CHAPTER 10
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Chapters 8
and 9 constitute the thesis of this study. Chapter 8 presents a set of
heuristics as a tentative model for managing the implementation of the virtual
class infrastructure in conventional tertiary education. Chapter 9 proposes a
new tentative educational management paradigm for the virtual class called
networked educational management.
The writer
offers these findings tentatively and with a cautionary note in the words of
Fullan (1991:350) to “…employ this knowledge in a non-mechanical manner along
with intuition, experience and assessment of the particular situation…”
Chapter 10
provides a summary as well as overall conclusions and recommendations.
This study
set out to identify what the key management issues are when implementing the
virtual class in conventional tertiary education. It endeavoured to do this by
establishing how the implementation
of the virtual class infrastructure in conventional tertiary education as well
as the operations of the virtual class are
to be managed.
An action
research approach was followed over three and half
years that studied the endeavours of Wellington Polytechnic, a
conventional tertiary educational institute in
The experience of implementing the virtual class
infrastructure at Wellington Polytechnic does not confirm the smooth contours
of Roger’s diffusion of innovation curve (see
Figure 2.1). The various barriers that were encountered (both
internal and external to the HYDI team), the uncontrollable events that
negatively and positively impacted on the HYDI project, the mistakes made and
fruitless experiments point to a ragged contour of the innovation “curve”. This
innovation at Wellington Polytechnic experienced many of the problems that
Fullan (1991:27) refers to in political change like “… overload, unrealistic
time-lines, uncoordinated demands, simplistic solutions, misdirected efforts,
inconsistencies, and underestimation of what it takes to bring about reform”.
It was many times a case of a few steps forward and a number of steps backward.
More of a team approach could have
been followed that could have added other significant insights. The action
research methodology would have facilitated a team approach well. The writer
acknowledges the subjectivity of this study and the impact this has had on both
the process and outcomes of the research.
Further
activities regarding the implementation of the virtual class infrastructure at
Wellington Polytechnic would seek to move this innovation to reach a critical
mass, which is
Following
the merger on
10.1 Managing the Implementation of the Virtual
Class Infrastructure
This study
concludes that the diffusion of innovation theory of Rogers (1983), which
proposes a bottom-up approach when the innovation emerges from outside senior
management, needs to be augmented with a top-down component for effective
diffusion of the virtual class in conventional tertiary education. The top-down
component needs to include both senior and middle management.
Lack
of funding is often touted as a key stumbling block in the implementation of
the virtual class in conventional tertiary education. This is indeed the case
in the
More
important than lack of funds, might be the lack of vision and of creating a
strategic implementation framework for the effective implementation of
technological innovations like networked education. Berge and Schrum (1998:35)
contends that “the most important function of institutional leadership may be
to create a shared vision that includes widespread input and support from the
faculty and administration, articulates a clear educational purpose, has
validity for stakeholders, and reflects the broader mission of the
institution”. Rajasingham (1999:166&170)
also points to the imperative of addressing management infrastructure within
tertiary education in New Zealand, and of addressing the lack of vision for the virtual class Naidoo and Schutte (1999:90) also point to this
need in the African context: "If African
countries cannot take advantage of the information revolution and surf this
great wave of technological change, they may be crushed by it… Catching this
wave will require visionary leadership in
The
challenges to conventional tertiary education therefore require imaginative and
bold leadership. Leadership Paul (1990:66) asserts in the context of employing
what he terms “open management” that a value-driven leadership approach is
required to transcend the traditional models of educational management.
A strategic
plan for the implementation of the virtual class infrastructure needs to
incorporate the possibility of second level effects. It is also vital to ensure
that proper feedback loops (see Chapter
1) are built into the implementation system. Senge (1990:60) points out that novel ideas tend to cause behaviour to grow better
before it grows worse. Sproull and Kiesler’s (1991) explain that second level
(or second order) effects are more significant and longer lasting than first
level (or first order) effects. They assert that second level effects occur
because the technology transforms how people depend on and relate to others,
and what they attend to. Hermann (1997,
June) illustrated second order consequences of using the WWW for teaching in
relation to access, changing concepts of
teaching and learning and the changing nature of interpersonal communication.
