CASE STUDY 9

Jennie Davenport and Pedro Lopez

Converting a Powerful Workshop to an Online Format

by Simon Hooper and Aaron Doering

Jennie Davenport was beginning to wonder if she was making any progress in resolving
the instructional design challenges in the project she had been assigned to coordinate. Both
Jennie, a project manager with eduLeaming Systems (eLS), and Pedro Lopez, a professor
of learning sciences at Midwestern State University, had been recruited by Professor Clark
Essex, a renowned sexual health expert at the university, to design an online version of his
very successful “Man-to-Man” (M2M) HIV/AIDS prevention workshop. This workshop
had been designed to improve sexual health for gay and bisexual men and had been deliv­
ered face-to-face at cities around the United States on a monthly basis for the past five
years. This particular target audience had been shown to be at high risk: specifically, target
audience members were in danger of becoming infected with HIV/AIDS though sexual
contact with infected partners.
This danger had continued to increase with the use of the Internet as an anonymous
communication medium and the meeting place of choice for many gay and bisexual men.
HIV/AIDS infection rates were higher for men who used the Internet to find partners than
for men who met their partners using more traditional approaches such as gay bars.
Several hypotheses had been proposed for the elevated risk of using the Internet as a
meeting medium. Some who used the Internet to find partners were unaware of the health
issues involved in engaging in unsafe sex. Others may have chosen to ignore potential
dangers because of a wide range of intervening variables such as the effects of alcohol or
drug use, pressure from partners to engage in high-risk sexual behavior, or internalized
homonegativity (i.e., negative attitudes toward homosexuality that obstruct many gay men
in the coming-out process). A third explanation is that the Internet simply improved “dat­
ing efficiency.” It was faster to meet partners by using the Internet, resulting in an increase
in the frequency of sexual contact.
Professor Essex had recently received substantial funding from the National Health
Foundation (NHF), a government agency, to design and develop a highly interactive mul­
timedia version of the M2M workshop that would be available via the Internet (IM2M).
Although Essex was an expert on contemporary HIV/AIDS education initiatives, he can­
didly acknowledged that he did not understand what should (or could) be done to deliver

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 C ase S tudy 9: Je n n ie D avenport an d Pedro Lopez 99

his workshop successfully via the Internet. However, he was eager for the project to fully
incorporate “state-of-the-art” web technologies, and was delighted that Pedro had agreed
to participate in the project.
The timeline written into the NHF grant called for the project to be designed, devel­
oped, and evaluated over a two-year period. The first nine months were to be used for
brainstorming and developing three levels of prototype. Product development would be
conducted during the following six months, and during the last nine months the project
would be evaluated using a randomized controlled study to compare the effectiveness of
the face-to-face and online versions of the workshop. The project proposal called for the
online version to follow the 10 components of the sexual health model: talking about sex,
culture and sexual identity, sexual anatomy and functioning, sexual health care and safer
sex, challenges to sexual health, body image, masturbation and fantasy, positive sexuality,
intimacy and relationships, and spirituality.
The NHF project proposal was written primarily by Professor Essex, but with signifi­
cant input on the instructional design approach from Pedro. Before joining the faculty,
Pedro had worked for eight years as a project manager at an educational software develop­
ment company that relied heavily on a “learning by doing” approach to instructional
design. He was currently writing a book with the working title of Authentic Pedagogy and
the Use o f Participatory Design in Instructional Design , and his numerous research arti­
cles were considered to be “cutting edge” and had received enthusiastic critical review. He
was delighted to have the opportunity to work on the design of the online version of the
workshop as he relished opportunities to put his theories into practice.
Following notification of funding from NHF, Professor Essex contracted with eLS to
develop the online environment after hearing positive reports about the company from a
senior colleague working in human resources at the university. The colleague recommended
eLS after working with the company on the development of an online version of a training
program to help the university meet the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA). eLS was an e-leaming software company that prided itself, as
its advertising said, on “designing and developing instructionally sound, cost-effective edu­
cation and training solutions to improve performance” and on delivering these solutions on
time and within budget. Indeed, eLS had won several prestigious awards in recent years for
developing training applications. Some of the company’s successes included the design and
development of a multimedia application used to improve the performance of human
resource managers at a large computer corporation and a cultural diversity training product
used by a Fortune 500 company. According to eLS, the cultural diversity training was cred­
ited with raising awareness for 92% of participants, and with changing behavior of 84%.
Jennie, one of the most successful project managers at eLS, had previously coordi­
nated two projects and had developed several learning objects that were integrated rou­
tinely into other e-leaming products. Her charge was to work with Pedro to translate the
face-to-face workshop into an online environment. Moreover, as project manager, it was
Jennie who was ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the project. Given this
level of accountability, she was highly motivated to identify clear project goals, to use
these goals to establish criteria for project evaluation, to verify changes in behavior, and to
determine the success of the project.
100 PART II C ase S tudies

