About the VTSI Development Team

The VTSI was developed by Dave Whittington, Tammy Dewar and Elizabeth Childs of Calliope Learning. Calliope Learning provides leadership, team building, e-learning and workplace learning services. We facilitate individual, team and organizational learning interventions through participatory high tech and high touch methods. Collectively, we have over 30 years of experience working with and on virtual and multifunctional teams. Based on this experience and our own research into virtual teams, we have developed the Virtual Team Skills Inventory (VTSI), an online multi-rater development tool that helps virtual teams learn and work together effectively. More details about Dave, Tammy and Elizabeth are below.

Dave Whittington has been carrying out research into the uses of educational technology for more than 20 years and holds a PhD in computer science. His experience of e-learning and virtual teams ranges from being a student of the UK's Open University to being the technical director of Europe's first virtual university, Clyde Virtual University which was established in 1996. Dave has had an email address since 1988. Since then, all of Dave's research and much of his teaching has been carried out in collaboration with multidisciplinary virtual teams. He now works part-time as associate faculty for Royal Roads University in Canada and is involved in the development, delivery and evaluation of residential and online courses for the MALT and MADL degree programs. Dave also works with Tammy Dewar and Elizabeth Childs as Calliope Learning. They are all committed to helping individuals and organizations achieve their full potential using leadership, learning and appropriate technologies.

Tammy Dewar combines an academic background in learning (Ph.D. in Adult Learning) with practical leadership and team expertise in a variety of sectors. Her independent consulting practice includes over fifteen years of experience in leading virtual project teams to design, deliver and evaluate face-to-face and virtual learning experiences in both the public and private sectors. She has designed and facilitated a variety of workshops on leadership, visioning and strategic planning, team building, and individual and organizational learning. More recently, she has been working with organizations to address leadership and employee turnover and morale issues utilizing action research, learning interventions and coaching. The other third of her time is spent teaching with Royal Roads University in their MA in Leadership and Training (MALT), the Master of Business Administration (MBA), and the MA in Distributing Learning (MADL).

Elizabeth Childs uses her PhD in Educational Technology and her experience in education and training to inform her consulting practice. She has worked in a variety of sectors to analyze, implement and evaluate training and human performance interventions. She is faculty and currently, part of the Acting Director Management Team for the MA in Distributed Learning program at Royal Roads University. She also teaches in the University of Calgary MEd. Technology program. Elizabeth has collaborated with a variety of clients from all sectors on needs analysis, training and non-training interventions and program evaluations studies. She has worked with client groups to determine organizational readiness and virtual team considerations for moving to a blended or fully online method for delivering their education and training. Elizabeth has also conducted a variety of in-house workshops on training needs assessment, project management, team building and conflict resolution for academic, government and private industry clients. The majority of her work is done at a distance and virtual project teams make up most of the way in which Elizabeth collaborates with others to complete projects and manage programs.

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