He states that “each in its own way provides anecdotal evidence for positive
and negative unintended consequences of the use of this mode of teaching and
learning in distance education.” Gundry and Metes (1997) note that
second level effects have to do with changing the design of interaction, work
process and social organization. Gundry
and Metes warn that second level effects can indeed defeat the intended first
level effect. They quote the example used by Neil Postman (1990) that
Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, was a devoted Christian, and thought that
the printing press through the wide distribution of the Bible would advance the
cause of the Holy Roman See. In fact, it brought about a knowledge revolution
that destroyed the monopoly of the Church.
The set of
heuristics for managing the implementation of the virtual class infrastructure
in conventional tertiary education provides a broad area for future
investigation into its second level effects as it is mainly based on first
level effects of efficiency and productivity.
Implementing
networked education needs to be a strategic
objective and direction of an institute and the reward systems need to be tied
to the implementation of networked education. The institute’s reward systems
should encourage academic staff and students to become and remain involved in
networked education if it desires to implement the virtual class infrastructure
widely within the institute. Structuring networked education projects as
research activities can legitimise the involvement of academic staff and might
be essential to secure academic staff involvement when the scholarship of
teaching is not recognised to the same degree as for instance the scholarship
of research.
Strategic
management of the implementation of the virtual class infrastructure needs to
address the interests and concerns of administration, academics and students.
Willmot and McLean (199499) found in a case study of an
Particularly
important is addressing the perceptions, fears and concerns of academic staff
in order to change their attitudes and to
ensure ownership. The extensive interest in the
workshops that the writer conducted regarding networked education indicates
that staff development can be used as an important strategy to advance the
implementation of networked education among academic staff.
The critical and fundamental role that ICT play in networked education
point to the need for a strategic training
and support plan for academic staff and students in the educational reform that
effective networked education induces. There is a need to increase the general level of computer and
information literacy within an institute as a strategic goal when implementing
networked education. Sustained ICT support and training is necessary due
to the new skills, wider choices and distinct philosophies of the virtual
class. The dramatic increases in the amount of information available that
students and teachers in networked education has to contend with calls for
increased critical analyses and knowledge management skills of both students
and teachers. Acquiring these skills and
dealing with the stress of change, extended choices and information overload
underlines the imperative for proper training and support mechanism for
teachers and students.
It follows
from the central position of students in networked education that they could
contribute significantly to the bottom-up swell of innovation diffusion in conventional
tertiary education. Students need to be considered as agents of educational
reform in concert with academics and managers. The diffusion of networked
education will gain increased momentum in an institute when students petition
for its widespread use.
The links
and liaison with other institutions and individuals involved in implementing
networked education proved to be a major source of encouragement, critique and
inspiration. Networking at conferences led to continued exchanges and sharing
of operational as well as research progress. Peers at national and
international conferences where the writer presented some of the interim
research findings as papers provided helpful feedback through their comments as
well as through the papers they presented. Networking within the institute
proved to be essential in diffusing networked education, obtaining support and
ensuring ownership.
10.2 Managing the operations of the virtual class
This study
was based on the hypothesis that a new kind of educational management is
required in conventional tertiary education for managing the operations of the
virtual class. Although the research intention was to be deductive rather than
conclusive, that it would uncover and highlight rather than lead to closure, this
research led to the identification and formulation of a new type of management
required for the operations of the virtual class namely: networked educational management. In this regard it would seem in
the words of Luke (1978) that the virtual class indeed is “new wine” that
require the "new wineskin" of networked educational management.
An
institute that uses networked education extensively will need to develop a
ubiquitous ICT architecture to match the central role of ICT in networked
education. Effectively managing ICT, which
forms the base of networked education, may also assist in attracting external
resources that can further fund this innovation. Yetton (1993), in his research
of twelve universities' management of IT, uses the MIT90 schema (see Figure 1.3) to illustrate the
important role of technology in an organisation's performance, and claims that the universities that succeed in
getting IT right, will attract resources; those that get it wrong, will not.
Networked
educational management is based on a distributed or networked model and has
therefore an advantage above both centralised (strengthening conformity) and
decentralised (encouraging divergence) management approaches. Conventional
management of tertiary education have been described as having a peculiar model
of centralisation in administration and decentralisation in academic endeavours
which often lead to frustration and counter-productive outcomes which have been
referred to as organised anarchy (Cohen and March, 1974). Networked educational
management can ensure conformity to central principles and standards while it
simultaneously encourages diversity and may contribute to the bridging of the
traditional schism between the administrative and academic areas in tertiary
education.