Man-to-Man Workshop
The face-to-face version of the Man-to-Man workshop was presented to approximately 50
to 60 participants who traveled to a single location and met for approximately 16 hours
over a two-day period. The workshops were facilitated by faculty from the departments of
counseling psychology and human sexuality and from the university’s medical school. All
workshop presenters had received extensive sexual health workshop training and held
advanced degrees in their fields.
The workshop curriculum included the 10 components of the sexual health model and
used diverse instructional strategies such as lectures, games, opportunities for individual
reflection, and discussions in both small- and large7group settings. The instructional strate­
gies made use of a broad range of instructional media such as video clips, still images, and
slideshow presentations. Workshop participants were recruited through local print and elec­
tronic media. For example, advertisements had appeared in Leather and Lacey a publication
focusing on the local gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community; City Guide, a local
entertainment newspaper; and on local community electronic bulletin boards. Workshops
were open to all participants who identified themselves as being gay or bisexual.
The face-to-face workshop had been shown to be highly effective in reducing the inci­
dence of high-risk behavior. In fact, in an evaluation comparing workshop participants with
a control group who viewed print and video sexual-health materials, data showed that inci­
dents of risk behavior among the experimental group decreased by 32% after six months, and
27% one year later. In contrast, risk behavior among the control group decreased by 12%
after six months and 8% a year later. Evaluation data pointed to a range of reasons to account
for the success of the workshop. Many participants mentioned that the small-group experi­
ences were particularly powerful: Within supportive small groups, participants were chal­
lenged to grapple with various issues that promoted heightened self-analysis, and this process
seemed to have had a transformative effect on the attitudes and behaviors of the participants.
In addition, Professor Essex stressed the importance of using “hot cognitions” (i.e.,
use of sensual and/or erotic stimuli such as photos and movies) in certain phases of the
face-to-face workshops. Cognitive behavioral therapists use the term hot cognitions to
indicate that emotional stimulation is often crucial to the therapy process. Using hot cogni­
tions may affect decision making and behavior more than techniques in nonaroused educa­
tional contexts. Moreover, Professor Essex maintained that research had demonstrated that
the use of sexually explicit media in such settings gradually reduced participants’ discom­
fort and shame while simultaneously facilitating positive behavior change. Counseling
services were offered on-site for participants whose reactions to the workshop experiences
made them feel especially uncomfortable.

From M2M to IM2M: How Do We Get There?

Although Jennie and Pedro had only a few brief conversations about the Man-to-Man
project, both were already beginning to see that they had quite different ideas about how
to translate M2M to IM2M. Both were focused on achieving the same goal, but they
 C ase Study 9: Je n n ie D avenport and P edro Lopez 101

