Online mentoring for academic practice: strategies, implications, and innovations

Abstract

Our study explores online international mentoring that supports novice faculty at geographically distant universities. Interview data with 30 mentees were analyzed using an inductive analysis method to describe how online mentoring supports young academics in their development as novice teachers, and to identify how they perceive this transformative experience in their own professional contexts and how an online setting may provide a context for the mentoring experience. Analyses showed that mentees have qualitatively different conceptualizations of the mentoring process, the role of the mentor, and the transformative potential of these professional relationships. A model of transformative experiences was thus created to describe the various cycles through which professional development in an online faculty mentoring program may evolve. Beyond generic implications, the particular dimension of how physical distance impedes mentors’ authenticity in mentoring has been identified.