The
enhanced effectiveness that networked educational management can bring to
tertiary education is based not only on the premise that it is an appropriate
management response to the new educational paradigm of the virtual class, but
also through new synergies. Tapscott (1996:xiv) describes this possibility as follows:
The Age of
Networked Intelligence is an age of promise. It is not simply about the
networking of technology but about the networking of humans through technology.
It is not an age of smart machines but of humans who through networks can
combine their intelligence, knowledge, and creativity for breakthroughs in the
creation of wealth and social development… The network becomes the computer –
infinitely more powerful than any single machine. And networked human
intelligence is applied to research, thus creating a higher order of thinking,
knowledge - and maybe even internetworked consciousness – among people. The
same networking can be applied to business and almost every other aspect of
human endeavor – learning, health care, work, entertainment.
This
research through the notion of networked educational management offers a
variety of further research opportunities. Bertalanffy (1968:18) points out
that the “…earlier
versions of a new paradigm are mostly crude, solve few problems, and solutions
given for individual problems are far from perfect”.
Further
research could explore the effectiveness of networked educational management
and the heuristics of implementing the
virtual class infrastructure in other conventional tertiary educational
institutes, non-conventional educational institutes for example distance
educational institutes and dual-mode institutes, as well as in secondary and
primary education. Networked educational management could further be examined
in different organisational and national cultures.
The collaborative nature
of networked educational management calls for further investigation of
effective physical and virtual team processes and principles in tertiary
education. Aspects of team motivation, decision-making,
autonomy and accountability needs to be explored within the framework of the
learning organisation.
It is a paradox that conventional tertiary education
which has traditionally been the main providers of post-secondary learning in
society seems to be enormously challenged to become a learning organization
itself – adaptive, flexible, information based and responsive to its
environment. Eric Hoffer stated that in a time of drastic change, it is
the learners who survive; the ‘learned’ find themselves fully equipped to live
in a world that no longer exists. Will
conventional tertiary education be able to transform its management approaches
and processes to the extent required when there is widespread use of networked
education? Can it implement networked
educational management to its fullest extent? In the context of the emerging
digital information age, Tapscott (1996:37) asks the following questions: “Can
the formal education system transform itself? …Will teachers and administrators
be able to reinvent education?”. This research has not
provided positive responses to these questions.
Luke (1998)
feels so strongly about the fundamental differences between conventional face-to-face
and virtual universities that it prompts him to state that “virtually all the
rules governing face-to-face universities make it difficult, if not impossible
to run a virtual university; you just don’t migrate into Cyberspace from a
built environment”. Taylor, Lopez and Quadrelli (1996) believe it to be
improbable that conventional tertiary education can transform itself. With
technology becoming more pervasive in all aspects of teaching and
administration, academic as well as general staff roles are being transformed.
Across all key areas new positions and skills are needed. From the diversity of
staff development strategies and activities that universities are adopting, we
identified three approaches to deal with this challenge. These approaches will
need to support an accelerated shift from teaching to learning, delivered not
by individual lecturers but by multi-functional teams. Universities are poorly
equipped and under resourced to manage this strategic change.
The
extensive management and wider implications for a conventional tertiary
education institute when implementing the virtual class might further be
pointing to the emergence of a new kind of educational institute. This study
has shown that implementing the virtual class needs to have an extensive impact
on the management processes within conventional tertiary education. It further
confirmed the centrality of management processes in implementing technological
innovation as depicted in the MIT90 schema (Figure 1.3). Networked educational
management needs to occur on all levels and in all areas of an institute that
seriously engages in networked education. It follows that the kind of institute
that fully adopts the virtual class will display fundamentally different
characteristics than that of a conventional tertiary educational institute. In terms of an overall organisational structure it
seems possible therefore that networked
educational institutes might emerge which will actualise networked
education and use networked educational management to its fullest extent.
Finally,
educational principles need to guide the implementation of the virtual class in
tertiary education. Corporate universities and private enterprise are poised to
supersede the current role of conventional tertiary educational institutes in
higher education. Tertiary educational institutes need to respond to the
requirements of the information society to ensure that educational principles
govern future post-secondary education.