were having difficulty agreeing how the face-to-face workshop could be translated to an
online environment.
“I think that our design approach for this project is important because it addresses an
issue that is likely to become increasingly common in the next few years,” said Pedro. “As
Internet use continues to expand, more and more people will want to learn how to develop
an online format for a face-to-face workshop or class.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Jennie, “and I’ve already been involved in leading a couple of
such projects. As you know, I was the project manager for the HIPAA training modules.
My team members and I were asked to convert a classroom-based training module about
patients’ privacy into an online experience. The modules were completed by employees
at the university and the project was very successful: We documented a 100% comple­
tion rate! I really think that I can apply what I’ve learned in that project to the Man-to-
Man project.”
“So, how did you approach designing the online version?” asked Pedro.
“Well,” began Jennie, “it was clear that the original classroom-based HIPAA work­
shop was quite effective, so we assumed that customizing the content to specific cultural
groups and including learning checks would further increase the effectiveness of the inter­
vention while allowing us to reach a larger online audience. The online setting was the
perfect environment for customizing content and guaranteeing that learning was taking
place-Because much of the content was already in place from the live training, we were
able to focus on the customization and learning checks to further improve the training and
make it more appealing.”
“Well, I haven’t seen that workshop, but from how you describe it, it seems to be pri­
marily about delivering information,” said Pedro. “But in the Man-to-Man workshop,
we’re looking at very different learning outcomes. This project is not just about the deliv­
ery of information— it’s much more about behavior change, and that has more to do with
modifying people’s opinions and values than it does with learning content. I mean, look at
what people know about smoking—everyone recognizes that smoking is bad for their
health, but such knowledge doesn’t cause people to quit. The same is true here; we’re not
just trying to inform people about safe sex techniques. Our job is to change people’s beliefs
about themselves. By doing so, people will begin to make effective choices. I’m not so
sure that we can take the existing content and reproduce it online with only minor changes
in delivery.”
“I see what you mean,” noted Jennie. “I certainly agree that the Man-to-Man work­
shop is more than just about delivering information, but so was the HIPAA workshop—
not only were the employees required to learn information about HIPAA, the training was
also designed for them to perform a range of tasks related to the correct application of
HIPAA requirements. In the classroom-based version of the workshop, the trainers had
incorporated a lot of question-and-answer sessions and group discussions, and we man­
aged to translate these to the online environment.
“In fact,” said Jennie—trying to sound as upbeat as possible, although she was pretty
sure she wasn’t convincing Pedro— “we required participants to post comments for each
discussion thread, and the result was that we obtained 100% participation in the online
discussion forums, which was much higher than was ever the case in the classroom version
of the training!”
102 PART II C ase S tudies

“Although there might be some similarities in terms of the usefulness of online dis­
cussion forums,” responded Pedro, “I don’t think an online discussion forum is realistic for
the Man-to-Man project. An online workshop isn’t like an online class— workshop partici­
pants attend voluntarily, so we can’t require them to submit responses to a forum.”
Just as Jennie feared, Pedro’s comments confirmed her suspicions that she and Pedro
were not getting any closer to agreement on the overall design plan for the IM2M, let alone
getting to the point of planning a detailed design.
“Also,” Pedro continued, “I don’t believe we can recreate the small-group experience
online because we can’t reproduce the empathy of a face-to-face discussion in an online
discussion forum. The media associated with each environment differ greatly, and the
experiences made possible by the face-to-face environment cannot be replicated. Physical
proximity makes a huge difference when it comes to discussing important personal mat­
ters. Being physically close to another person produces a powerful affective response that
may be impossible to recreate on the Internet.”
“Do you really think so?” asked Jennie. “More and more people are routinely using
social media to meet and date. People frequently discuss their most personal problems in
online settings. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t even have a word for blog , and now
you can find a threaded discussion or a blog on just about any topic of interest. If these
men use the Internet regularly to meet with other men, surely they will also be willing to
engage in discussions about their personal lives. Of course, we may have to tweak the for­
mat somewhat from the face-to-face version, but I have no doubt at all that this is not only
possible, but highly practical.”
“Well, it is true that people seem to discuss almost any topic on the Internet these
days,” mused Pedro, “but I’m still not clear on how we can translate the face-to-face inter­
actions to the Internet environment so that we can achieve the same outcomes that Profes­
sor Essex has been achieving. For example, you know how Professor Essex uses what he
calls ‘hot cognitions’ in the face-to-face workshop— how are we going to handle these in
an online environment? Shouldn’t we be concerned about the possible ethical and legal
implications of hot cognitions? I mean, could the university or eLS be found liable if it can
be proven that an individual who committed a sex crime did so after being aroused as a
result of completing the Internet materials?”
Jennie appreciated that Pedro had raised some important points that had also been nag­
ging at her. However, she wasn’t about to mention this to Pedro at this point: She thought it
better to wait until they had more time to come up with some potential ways to move forward.
Besides, hearing Pedro mention Professor Essex reminded Jennie that she had a meeting with
him in about 30 minutes and that she needed to finish her meeting with Pedro.
“You’ve brought up some really important issues,” responded Jennie. “However, I
have a meeting with Professor Essex shortly, so we’ll have to finish for now. What about
this as a way to move forward? Why don’t both of us give some thought to how we might
structure the online version of M2M over the next week and come back with some more
detailed ideas for a proposed design? I’m sure that we can work out something that will
meet the challenges that we have discussed.”
“Sounds good to me,” responded Pedro, “but I certainly think we have our work cut
out for us.”
 Case S tudy 9: Je n n ie D avenport and P edro Lopez 103

