What Tom Franklin calls ‘success’, and in particular, long term sustainability of elearning projects are a constant challenge to me in my role as Head of an eLearning Group in a large university. I absolutely agree with Tom’s January 2011 ALT Newsletter item that forward planning, budgeting for ongoing support and change management are important aspects to consider. However, in this I see tensions, first of all with funding body requirements (fixed term funding, intention to support start ups / exploratory projects etc) but more importantly, with the nature of innovation itself.
The kind of project that I want to see supported past the initial funding stage starts out with a great learning design idea and a creative teacher with a problem to solve. They [may] get start up funding, then use of the ‘product’ grows beyond their wildest aspirations. Colleagues in other faculties and institutions use – and even become dependent on it. In some cases, many thousands of students are involved, and no one questions the benefits to teaching, learning and productivity. But no one is ready to support long term sustainability either. This may be because it doesn’t come with the IT Services seal of approval, or because initial funding was from an external e.g. Government or one off source. There are probably many other reasons such ‘successful’ systems persist with just one or a few people to support them, and no institutional commitment. I see the lack of institutional response systems and processes as a key one.
The major difficulty of planning for change management and ongoing support with projects such as these is that the impact could not be anticipated at the time of the original proposal. That is the evolutionary nature of innovations, and the education sector – as a whole and in parts - seems woefully ill equipped to step in and provide the necessary support. I’d welcome any suggestions as to how these issues might be resolved. I have my own ideas, but they involve organizational change rather than change management at practice level. Further details in my 2010 article Sustainability factors for elearning initiatives, ALT-J (Research in Learning Technology) 18, no. 2: 89-103.
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Cathy,
ReplyDeleteAn interesting issue that you are picking up on. The danger of success. There is a danger in many projects and organisations that they grow more quickly than they are able to support, and that they do not always recognise quickly enough that they have crossed some sort of watershed and the structures and support that was appropriate for a small organisation no longer works. There are many small companies that have grown and then failed because the structures and management styles that work well when you can know all your staff (and possibly all your customers) do not work when the company grows beyond a certain size. Many companies do not realise the need for the change in time, and hence the failure.
I think that the same sort of thing can apply to projects, where as more and more people are using the results different support structures become appropriate (necessary). However, as you seem to be suggesting in the post there is no way to recognise that this is happening, and even if it is recognised there may be no structures for dealing with it.
In some of my work I have just been looking at helping projects to develop a business case for their work. My key messages there are that the business plan needs to be aimed at someone (a role holder), and that it needs to focus on the benefits of the proposed work (to that person). So, I guess the answer is that you would need to identify what the benefits are to a budget holder (eg student retention, student success, cost saving, enhanced reputation, ability to support larger classes (that might be cost saving). If possible quantify the benefits and then you can come up with a return on investment. If this is positive, and the project is aligned to the institutional strategies then there should be a good chance of it being funded (unless there is other work that scores better of course).
So, I think it is a matter of “selling” the work to budget holders in language they understand. Telling them that a project is wonderful, innovative, popular etc. won’t meet their needs. Demonstrate a positive return on investment and they will be interested.
This may not be pretty, but as money becomes tighter and tighter it will become an increasingly necessary black art for all of us.
Thanks for your insightful comments Tom. Many academics do indeed become masters of the black arts of lobbying, budgeting and selling with statistics, but experience suggests that this doesn't necessarily solve the whole problem. There are very complex sets of circumstances in different cases, that I am exploring with a group of colleagues from Australasian universities. Perhaps we could bring you in as a consultant?
ReplyDeleteA couple of examples to illustrate what I mean:
Case a = a software system was developed to work with Moodle to increase productivity in marking large class assignments. Funding came from a government source and dissemination / free availability complied with their requirements. Now the system needs revised to work with Moodle 2.0. The funding source has dried up and there is no mechanism in place to seek collective support from participating universities. What happens next?
Case b = an elearning development unit in a university developed a template driven web course development tool to increase internal productivity. Ease of use allowed lecturers to maintain and then develop their own courses. Demand is outstripping supply, but this isn't part of the enterprise VLE / LMS suite of tools so it isn't getting central support. Despite stats and many accolades to show multiple benefits its hard to win the necessary support.
In both cases, users would switch to something better if that was a viable option. So while your suggestions sound great on the page, they are not so easy to apply in practice.
Thanks again for your comments though, it's helpful to reflect on solutions to these challenges.
Now I'm really wondering what's the case of elearning as of this time. Does it have any changes?
ReplyDeleteSpokane Tim Jones