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Modelling organisational frameworks for integrated e-learning: the experience of the TrustDR project
Abstract This paper discusses the need for a way to model the organisational frameworks required to integrate e-learning into institutions and the potential benefits of doing so. A shareable and adaptable general-purpose model of integrated e-learning is introduced, based on recent research. An example of the model being applied is given in a real-life context: the TrustDR project funded by JISC (Joint Information Services Committee), which is examining practical ways of introducing digital rights management (DRM) systems into the UK educational sector for learning object repositories. Finally, some ideas for further development are presented. Table of Contents1 Introduction – the current situation
and need for a model
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‘The current situation can best be described as high-level ambitions with poor implementation.’ (van der Klink and Jochems [6]) |
Casey et al [7] give a useful overview
of the challenges that learning objects and e-learning etc pose to institutional
structures and professional cultures. As Carol Twigg [4]
in the USA has observed, e-learning has tended to remain as a ‘bolt-on’
to
existing institutional structures and processes, and is therefore unable
to realise its full potential. The impact of e-learning and management
information systems, as well as the move to more flexible and learner-centred
education [8], contain very different imperatives and
organisational models which place a greater premium on the more rapid
and accurate communication of information from the different parts of
the institution in a more coordinated way than before. The new technologies
in particular can forcefully bring to the surface aspects of existing
institutional structures and cultures that have hitherto remained informal
and invisible (a reification); Pollock and Cornford [9]
have produced a useful analysis of this phenomenon. Even cutting-edge
e-learning providers such as the University of Southern Queensland in
Australia [5] are having difficulty in keeping up with
the degree of change required, and report having to resort to ‘work-arounds’
to keep their provision going while the institution tries to catch up
with the demands of a more flexible and student-centred curriculum.
Until now little coherent planning or analysis has gone into adopting
e-learning. Generally the pattern has been to try to do the same thing
faster, rather like the response of the American Pony Express mail service
to the development of the railroads; they bought faster horses in larger
numbers [4]. Similarly, we should not be seeking to
mimic traditional patterns of education with technology – the real
challenge is what to change and how to do it. This requires a holistic
approach from the outset, and recognition that the use of technology is
not just an adjunct but requires fundamental change. This in turn demands
some form of analysis and planning exercise before making major commitments.
In this confused situation we need help to understand the ‘problem
space’ that e-learning represents. It would be very useful if the
different actors involved could use a model as a way of sharing and negotiating
meaning across the boundaries of their ‘communities of practice’
[10], especially if those actors have traditionally
had little or no meaningful communication or negotiation in the past –
as is often the case in educational institutions. For our purposes the
model should be:
• simple and easy to grasp – easy definitions
• adaptable and extendable – ie facilitate customisation to local contexts
• have some level of shared abstraction that is meaningful across the different groups, thus hopefully providing a ‘bridge’ for the negotiation and sharing of meaning
• support textual and graphical representations.
The short answer to this question is that in order to understand how to
successfully implement e-learning in our organisations we need to understand
how they work in the first place in order to change them effectively.
Clearly, accepting the ‘official’ explanation of how these
types of organisation function is inadequate. This explains the healthy
trade in senior management employing external consultants in order to
understand their own organisations. We need to move beyond this type of
‘episodic’ organisational learning and development to a more
continuous ‘in-house’ process. To do this we need to know
how people conceptualise their roles in the organisation – the reality
is often far from the official line and dominated by a ‘silo mentality’,
usually overlaid with a rich local folklore.
Singleton [11] comments that this state of affairs
is common in large organisations and that the central service departments
such as computer services and information services faced with designing
an e-learning infrastructure will try their best, but are destined to
deliver a technical solution to what is essentially an educational problem:
‘Hardware systems tend to be dominated by engineering thinking, and macro-systems are dominated by economic thinking.’ |
As an aside, we could add that putting these kinds of service departments in charge of educational strategy clearly tells us a lot about the deficiencies of the educational philosophy of the institutions concerned.
The drive towards the kind of analysis of workplaces that we are advocating
derives from systems theory. Yet such an approach to management and planning
is often very difficult because the individuals at different levels in
an organisation find it hard to conceive of the ‘bigger picture’
because of the local detail of their own situations and working cultures.
To overcome this obstacle, modern systems theory seems to offer some help.
