Assessment of e-Tutor Success in Online Professional Development

One determinant of a successful distance learning activity is the well-defined roles and competencies of e-tutors as well as the establishment of an infrastructure to allow them to gain such competencies. Serving approximately 10,000 students each semester by means of fully online undergraduate and graduate programs in addition to the online delivery of common core courses, Mu？la S？tk？ Ko？man University conducts an online certificate program (e-Tutor) as a pre-condition for online teaching. It is aimed at training instructors and faculty members to enable them to teach online. In this study, potential e-tutors’ performance of tasks and activities throughout the program so as to predict their success as an online instructor was examined. The aim of the study was to determine which factors affect e-tutors’ success in their online learning experience. The study was conducted with 60 instructors, selected among 305 participants of e-Tutor, which was conducted by the Distance Education Centre of the university from 2012 to 2015. Digital artifacts created by the instructors as part of the program’s assessment, for example, e-syllabus, e-exam, still visual, podcast, and videos were evaluated by using pre-determined criteria. Statistical analyses were performed to examine whether e-tutors’ successes were influenced by gender, age, academic title, and discipline. It was concluded that instructors’ success significantly differs and is dependent on gender and age