E-tutor’s competences: a training experience in Public Administration

This study has been developed at National School of Public Administration (SSPA - Bologna, Italy) during the training experience addressed to 63 public service managers. This training project has been developed to explore the role of a residential tutor in a residential learning experience, and to compare it with the e-tutor competences and activities in an e-learning context. A structured instrument has been developed to observe and to manage the training activities and the interpersonal dynamics during a residential experience aimed to investigate the competences that managers will have to consider in their future e-tutoring experiences. Four preliminary lectures have permitted to define the role of both the residential tutor and the e-tutor. Some e-tutoring experts have conducted two days experience aimed to underline the main e-tutor competences and the transversal aspects (LeBoterf, 2000) involving contents, social interaction and new technologies management. The participants have been divided into four groups to simulate online activities. Our results underline that an e-tutor could be an important key in an e-learning experience, thanks to his “psychological nearness” to learners and his function to promote interactions and communication on the online platform (Calvani, Rotta, 1999). This case study has confirmed that an e-tutor should be present in a forum with regular up date information, immediate feedback and standardised answers. The e-tutor competences can be categorised in three levels: a) knowledge about TIC to manage different technological systems; b) competences on teaching methodologies; c) social and interpersonal competences to stimulate and moderate the work group and the cooperation among subjects. This case study permits to compare cross competences between residential tutor and e-tutor; to investigate the main competences, activities and functions on the e-tutor; to plan support and intervention to achieve a relevant standard of learning quality in Public Administration