Status: closed

An environmental scan explores the current situation across a sector and asks key questions about perceived challenges and potential opportunities or innovations. The results of a scan either guide next steps or revise project/initiative scope and deliverables.

Purpose

This document outlines the environmental scan for the Mental Health Projects, the components and elements required for the resulting inventory of resources, and a framework for inquiring into perceived needs for open learning resources.

The Collaborative Projects team provides evidence-based, collaboratively designed and developed open education and training resources for the B.C. post-secondary education system and sector partners. BCcampus environmental scans are conducted at the beginning of collaborative projects to provide key information on the sector. This information benefits the advisory group by either focusing and clarifying the project or building guiding frameworks for project deliverables (see appendix C).

Deliverables

The environmental scan will identify existing professional development opportunities across the post-secondary sector in British Columbia, specifically:

Coordinated offerings for PSIs (e.g., courses, workshops, seminars, speaker series, annual events),
Mental health training designed for learning resources that can be adapted for an open education environment (e.g., print materials, video, online resources, podcasts); and
Subject matter experts who deliver these opportunities, either as employees or external service providers.

The environmental scan will document the current environment’s gaps and opportunities through open-ended conversations with potential audiences and resource providers. These informal conversations will provide insight into:

Levels of engagement with the professional learning opportunities across the institution/schools/departments;
Gaps in professional development opportunities and training resources; and
Interest in using an open educational resource to support/supplement professional learning at the local, regional, and provincial levels.

Scope

This scan will explore learning resources developed, delivered, and incorporated into post-secondary organizations across British Columbia for the inventory. The scan will be limited to opportunities provided for the past year.

The scan will also explore mental health learning resources developed across Canada and abroad used by British Columbia post-secondary institutions for the inventory. These resources will either become part of a promising practices repository or, if open-resourced, will enter the mental health resources.

Discussions with service providers for gaps will be limited to teachers and trainers, educational and department leaders, and staff within British Columbia post-secondary institutions. This also includes personnel from teaching and learning centres, committees and working groups responsible for faculty and educational development, and instructional design and curriculum developers.

Exploration and brief discussions with external service providers will be limited to identifying webpage resources and general inquiry into customers and client frequency for both the inventory and analysis.

External providers can include community groups supporting mental health initiatives. Agencies who may be contracted to provide cultural learning services as part of relational agreements with PSIs will be referenced in the inventory.
External providers and trainers can also include national and regional organizations and foundations with a training mandate. Multicultural and Indigenous factors should be highlighted in the analysis.

Requirements

The inventory will be built and maintained within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. This enables data gathering to be form-based rather than field- or cell-based. It also enables relationships (or pull-down lists) for frequent responses. Data will be presented in a summary table to the project steering committee, highlighting the following components:

Title

Organization/Dept.

Overview

Duration/Frequency

Audience

Licensing/Access

A two-page summary will be presented to the advisory group for the gap analysis. This summary will highlight gaps, opportunities, and recommendations on open resource design and delivery.

Appendix A: Project at a Glance

Mental Health Collaborative Project—Staff and Faculty Training

Deliverables

Deliverable 1: Inventory

Create an inventory of training and resource opportunities for faculty and staff in B.C.’s public post-secondary institution pertaining to the mental health of students. The resulting inventory will be organized in a .xls document.

Deliverable 2: Data Analysis Reports

Analyze the data and document the current state of the environment to include the following:

Themes in the data;
Redundancies in training and resources;
Gaps in training and resources; and
Opportunities for

The resulting analysis will be professionally written in the English language and formatted in a .docx file that includes:

One full report; and
One short one-to two-page summary report.

Data Set

The data to be collected should include the following:

Learning outcomes and purpose of the resource
Type of resource (training, workshop, materials)
Type of access (online, face to face, through portal)
Frequency of use
Number of users accessing resource
PSI’s perception of success of resource to meet the needs of faculty and staff in addressing mental health in students

Scope

In scope:

Conduct an environmental scan of current professional development and training resources and identify gaps.
Create a professional learning framework for foundational materials and specialized content for teaching faculty, curriculum designers and developers, researchers, student service providers, administrators, and educational leaders (and student workshops).

Out of scope:

To pilot, host, deliver, and maintain an online course offering or technology to support the delivery of the learning resources. BCcampus’ SOL*R repository can be utilized to store open educational resources (text, audio, video).