It provides some useful analytical tools for identifying and understanding
the dynamic relations between the factors we have been discussing in this
paper. Senge and Sterman [12] develop this theme in the context of organisational
learning – a concept which is growing in interest – and it
is worth briefly looking at some of their recommendations. They propose
a 3-stage process for developing a better understanding of how an organisation
actually works by the people within it:
'1/ Mapping mental models – explicating and structuring
assumptions via systems models |
They make the important point that flaws in the understanding of how an organisation works cannot be corrected until they are made explicit, which is the purpose of the modelling exercise. There is no reason to think that such an exercise could not be applied to higher education. Ramsden [13] more or less says the same in the context of higher education teaching:
‘Half the difficulty with doing it better is knowing what the real problem is.’ |
The main benefit of this kind of exercise in education would be in the process of constructing a qualitative model of e-learning that would provide a means of gaining some shared insight and understanding at a personal and institutional level, which would support the kind of exercise recommended by Senge and Sterman [12] above. Corben et al [14] are clear about the benefits of this kind of process, which they describe as ‘qualitative mapping’:
‘The method forces rigorous thinking and provides a good compromise between the context-free approaches of most high-level approaches to change management, and the detail and clutter of most low-level approaches to business process re-engineering.’ |
First, a warning about models and indeed all representations of complex
organisations – they are fictions and should not be mistaken for
reality (a common mistake in project management, for instance). But they
are useful fictions if they allow us to get closer and understand the
reality of what we are examining. The model presented here is a useful
generalisation; it has to be adapted and ‘tweaked’ to the
specifics of a local situation. As we shall show, it can be the source
of a variety of useful analysis and communication tools. Potential uses
are as numerous as the variety of contexts under examination, but some
stand out: ‘round-table’ discussion aids, planning tools and
a useful form of ‘institutional memory’. One final warning:
no model or tool can make individuals or departments communicate and cooperate,
and the mere application of the model should not be confused with improvements
in the organisation. In other words, this model is not a panacea to make
dysfunctional organisations whole again, but if used correctly can help
to identify those aspects of the organisation that need to be changed.
In developing this model we have found the ideas, approaches and concepts in Integrated E-Learning introduced by Jochems, Merriënboer and Koper [2] very useful, especially those of van der Klink and Jochems relating to organisational issues [6]. This model also draws on recent work by Collis and Moonen [1] and Normand and Littlejohn [15]. All these researchers propose analysing and viewing the functional institutional structures at three levels to situate the perspectives of the relevant ‘actors’ who are involved in providing and supporting e-learning in an institution. In addition, van der Klink and Jochems [6] suggest adopting four ‘perspectives’ at each level. On this conceptual basis we have come up with a simple yet comprehensive organisational model that is intuitive and can be easily adapted and extended to describe most educational institutions.
Three important hierarchical levels of actors from within the institutional
provider need to inform our exploration and understanding of the implementation
of e-learning and flexible learning in reality.
Institutional management (IM): management bodies (boards,
senates, courts), principals, pro-vice chancellors, institutional secretaries,
service unit managers (estates, information services, registry). These
are the senior figures directing the strategy and direction the institution
is following; deciding on the specific technical infrastructure; stating
the mission with respect to educational values, aims and policy; making
technical support available; possibly deciding on the general level of
support and training to make available to academics, and so on.
Operational and curricular management (OM): those in
charge of gathering and organising the necessary resources and implementing
strategy, within the constraints of the institutional context and budget.
They manage the programmes by deciding on the types of course to be delivered
by the academics, structuring the programmes and deciding on the sequence
of courses.
Teaching and learner management (TLM): those who are
responsible for carrying out at a practical level the actions required
by the strategy. They develop and deliver courses, identify learning resources
and organise them, and manage the learning activities of the students.
This level also includes those involved in supporting roles in technical
areas, administration and information management.
As you can see from our descriptions, this hierarchy of actors has to
deal with increasingly detailed contexts within which to operate as we
move towards the teaching level. The successful implementation and ‘mainstreaming’
of new approaches such as learning objects would require these different
institutional levels to be in alignment and work as a coherent whole [15],
[1], [6]. Thus, the organisational
model might also usefully fulfil an analytical and diagnostic role for
those tasked with implementing e-learning in an institution – opening
up the intriguing possibility of representing the dysfunctional aspects
of an institution in relation to the chosen aspects of e-learning.
These different levels in an institution tend to have, naturally, different
contexts or ‘filters’ on the process of adopting new systems,
as follows:
IM will be looking for the ‘big picture’
items like retention and progression figures, exam grades, costs, market
share, educational profile, long-term planning.
