e-PD

About e-PD Subscribing to e-PD Access to the e-PD website Registering and logging in Practitioner CPD coordinator Lead Practitioner

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Edit Your Details

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Searching Advanced search

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Booking a course

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CPD coordinators- Managing your Organization’s Account Edit Your Details Our bookings: Managing bookings Confirming/cancelling a provisional booking Changing the name on a booking

Our Courses: Managing courses for external and internal delegates View Users: Managing your registered users Registering a Lead Practitioner

Add Courses: Adding details of a course Edit School Details My Resources Your Credit Balance

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e-PD is a non-profit initiative set up by schools to encourage and develop professional partnerships among schools and other organisations with identified similar needs.

Schools can share expertise and skills and support collaboration by pooling resources. e-PD provides an online hub at www.e-pd.org.uk where subscribers can: advertise training courses earn ‘credits’ for any places taken up on training courses browse and book professional development opportunities publish and share best practice and other resources join focus groups promoting and encouraging creativity offer or seek support from Lead Practitioners and Advance Skills Teachers access forums to identify and develop specific skills and ideas access leadership development programmes e-PD can be used to improve access to training, resources and support and help reduce the cost of training and development whilst maintaining standards. e-PD is overseen by the board of directors (7 headteachers -cross-phase - nominated by the Primary and Secondary Headteachers’ Executives, an education adviser, a representative of the local authority and a university member.

Day-to-day operations are driven and overseen by the company general manager with administrative support from member schools.

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Organisations initially subscribe to e-PD by completing the relevant form and returning it to e-PD, together with the appropriate fee payable to ‘E-PD Trust’; the fee varies according to the size and type of school. E-PD administration will then add the organisation’s name to the list of subscribing schools and other institutions on the registration page of the website.

Once an organisation has subscribed to e-PD, all members of staff can register individually as users. The aim is to ensure that every member of staff has a basic level of access to the website to search for courses and resources that will help with their professional development, in line with their performance management process and personal development plan. General resources e.g. course materials, papers and guidance are freely available to all staff of subscribing organisations but actual attendance on courses at and the availability of other support and guidance, is all subject to an approval process within the staff member’s own organisation.

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New users of subscribing organisations must first complete the on screen registration form from the home page of the website. Once registered, users can log in and browse through the courses and resources listed on the website.

Enter your workplace email address and choose your own password (case sensitive with no spaces or special characters); the password can be changed later if necessary.

Remember to include any specific area(s) of expertise e.g. subject area, AST, LMT, Numbers Count Teacher, leadership, business management, SLE, LLE, NLE; these can be updated after logging in.

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There are 3 types of user: Practitioner, CPD Coordinator and Lead Practitioner.

All users initially register as ‘practitioners’ and can search search for courses, seminars, workshops, conferences, resources, consultants, etc . They can also find support and guidance from advanced skills teachers, lead practitioners and focus groups.

Practitioners can provisionally book on courses, subject to approval by their organisation’s ‘CPD coordinator’.

It is important that each subscribing organisation has at least one user nominated as a ‘CPD coordinator’ who will be responsible for: creating a profile of their organisation on the website approving any provisional course bookings made by other members of their staff uploading details and administering any courses which their school is prepared to offer maintaining their organisation’s registered users and checking for unauthorised users assigning other staff as CPD coordinators or Lead Practitioners

‘CPD coordinators’ tend to be headteacher’s personal assistants, school bursars or business managers, administrators, or staff with responsibility for training and development. To register as a CPD coordinator, first register as a ‘practitioner’ on the website and then contact e-PD central administration to be assigned CPD coordinator access. A user must have the approval of the headteacher or another senior person in their organisation to be assigned CPD coordinator access rights, as they will have the ability to authorise ‘credit’ transactions.

Any person assigned as a CPD coordinator will be automatically listed under their organisation’s website profile.

All lead practitioners initially register as a ‘practitioner’. Their area(s) of expertise e.g. subject area, AST, LMT, Numbers Count Teacher, SLE, LLE, NLE, should be entered under ‘Area of Expertise’ on the registration form when first registering (this can be changed later); if there is more than one area of expertise, each area must be separated by a comma. Once registered, a lead practitioner should contact their school’s CPD coordinator to ask for their status to be changed to that of a lead practitioner. This will ensure that their profile appears in the search results if anyone is searching for relevant expertise on the website.

Any person assigned as a lead practitioner will be automatically listed under their organisation’s website profile.

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The Edit Your Details page is the home page for practitioners and lead practitioners; it is the page displayed when they first log in to the website. CPD coordinators can access it from their home page using the Edit Your Details button. From here you can change your password, email address and areas of expertise, and upload an image for your profile - but remember to click the Save button!