Jennie had met with Professor Essex only once before to clarify some details about the
timeline and budget and to agree on how they would work together over the course of the
project. Based on her experience on other projects, Jennie knew that some clients did not
realize that their involvement would be necessary as design and development proceeded,
and she believed strongly in having a clear agreement on mutual responsibilities from the
very beginning of a project. However, although much of their first meeting went well, she
was surprised to find that Professor Essex seemed unwilling to work with her on the devel­
opment of detailed measures of effectiveness for the online version of Man-to-Man. She
had come prepared having read the NHF proposal that he had developed, which included
project goals written according to NHF requirements. Although they were written clearly
(see Figure 9-1), she thought Professor Essex needed to identify more detailed measures
that she could use to establish evaluation criteria that would be applied during the online
workshop to assess changes in participants’ behaviors.
“If the goals were good enough for NHF, surely they should be good enough for eLS
to work with,” Jennie recalled him saying. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Jennie wasn’t
sure which; their meeting time was up before they could get into more detail about the
need for more measurable goals. She hadn’t really expected such resistance and had been
somewhat taken aback by Professor Essex’s reaction at their initial meeting. In any event,
she had persuaded Professor Essex to meet again today. Since their first meeting, she had
thought through how she would present her arguments for the need for more detailed mea­
sures and was hopeful, if not exactly confident, that she could convince him of the need for
what she was requesting.
As she walked toward her car after her meeting with Professor Essex, Jennie reflected
on her day. It was very important to her that the project be completed to a high standard, on
time, and within budget, but Jennie already knew that this project would be unlike any of
the previous projects she had coordinated. Would she and Pedro be able to come to agree­
ment on the design issues they had discussed? Could they translate the face-to-face work­
shop to an online format while maintaining its power and effectiveness? Given Professor

FIGURE 9 -1 Project Goal and Objectives Submitted to the National Health Foundation.

Project Goal
Our project goal, which will guide all design and developm ent activities, is to broaden the
impact of an HIV/AIDS prevention face-to-face workshop by adapting it to an online environ­
ment. The result will be an Internet-delivered sexual-health intervention for gay and bisexual
men who use the Internet to connect with other men.
Project Objectives
The objectives of the project are as follows:
To develop an HIV/AIDS prevention workshop for gay and bisexual men for delivery over
the Internet.
To use the 10 com ponents of the sexual health model as the basis for the Internet-delivered
workshop.
To incorporate contem porary principles of e-learning and distance education into the
online workshop.
104 PART II C ase S tudies

Essex’s attitude, would she even be able to measure its effectiveness? And what about the
legal and ethical issues that Pedro had raised? “I think Pedro was right,” she thought to
herself as she drove off campus. “We do have our work cut out for us.”

Preliminary Analysis Questions

1. Pedro presents a number of challenges to Jennie regarding the translation of a face-to-
face workshop to an online environment. Evaluate the validity of the challenges in the
context of this project.
2. Given the differences between Pedro and Jennie’s approaches to designing interactive
online experiences, propose how they might proceed in their discussions and work.
3. Professor Essex depended strongly on hot cognitions for the success of his face-
to-face workshops. To what extent can these be incorporated into the workshop’s
online workshop?
4. Consider the project goal and objectives from the perspectives of Professor Essex
and Jennie Davenport. Develop a list of criteria that can be used to measure success.

Implications for ID Practice

1. Consider the potential and limitations of designing Internet versus face-to-face
workshops on sensitive content.
2. Discuss the risks and benefits associated with encouraging Internet communication
(synchronous or asynchronous) when the topic is emotionally laden.
3. How does instructional design for behavior change differ from design for knowledge
acquisition? Describe differences in terms of goals, strategies, and evaluation.