ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of the web as a mechanism through which part-time university teaching staff, known as Visiting Lecturers (VLs) can access their entitlement to staff development. The identification of VLs’ learning requirements results from self-assessment of their learning needs within the framework of an overall VL staff profile. An online staff development facility, AMBIENT, has been developed to address VLs’ learning requirements. The chapter explores the issues that can act as barriers to VLs’ online learning success and which expose as problematic the relationship between the availability of web-based staff development and evidence of successful learning. These issues include the predictable-access to the web and ICT skills; but also the unexpected-where working out professional identity in the context of the ‘new managerialism’ in higher education has assumed a new urgency. In conclusion, we reflect upon the paradoxes inherent within online staff development.