Communication and Deliverables Timeline:

Communication and collaboration with the BCcampus Project Lead, Robynne Devine, will be required throughout the project life cycle.

#	Activity	Due Date	Recipient
1.	A work plan to include methodology and breakdown of activities by budget and timeline	Mid July 2019, exact date TBD	BCcampus Project Lead
2.	Deliver mid-project draft inventory	August 15, 2019	BCcampus Project Lead
3.	Deliver final project inventory (Deliverable 1)	August 30, 2019	BCcampus Project Lead
4.	Deliver final project full reports and summary reports (Deliverables 2)	Sept 7, 2019	BCcampus Project Lead
5.	One meeting to share findings with the Advisory/Working Group (In-person in Victoria; video conference may be considered)	September 2019	BCcampus Project Lead, Advisory Committee, Working Group and other stakeholders as identified

Copyright, Licensing, and Waiver of Moral Rights

Any intellectual property developed as a result of this contract will be owned by the Province of British Columbia and subject to Creative Commons licensing. As part of this process, all authors of written content will be required to sign a Waiver of Moral Rights provided by BCcampus.

No Subcontracting or Assignment

The use of third-party service providers is approved under the condition that the Supplier directly manages the payment and management of these service providers within the agreed upon budget and timelines for this project.

Budget

The total amount of the contract will be GST inclusive. Payment will be made in two parts:

After delivery of the mid-project draft inventory; and
After the delivery of the final project inventory, final project full reports, and summary reports. Budget should include personnel and direct costs (travel, editing and formatting, etc.).

Payment can be made to your post-secondary institution or to you as an individual provided you are not an employee of Simon Fraser University (which is our administrative host).

Appendix B: Project at a Glance

Mental Health Collaborative Project—Student Resilience and Coping Training Workshops

Deliverables

Deliverable 1: Inventory

Create an inventory of training and resource opportunities for students in B.C.’s public post-secondary institutions pertaining to resilience and coping with mental health. The resulting inventory will be organized in a .xls document.

Deliverable 2: Data Analysis Reports

Analyze the data and document the current state of the environment to include the following:

Themes in the data;
Redundancies in training and resources;
Gaps in training and resources; and
Opportunities for.

The resulting analysis will be professionally written in the English language and formatted in a .docx file that includes:

One full report; and
One short one-to two-page summary report.

Data Set

The data to be collected should include the following:

Learning outcomes and purpose of the resource
Type of resource (training, workshop, materials)
Type of access (online, face to face, through portal)
Frequency of use
Number of users accessing resource
PSI’s perception of success of resource to meet the needs of faculty and staff in addressing mental health in students

Scope

In scope:

Conduct an environmental scan of current professional development and training resources and identify gaps.
Create a professional learning framework for foundational materials and specialized content for student training or

Out of scope:

To pilot, host, deliver and maintain an online course offering or technology to support the delivery of the learning resources. BCcampus’ SOL*R repository can be utilized to store open educational resources (text, audio, video).

Communication and Deliverables Timeline:

Communication and collaboration with the BCcampus Project Lead, Robynne Devine, will be required throughout the project life cycle.

#	Activity	Due Date	Recipient
1	A work plan to include methodology and breakdown of activities by budget and timeline	Mid July 2019, exact date TBD	BCcampus Project Lead
2	Deliver mid-project draft inventory	August 15, 2019	BCcampus Project Lead
3	Deliver final project inventory (Deliverable 1)	August 30, 2019	BCcampus Project Lead
4	Deliver final project full reports and summary reports (Deliverables 2)	Sept 7, 2019	BCcampus Project Lead
5	One meeting to share findings with the Advisory/Working Group (In-person in Victoria; video conference may be considered)	September 2019	BCcampus Project Lead, Advisory Committee, Working Group and other stakeholders as identified

Copyright, Licensing and Waiver of Moral Rights

No Subcontracting or Assignment

Budget

The total amount of the contract will be GST inclusive. Payment will be made in two parts:

After delivery of the mid-project draft inventory; and
After the delivery of the final project inventory, final project full reports, and summary reports.

Budget should include personnel and direct costs (travel, editing and formatting, etc.). Payment can be made to your post-secondary institution or to you as an individual provided you are not an employee of Simon Fraser University (which is our administrative host).

To find out more, please send an email to BCcampus Project Lead, Robynne Devine.