TEACHING INDEXERS AND ABSTRACTORS THROUGH DISTANCE TEACHING PROGRAMMES.

Distance teaching programmes can offer working adults valuable opportunities for furthering their careers in a dynamic indexing and abstracting environment that includes database indexing, book indexing and Web indexing. On the basis of experience gained at the University of South Africa (UNISA), a study of the practice of distance teaching and an instructional design model developed by the author, suggestions are offered for the design of distance teaching programmes for indexers and abstractors. The model specifies the aspects to consider, namely teaching philosophy, characteristics of distance teaching (including the benefits and disadvantages), situation analysis, formulation of aims and learning outcomes, actual development of the programme (including the selection of media and teaching strategies), selection of assessment methods, offering of learner support and evaluation of the programme. Suggestions are made for the teaching of indexing and abstracting, bearing in mind that there are different models of distance teaching programmes. The choice of a model would depend on the particular situation (e.g. the availability of information technology infrastructure). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]