The resources that come with your subscription are extraordinarily varied. It's a good idea to schedule one or more meetings between us and the people who ought to know about each of those groups of resources: assessment specialists, the provost's office, faculty development, distance learning, chair of the faculty, and so on. The goal of these meetings: let people know what's been purchased for their use, answer questions, and perhaps do a little planning. We are likely to learn as much as your colleagues do from these meetings, and that should help plan work for the coming year.

A second important benefit of such meetings is to have an occasion for those people at your institution to talk with each other, and hear each other, on these issues. One thing we've learned over the years is that, if a project, department, or institution is to make real progress at improving teaching and learning with technology, people need to collaborate across organizational lines. No matter whether the immediate need appears to just about faculty support process,  information literacy, a grant, strategic planning, etc. almost all those other people/units need to be involved sooner or later. So the work with The TLT Group ought to be helping those offices and faculty talk with each other about the issues that most concern you.

Brigham Young University has a major institutional commitment to using technology to improve learning.  The first day's work on campus for the consultant included a briefing for an assistant vice president on the cost analysis materials; a 90 minute meeting with the president of the university, a 2 hour session with the chief academic officer and his cabinet, and a meeting with staff associated with the institution's virtual teaching learning and technology center (a coalition of campus units with responsibilities for supporting educational uses of technology)

The University of South Carolina had the consultant do a series of four events: 1) a talk on 'the seven principles and beyond' about strategies for using technology to improve learning, 2) a talk on the scholarship of teaching (relation of assessment and research), 3) a hands-on workshop (deans were advised that they could invite a maximum of two faculty members each; the turnout was great!), and 4) a wide-ranging roundtable discussion with senior administrators.

For a public talk, the University of Minnesota selected a topic of wide interest and publicized the occasion several months in advance. Almost 200 people attended. On the same visit, the consultant also ran a workshop on evaluation for faculty who'd received mini-grants from the University to use technology in innovative ways in teaching; the terms of the mini-grant required that the faculty member evaluate the innovation; the workshop was packed. The rest of the visit was devoted to small group meetings and briefings.

A number of institutions have used a consultant's visit as the occasion for a TLT Group webcast, publicized internationally. The consultant, sometimes assisted by outside experts talking online, often working with the institution's staff, present on a topic to an on-campus audience while also webcasting the discussion. 

Auburn University used its first visit for a series of focus groups to talk about how the institution was supporting faculty use of technology in instruction. After the focus groups, the host (a senior administrator in academic computing) and the consultants met with the provost to discuss plans for the future.