OM will tend to see it as the delivery of ‘product’
and relate it to departmental budgets and targets, quality control, the
type and costs of learning materials and, crucially, the task of introducing
new working practices.
TLM is concerned with mechanisms for delivery (face to
face or on-line), the balance between guidance/facilitation roles and
instructions, assessment procedures and the type of learning resources.
In addition to these three institutional levels, van der Klink and Jochems
[6] propose that at each level it is possible to see the problem space
from four different perspectives (giving us, potentially, a family of
analysis and evaluation tools – which we shall turn to later).
A technological view: the use of technology in such a
way that it can support the actors at different levels to carry out their
functions and achieve their targets. Until now, the premise has been that
supplying staff and students with an adequate infrastructure is enough
to improve educational programmes – this has not been upheld. Technical
aspects have been focused on without understanding how this would support
pedagogy or strategic goals, or taking into account the organisational
context.
A strategic view: the organisational strategy and business
processes that have to occur to support the change, and how embedded they
can become in the organisation. E-learning cannot be regarded as an isolated
issue; it is expensive and impacts on a large number of institutional
processes, and good reasons are needed for its implementation. Awareness
of what might realistically be delivered is needed, and clear goals are
required in relation to internal strengths and weaknesses and external
threats and opportunities.
A pedagogical view: this is required to determine the
sensible use of the technology. A considerable number of questions need
to be answered, ranging from the extremely practical to the more philosophical.
Van der Klink and Jochems [6] recommend that it is
very useful to start with rethinking views of learning, instruction and
teaching to encourage staff to think beyond their current frameworks.
Interestingly, Goodyear et al [3] recommend this approach
as well and produce a very useful discussion of it, which we would recommend
highly, and it has also been adopted by USQ in Australia [5].
An organisational view: this includes the ability to
identify and evaluate the interplay between personal, departmental, cultural
and professional viewpoints played out within an institutional context.
The introduction of e-learning will either be an innovation (usually a
bottom-up and non-sustainable activity, which accounts for much of the
present scene) or a transformational change that requires top-down involvement
and will affect all aspects of the organisation. In the first scenario
little will change – although tensions will increase, but be unresolved.
In the second scenario the roles, responsibilities and relations of the
departments and individuals in the organisation will be strongly impacted
upon and change.
The diagram below in Figure 1 illustrates the model, with the three hierarchical
levels combined with the four different perspectives to provide an integrated
whole. The fact that the three levels of institutional organisation are
in alignment indicates that they are working well and coherently to deliver
e-learning opportunities – the vertical lines indicate channels
of communication around certain perspectives or views. Where the vertical
lines intersect at the corners of the squares represents those activities
and perspectives at each institutional level. The significance of each
of the perspectives will naturally vary across the different levels of
any institution.
The model can be used to produce a series of grids, matrices and other
representations that enable us to record succinctly and in an easily shareable
manner the different aspects of the institutions we want to describe and
analyse. We can start with a three- column by four-row grid as shown in
Figure 2 and use that to derive a set of tools. We have used these tools
to help to analyse and evaluate a number of different organisational factors
relating to implementing a DRM system. The current set of tools with their
working content can be found at this web address: http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/projects/trustdr/work_in_progress.html
under the heading of ‘WP SP2 Organisational Modelling Framework
– Analytical and Evaluation Tools’.
Figure 1: The organisational model
Figure 2: Basic analysis and audit tool derived from the model
So far, the use of this model and the derived tools has indeed proved
useful in facilitating ‘round table’ discussions among the
project team, who work in the separate domains of learning technology,
information management and systems development. We intend to test the
functionality of the model further by using the tools with project partners
and recording the results. We shall be including the model and tools in
the project outputs as part of a DRM system developer’s kit to facilitate
analysis and communication activities.
The advice ‘keep it simple’ springs to mind. One obvious application
is that once an analysis is completed and decisions taken or a strategy
formulated, then the model can provide ways of disseminating what is required
at each level from the various perspectives. The same documents may also
provide a useful evaluation or audit tool.
From a planning and evaluation perspective, the model can also help in
determining the ‘return on investment’ in relation to e-learning
as discussed by Collis and Moonen [1]. In this respect
it would also help to identify the likely winners and losers arising from
the proposed changes involved in implementing e-learning. This aspect
of e-learning, its ‘political economy’, is an increasingly
important one and being able to represent it is a very useful function.
Another possibility is to act as a support tool to gather and collate
information to feed into more dynamic organisational modelling and planning
activities. This might include visualisation tools that help institutional
management to understand the possible effects of their decisions.
