The authors review the directions ...

The authors review the directions in the use of computer in the delivery and support of career guidance and counseling identified at the symposium International Perspectives onward Career Development. The papers instanted emphasized that 20th-century computer-based combination of parts to form a wholes continue to be used, mainly delivered via the World Wide Web. These arrangements are enhanced through audio, video, graphics, strategies to provide distresss assessment, and support by cybercounselors or skilled hand system design. The papers also revealed a recent trend: the use of elegant Web sites to store and search immense libraries of resources urgencyed by professionals and clients and to facilitate communication and collaboration among professionals in cyberspace. regards issues, and resources related to many areas, including the readiness of clients to use computer-based methods were also raised; existing sources of guidelines are noted.

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A discussion form into groups of approximately 20 participants considered the topic of the use of computer technology in delivering and supporting career guidance services worldwide. The intents of these discussions were to (a) establish a benchmark concerning the existing state of the art on learning about applications worldwide, (b) identify promising fresh applications and trends, and (c) highlight question s and needs. This article summarizes these proceedings from addressing these three topics.

Historical Perspective

Computer-based career guidance schemes had their genesis in the late 1960 shortly after the invention of the cathode ray tube, a device that allowed a order user to be physically separated from a computer and to answer to scripted messages, thus simulating an interview. Early developers--Donald E Super Martin Katz, and David Tiedeman--viewed this technology as a means to operationalize their theories of career exhibition choice, and decision making. In other words, it was their dream that users, by the and of interaction with the system, would learn the universals of their theoretical positions, practice them as they made choices, and flat incorporate them into their understanding in this way that future choices might be made without the support of the machine. Guided at this dream, elegant systems--specifically the Education and Career Exploration order (see Super, 1970), the combination of parts to form a whole for Interactive Guidance and Information (see U Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1969) and the Information plan for Vocational Decisions (see Super 1970)--were put togethered with public and private funding. near parts of these systems were well beyond their time because of the lack of adequate memory; storage; answer time; and capability for use of audio, video, and graphics.

by way of the 1970s, two of these combination of parts to form a wholes failed to reach implementation and other developer les elegant in their conceptual framework, created theorys that could better function within the confines of the available technology. These plans included the Computerized Vocational Information method (see Super, 1970; U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1969) which became a example for a comprehensive guidance connected view such as DISCOVER that followed, and the Career Information a whole (see http://oregoncis.uoregon.edu/), which became a design for many state career information theorys that followed and were partially supported by the agency of the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee, an organization that played a powerful character in the development and implementation of like systems over the next 30 years. These plans set the pace for the genre of schemes available on stand-alone and networked computer in the decades of the 1970 and 1980s

The last decade of the 20th hundred brought new technology that made it possible for connected views to be enhanced with color, graphics, audio, and video. The splendor of hardware continued to decline while its capabilities continued to soar. As had been predicted, the splendor of software surpassed that of hardware, and the make anxious of having adequate storage capability disappeared. Concomitantly, the World Wide Web became a reality, and existing regularitys began to develop capability for delivery via the Web. centurys of Web sites appeared, addressing all aspects of the career planning and implementation proces according to the end of the decade, the universal of providing direct service via the Web had emerg (i.e., cybercounseling), and a hardly any such sites were established.

These progress to maturitys were accompanied by the construction of standards of ethics to guide the use of technology according to counselors and an increasing acceptance of technology as a viable tool for working with close examiners and adults in career planning. Although insufficient, considerable research was directioned about the efficacy of computer support. In general, that research documented positive general intents of the use of connected views and Web sites to increase self-knowledge, occupational knowledge, awareness of the ne to plan, and career decidedness. Furthermore, evidence was provided that technology is chiefly effective when supported by a counselor from one side one-on-one or group counseling or guidance, as oppos to being self-help (Harris-Bowlsbey, Riley-Dikel, & Sampson, 2002; Harris-Bowlsbey & Sampson, 2001)