On Wed, 15 Dec 1999, George Michaelson wrote:
> o Internet driving licences may seem a bit naff, but there
> is value in requiring people to migrate to a power-user
> status by at least trying to teach them that there are
> consequences to using tools in distributed communications
Just to point out that there appears to be something called the European
Computer Driving License (see <URL:http://www.wlv.ac.uk/pers/csdpages/
ecdl.htm> for instance). I've no idea what sort of Internet training this
provides to end users but I would guess its more the "which button to
press in IE 5" type of training course. I'll find out early next year as
my girlfriend who is a public librarian is going to have to go on the
course.
User education is a tricky subject. One of my collegues in the Networks
Team is currently on the phone explaining to an end user that sending an
email with a large Word attachment to all 15000 users on campus isn't a
good idea as our mail servers will melt. Despite our email training
courses telling people this, its a regular request, especially from
non-academic departments who are used to doing paper based mass mailings
to students. Funny thing is that depite us offering to put the Word
document on a web page and then send a small email pointing at it,
they might well just decide to flood the campus postal mail still (has
happened before). Managing this even on a single campus is a headache.
Tatty bye,
Jim'll
