16th April 2011, 07:53 PM
In my understanding, the CPD/PDP thing is just the start of what is envisioned as a wider ongoing process to enhance the professionalism of the field as a whole, and is linked to the IFA's "chartered" idea. In other fields (architecture, surveying, nursing, etc. etc.) they have a more formal and recognized career progression with a core set of skills that someone who calls themselves a professional can be expected to have.
At the moment, anyway, it's really just a framework for setting out what your goals are and keeping track of what you have done to improve your skills. There's really nothing sinister about it, IMHO, and I imagine that there isn't actually much effort or money being put into checking the logs beyond what is normally part of standards compliance and applying for a corporate membership grade. It's all part of the overall effort to encourage a culture change in archaeology, whereby you actually *do* expect to get on-the-job training in specific skills, or get sent to specialized courses, etc., like they do in other professions. In its current incarnation it is a very free-form process and you can include pretty much anything that enhances your skills, starting from wherever you are at, which is why something like watching Time Team re-runs can count. For all their faults they can be useful in giving an introduction to a particular kind of site or era that you might not be familiar with.
I went to the IFA conference this week and attended both a CPD workshop and a presentation by Andrea Bradley and Kate Geary on the topic of workplace learning, which made it clear that the CPD/PDP is intended to be a tool to help you set out goals and enhance your understanding, rather than a barrier to keep people out of the IFA and archaeology in general. It's also just a part of the IFA's longer-term goals for raising standards, increasing training, and making archaeology a sustainable profession.
In a case like yours, Troll, the idea would be that any time you spend a couple of hours learning something new, you put it on the CPD log. It doesn't have to be formal training. And it doesn't matter if you split your time between employers, the important bit is acquiring a new skill. So you can log an hour here and an hour there. And if you decide that a particular goal isn't going to work anymore, you can drop it -- just make a note of why you changed your mind. The hours you spent on it still count against your required 50 hours in two years.
At the moment, anyway, it's really just a framework for setting out what your goals are and keeping track of what you have done to improve your skills. There's really nothing sinister about it, IMHO, and I imagine that there isn't actually much effort or money being put into checking the logs beyond what is normally part of standards compliance and applying for a corporate membership grade. It's all part of the overall effort to encourage a culture change in archaeology, whereby you actually *do* expect to get on-the-job training in specific skills, or get sent to specialized courses, etc., like they do in other professions. In its current incarnation it is a very free-form process and you can include pretty much anything that enhances your skills, starting from wherever you are at, which is why something like watching Time Team re-runs can count. For all their faults they can be useful in giving an introduction to a particular kind of site or era that you might not be familiar with.
I went to the IFA conference this week and attended both a CPD workshop and a presentation by Andrea Bradley and Kate Geary on the topic of workplace learning, which made it clear that the CPD/PDP is intended to be a tool to help you set out goals and enhance your understanding, rather than a barrier to keep people out of the IFA and archaeology in general. It's also just a part of the IFA's longer-term goals for raising standards, increasing training, and making archaeology a sustainable profession.
In a case like yours, Troll, the idea would be that any time you spend a couple of hours learning something new, you put it on the CPD log. It doesn't have to be formal training. And it doesn't matter if you split your time between employers, the important bit is acquiring a new skill. So you can log an hour here and an hour there. And if you decide that a particular goal isn't going to work anymore, you can drop it -- just make a note of why you changed your mind. The hours you spent on it still count against your required 50 hours in two years.