Recruiting ODeL-ready Talent: An Open Call-based Cluster Hiring Process at a Open and Distance e-Learning University

Faculty hiring in many higher education institutions (HEIs) in the Philippines typically depends on referral-based systems of recruitment as a way to mitigate human resource management risks. This was the case at the UP Open University particularly prior to the pandemic, when expertise and interest in teaching for open and distance elearning (ODEL) modalities was less widespread than it now is. The restrictions forced by the pandemic on educational institutions globally has led to dramatic increases in ODEL-ready capability in higher education faculty across the country, creating more diverse opportunities for human resource development in HEIs. In the presentation, I will describe an open call-based faculty recruitment process in 2022 conducted by the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies at the UP Open University. The process was informed by prior (and less successful) attempts at open call-based hiring, which I also describe as point of comparison. I discuss how this open call-based hiring process was further made more tractable with the use of collaborative relational database software-as-a-service platforms, allowing hiring managers to quickly and collaboratively sift through, prioritize, review, and evaluate potential ODeL-ready teaching and research talent.