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Whilst logged in you can search for courses, CPD coordinators, lead practitioners, resources and consultants. Use broad search terms and the shortest possible string of letters (e.g. searching for math will find maths and mathematics). If necessary, you can then filter the initial search results to refine your search.

To navigate back to your Edit Your Details home page wherever you are on the website, click the link to My Account from the top menu bar.

Use the quick search feature with the drop down menu to find courses, CPD coordinators, lead practitioners, teaching and training resources, and details of external trainers and consultants. Either enter a keyword in the blank box and choose the category from the drop down menu or leave the search box blank for a complete listing in date order of the chosen category from the drop down menu (courses, resources, etc).

Choose ‘Courses’ from the top menu bar to access an alphabetical listing of courses A-Z or to perform a more detailed search of courses or to view courses displayed in Google maps or to search for users, CPD coordinators and lead practitioners.

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Under the Full A-Z tab click the relevant letter of the alphabet to access all courses with a title beginning with that letter.

Click the Map tab to display courses by location on Google maps.

Advanced search options enable a search to be filtered by date range, keyword, name, location (area or organisation) or post code (post code syntax requires the space). Leaving all the search terms blank gives a complete listing of all courses in date order.

Search for CPD coordinators or lead practitioners and then filter the results by name or area of expertise (7). Leaving both name and area of expertise blank gives a complete list. ‘Search All’ provides a list of all registered users of the website. The complete list of users can be filtered to show practitioners, CPD coordinators or lead practitioners from a particular school (8).

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Use the Reserve your place button to make a provisional booking on a course. A notification email will automatically be sent to you and your school’s CPD coordinator with details of the provisional booking; it is your CPD coordinator’s responsibility to approve or cancel the booking.

The credit value is transferred once a booking is approved by the CPD Coordinator; the number of places left on the course is then reduced accordingly.

IMPORTANT: Your reservation will not appear on the host organisation’s delegate list until the confirmation process has been completed. Users who have provisionally reserved a place on a course and received initial notification of a provisional booking but have not received an email confirming the booking, should speak to their organisation’s CPD coordinator.

You must have sufficient credits in your organisation’s account to book courses offered by others. Credits can be purchased by downloading and completing the relevant form and following the instructions.

Look out for the Latest News about courses and events that may be of interest to you.

Subscribe to the free e-PD electronic newsletter and receive regular updates by email regarding courses, events and resources available.

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Your e-PD account is managed from the Edit School Details page. This page is accessed from the e-PD home page by clicking on My Account on the top menu bar; it is also the page displayed when a CPD coordinator first logs in to the website.

The CPD coordinator is responsible for: uploading their school’s details on to the website uploading information on any courses their school wishes to offer managing bookings made by users from their own school; and reviewing their school’s users and arranging any updates.

Organisations, via their designated CPD Coordinators, can add and advertise any courses they wish to offer; these can range from small discussion groups, subject led development workshops and INSET days to more formal training courses and events, even extending to the offer of staff exchanges over a given period.

CPD Coordinators can also build their organisation’s profile on the website and identify their specialisms and any lead practitioners; this enables organisations to showcase their areas of expertise to other users of the website.

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From the Edit Your Details page it is possible to update your own (CPD coordinator) details by changing your password, email address and areas of expertise; you can also upload an image for your profile.

Always remember to click the Save button to keep any changes you make.

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Use the Our Bookings button to view course bookings made by your staff, to approve or cancel provisional bookings made by your staff, or to change details of the person booked.

Making a booking on the e-PD website is a two-step process to enable the matching of training to needs and the monitoring and control of spending: N.B. Organisations will need to ensure that they have sufficient credits in their accounts to book courses offered by others.

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The member of staff attending the course should log in to the website and reserve their place on the chosen course; this is stored as a provisional booking but does not guarantee a place at this stage.

The organisation’s CPD coordinator and the member of staff concerned will have received email notification of the provisional booking. Log in to the website and use the drop down menu to approve or cancel the pending (provisional) booking made by the member of staff.

IMPORTANT: A place will not be reserved until this confirmation process has been completed.

If the CPD coordinator approves the booking the relevant number of credits will be taken from their account and transferred to the organisation offering the course. If the CPD coordinator chooses to cancel the provisional booking no credits are transferred and contact will need to be arranged with the member of staff concerned to explain the circumstances which led to the cancellation. Either a booking confirmed or booking cancelled email notification will be automatically sent to the member of staff and the organisation running the course when the process has been completed by the CPD coordinator.

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Changing the name on a booking

If a booking has been made on behalf of another registered user it is possible for a school’s CPD coordinator to change the name of the person booked: In the Our Bookings screen click the link named Detail under the relevant booking.

Use the drop down menu of names to select the correct delegate.

N.B. If the correct delegate does not appear in the list, the person will need to register on the website first or the CPD coordinator can register for them using the person’s email address and entering a password that should be notified to the member of staff concerned; the member of staff can then change their password if they wish by logging on and entering a new password in the My Details area and saving the new details.

Click the Update button to confirm the change.

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A complete listing of all courses offered by your organisation can be viewed using the Our Courses button. Details of any previously run courses are also listed here for reference purposes; however, these will not be viewable by other schools when searching for courses.

It is possible to Export course information to Excel.

Clicking the link named Details under the relevant course enables you to manage the bookings made on courses offered by your organisation; CPD coordinators then have access to three buttons located below the delegate list to:

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email all or selected delegates (Send Message); generate and print delegate name Badges; N.B. use your web browser page set up function (located under File in Internet Explorer) to ggconfigure the template for printing label size 89mm x 55mm (untick ‘Enable-Shrink-to-Fit’, ggensure headers and footers boxes all display ‘empty’ and generally set margins at ggtop=15mm, left and right=8mm, bottom=0 or adjust margins to suit). export delegate information to Excel, which is particularly useful for courses with both gginternal and external delegates and courses open to non-e-PD members when ggdelegate lists need to be merged to form a complete list. Attendance lists can also be ggcreated this way by adding columns for signatures, etc and re-formatting for A3 ggprinting.

Clicking Edit for the relevant course enables you to edit the details of courses your organisation is running or hosting; you can add or change relevant information.

Clicking Duplicate enables you to duplicate the details of a listed course, which is useful if the same course is being run on several occasions in one period or again at any time in the future; however, take care to update all the relevant details including dates and any credit values before saving any new courses that originated from a duplicated profile.

Reserving places for internal delegates The website has been designed with the option for members of staff from subscribing organisations to register for courses advertised on the e-PD website by their own organisation. No credit values (if applicable) are deducted and the number of external places remaining stays the same. CPD Coordinators may wish to manage this centrally by Reserving a Place (see previous section on Booking a Course) under the relevant course on the e-PD website for each of their internal delegates, or they can ask the relevant members of staff to Reserve a Place themselves; either way, each member of staff concerned will need to have previously registered on the e-PD website using their email address and a password.

This option has been included in the functionality of the website to: enable the delegate list to contain the names of all those attending (internal and ggexternal) for completeness, production of attendance lists and name badges, and for gggeneral communications about the course or event direct from the website create a training record, using the e-PD website, of all courses and events attended by ggstaff.

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Organisations manage their own users via their CPD coordinator who should ensure that their list of users is current.

Use the View Users button to show all registered users from your organisation.

Delete staff that have left your organisation and also anyone that you are unable to identify, by clicking the relevant empty box at the beginning of their details (should fill orange) and clicking Delete,, but take care not to Select All .

Email all or selected users by clicking their empty box (should fill orange) and then clicking Send Message;; to Select All, click the uppermost box in the title bar .

Export all or selected user details to Excel by clicking their empty box (should fill orange) and then clicking Export; to Select All click the uppermost box in the title bar .

Click Print to print a complete list of your organisations users and their designations.

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Registering a Lead Pratictioner Once a member of staff has registered on the website, the school’s CPD coordinator should ensure that lead practitioners are listed against their school. To change the status of a ‘practitioner’ to that of ‘lead practitioner’ the CPD coordinator should use the View Users button : Use the drop down menu for the relevant person to change the role of the user to ‘Lead Practitioner’; this will automatically save the new designation to the system.

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Adding details of a course your school wishes to offer CPD coordinators can upload courses their organisation wishes to offer to others through the website. Using the Add Courses button will take you to the template in which all fields are mandatory (one or more characters are required in each field).

Choose a title starting with a key word or theme (‘Numicon – an introduction’ rather than ‘An introduction to Numicon’).

Insert keywords, each separated by a comma, using general words which represent the subject matter, themes and features of the course and the target audience. It is worth spending time on this section by entering eight or so key words that will help others to find the course when they are searching on the website; this can include key words already contained in the course title.

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Insert the place where the course will be held.

Enter the total number of places on the course (internal + external).

Enter the number of places available for booking by other organisations (external places).

Insert the date and time on which the course will start and finish.

Use this field if the course runs over several sessions on different days; insert the total number of sessions in the series.

Highlight all the days over which the course is running (Ctrl and left click to add multiple days) Click on Calculate to bring up the Credit Value CalculatorŠ. Provide answers to the series of prompts or leave blank, as appropriate, and then click the Calculate button. The credit value payable for each external place (each individual attending the course from another organisation) will be automatically calculated and inserted in the course template.

N.B. Places = Total number of places (internal and external) on the course; Release cost and Agreed release cost (if you wish to recoup the cost for a person helping to deliver the course from another organisation) are for your organisation to determine based on any costs likely to be incurred (teaching supply cover costs, etc) and any general overheads; the appropriate Number of hours must be selected from the drop down menu; External Leader should be used for a course being wholly delivered by an external organisation; the costs of an External Venue should include the total sum charged for hire of the venue, meals, refreshments, audio/visual and other resource; the costs of any printed materials e.g. delegate packs can be entered under Materials.

Alternatively, assign a credit value manually without opening the Credit Value CalculatorŠ.

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Describe what the course is about, what it is designed to do and how will it contribute to individual or organisational effectiveness.

Include a short relevant biography of the trainer or speaker including their skills as a practitioner and experience in the field.

Insert a description of the areas covered by the course and the individual components.

Enter the start and finish times and the duration of each of the key components; include the times and length of breaks for meals and refreshments.

Set out who the course is suitable for e.g. managers who wish to learn best practice in coaching; team leaders who want to develop and accredit key skills. Specify if the course is restricted i.e. accessible to the school’s locality only or to named schools.

Insert some key learning benefits for the individual by virtue of attending the course and describe how it will align with organisational goals.

Do delegates need to have completed previous training or already be of a specific standard?

Optional. Upload a picture or clipart which best illustrates the course or the venue using the browse button; use extra small size or low resolution pictures (less than 2 mega pixels). Alternatively choose an image from the library provided.

When all fields are completed remember to ‘Save’ to upload your course.

N.B. To save a draft version of course details pending publication on the website, add and save a course initially with the correct date of the course or event; all fields are mandatory but you can insert ‘draft version’ or some temporary text in any boxes for which content is awaited. Then edit the course or event immediately by inserting a past date and saving again; at this point it will not be searchable (published) on the website. When you are happy with the content and ready to publish you can subsequently edit the relevant course or event and set the date to the correct (future) date and then save.

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Member schools build their own profiles on the website, identifying their specialism and lead practitioners.

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Enter name of organisation.

Enter full postal address minus post code.

Enter full post code.

Insert main telephone number including dialling code; insert main fax number including dialling code.

Insert central email address – usually ‘office@’ or ‘admin@’, or a contact email address for the locality or organisation.

Insert the url (domain name locator) for the school website e.g. www.school.org.uk.

Leave blank if this is not applicable.

Use the drop down menu to choose the correct phase of school or designation for the organisation.

Insert the name of your Locality Group e.g. Chichester, Angmering, Horsham East in West Sussex.

Insert any Ofsted Categories judged as ‘Outstanding’; enter any Specialisms e.g. Sports, Business and Enterprise, Languages.

Upload the organisation’s logo (if any) using the browse button; upload a picture illustrating the school, locality work or institution. Logo and picture should be image files (.jpeg/.gif ), not embedded images in a word/pdf document; preferably landscape format; max 2 mega pixels.

Enter a general description of the school, locality or organisation, including pupil numbers, age bands, mixed/single-sex, and any special training accommodation or facilities.

Include any major links/partnerships with businesses, universities or other institutions or community interests. (Note: a short extract may be available to copy into this section from the organisation’s own website) When completed, click Save to upload the profile to the website.

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Resources can be added to the website by e-PD central administration to supplement course profiles by providing more detail before or after the event e.g. slides, notes, presentation papers, or not connected with any course or event e.g. subject guidance, authoritative papers - simply as a means to share good practice.

A complete listing of all resources on the website can be found by using the My Resources button; this takes you to the File Repository page.

To search for resources linked to a particular course, select the course name from the drop down menu and click Search.

To search for resources not linked to any course or event, use the quick search facility by choosing Resources from the drop down menu, entering the subject area in the blank box and clicking Search; you can then filter the search results using the options on the left on the search results page.

If CPD Coordinators or members of staff have resources that they would like to link with their courses or events or simply to share with e-PD members, please forward them to info@ e-PD.org.uk in the first instance.

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Attendance at courses and events is paid for with ‘credits’; this reduces the need to process payments. Credits can be purchased from e-PD, or earned by charging for external places on courses advertised on the e-PD website.

The Your credit balance button shows your organisation’s current credit balance.

Using the Your credit balance button gives a list of credit transfers made against each booking, to allow subscribers to re concile their credit balance and track individual credit transactions.

Credits may be purchased in batches of 100 (£1.25 buys 1 credit) either by sending a cheque made out to ‘e-PD Trust’, together with a copy of subscription form with the ‘Credits’ section completed, or by using the Buy credits button which will take you to the Paypal online payment gateway. Credits are added to a school’s balance on the website immediately on receipt of the cheque or instantly when paid online via Paypal.

The credits are not time limited and can be carried forward from year to year or a school can choose to be reimbursed for unused credits at the end of August each year.

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www.e-pd.org.uk Tel: 01403 282019 E-mail: info@e-PD.org.uk Fax: 01403 211729