Julie Brannon, and Angela Zoss.

Our training philosophy includes several goals:

• Focus on specific user needs
• Focus on understanding patterns, not memorizing steps
• Use a consistent style for materials
• Use consistent terminology across courses
• Use consistent delivery mechanism

One benefit of this small team is the ability to build high levels of skill among the small group and devote a high level of attention and time to the training program. One of the gaps, though, is the inclusion of deep expertise in all areas of FOLIO. To leverage expertise across the libraries without requesting full team membership, the TDDT has created a training role of “superuser.”

Learning from our superusers

The TDDT training staffing proposal describes our concept of superusers, or staff members who will be offering feedback on draft versions of the FOLIO training modules. These superusers will be part of an iterative training design model. The TDDT will design training modules based on their understanding of FOLIO apps features and staff needs determined by the FOLIO Implementation Teams. Superusers across the different divisions and libraries at Duke will test out the training materials by attending a live demonstration or reviewing recordings or text-based versions of the same material. Superusers will then give feedback on the materials, including feedback on the style of the materials and the content covered in the module. TDDT members will revise the materials and request further feedback as needed.

The development of training materials will be scheduled according to a variety of criteria, including how busy the superusers are for a particular module and how stable the development is in a particular FOLIO app. This allows us to stagger the requests for feedback across different groups of superusers. The expectation is that superusers will be spending short amounts of time periodically through the summer and fall of 2021 to review modules that are directly relevant to their positions. The result of this early training will also position superusers well to serve as local experts when other staff if their sections or departments begin their training toward the end of 2021.

Planning course pathways

One of the early tasks of the TDDT is to review and refine a draft course curriculum, used to plan out what modules are needed and what course pathways make sense for staff with different roles in the libraries. The curriculum can help staff consider what course modules are likely to be relevant to their current positions and to plan training time accordingly. Staff in roles that currently use Aleph should expect to undertake FOLIO training in any related areas. Even staff who do not currently use Aleph may wish to review the course curriculum; FOLIO has new features that weren’t available in Aleph, and you may be curious to learn a bit about what is possible.

As we all set up our annual goals for the coming year, we encourage staff to reserve time for FOLIO training, either as a superuser or as part of the wider staff training rollout. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions!