Uys, P.M. (2000). Towards the Virtual
Class: Key Management Issues in Tertiary Education. Unpublished PhD thesis,
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Available online: http://www.globe-online.com/philip.uys/phdthesis
CHAPTER 5
CYCLE 2 –
FIRST NETWORKED COURSE
In cycle 1
of the research, the Wellington Polytechnic Website was developed as a pilot towards
implementing the virtual class infrastructure.
Cycle 2 is
geared towards further answering the research questions of how to manage the
implementation of the virtual class infrastructure
in conventional tertiary education, and also how to manage the operations of
the virtual class. The further implementation of the virtual class
infrastructure is intended to test the findings of cycle 1 (described in
Chapter 4.3.1 and 4.3.2 above).
In cycle 2
the implementation of the virtual class was to have moved away from a limited
pilot stage to a more comprehensive implementation of the virtual class
infrastructure through the creation of the Wellington Polytechnic On-line
Campus (1998, June) as well as the creation of the first networked course.
The
Wellington Polytechnic On-line Campus with the first networked course is
central to the infrastructure for networked education. This is the
infrastructure necessary for teacher, learner, problem and knowledge to
interact through Internet or intranet technologies for the purpose of learning
(as defined in Chapter 1).
In cycle 2
the HYDI project would be established as an institute-wide project, although
essentially experimental. The first networked course was a free sampler course,
and no full-time staff was allocated to the project. The vision for networked
education was limited; for example, the author obtained a 30% reduction in
teaching load to manage the project while some other staff who participated in
the project formally received a small time allocation towards the project.
External to
the HYDI team, staff of Wellington Polytechnic perceived the Wellington
Polytechnic On-line Campus as an interesting add-on to conventional education.
The HYDI team saw networked education at this stage mainly as a tool for
delivering distance education. The HYDI project was carried out as a tiny part
of the overall operations of Wellington Polytechnic.
This
Chapter, like the previous chapter, has been structured according to the
typical phases in action research that is:
5.1. plan
5.2. act and observe
5.3. reflection.
The
duration of this action research cycle was from January 1996 to December 1996.
The action
research log for cycle 2 comprises 1314 electronic mail messages of which the
key messages are included in Appendix 11.
5.1 Plan
The overall objective for this action research cycle was to manage the
implementation of the virtual class infrastructure at Wellington Polytechnic
from the preliminary pilot stage to the infrastructure required by the
institute to offer networked education. The emphasis in cycle 2 was on creating
a stable infrastructure for building the first commercial networked courses in
a further research cycle.
The plan
was not to extend the implementation of the virtual class infrastructure widely
into different academic areas but to retain the focus on courses within the
degrees in education. In cycle 2, using
The plan
also included further advancing the visibility of the HYDI project and
promoting the ownership of the vision of networked education at Wellington
Polytechnic specifically among senior and middle managers.
Some
perceived operational actions for this period are described in a progress
report in September 1995 (Appendix 3) that highlights the assumption of the
author that networked education needs all the supporting sub-systems which the
conventional class requires, but based on ICT.
Seven
strategies were formulated as the modus
operandi for cycle two to ensure that the overall objective above would be
met:
5.1.1. concentrate
promotional activities on the “early adopters” by developing the first
networked course
5.1.2
advance the visibility and ownership of virtual class
concepts among senior and middle managers
5.1.3
implement a stable technological architecture for the
virtual class
5.1.4
identify and implement effective administrative
services
establish
a marketing strategy
5.1.5
identify and implement appropriate organisational
structures
5.1.6
further extend and forge new links with institutions,
organisations and individuals already implementing the virtual class.
5.2 Act and
Observe
This
section contains a discussion of how the strategies above were carried out.
5.2.1 Concentrate promotional activities on the
“early adopters” by developing the first networked course
Continued
support by the President for the HYDI project was evident through the financial
sponsorship in cycle 2. He also supported the idea of a free sampler networked
course to be developed in cycle 2.
As
mentioned in Chapter four, there was a specific course offered by the
Educational Development Department that the President had in mind for
development as the first networked course. After discussion at a SMG meeting,
it was decided that the “Teaching techniques for adult learning” course would
be developed as the sample networked course (Wellington Polytechnic,
1998
April). However, this critical decision was made without carrying
out a thorough market research.
The
Educational Development Department (EDD) had some experience in distance
education and was also planning to start delivery in 1998 of a Master of
Education that would have a strong distance delivery component. The Educational
Development Department therefore saw networked education as an important and
relevant development and was keen to be involved in the HYDI project. The
teaching philosophy within the Educational Development Department was to give
pre-eminence to the student who carried through into the development of the
sampler course.
The
Educational Development Department qualified well to be the primary “early
adopters” as the department was well-respected and established within the
Wellington Polytechnic. Rogers and Scott
(1997) indicate that the early adopters need to be a more integrated part of
the local system than the innovators, have opinion leadership in many systems,
need to be not too far ahead of the average individual in innovativeness and
needs to be respected by their peers. The Educational Development Department
was also represented on the HYDI team, but this did not negatively impact their
role as early adopters.
The
team approach to the development of the sampler networked course was extended
when in early February the "Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) Hypermedia
Team" was formed. It consisted of the core HYDI team (project manager,
creative director / graphic designer, computer specialist, educational
director) plus the content providers from within the Educational Development
Department.
An training
opportunity for the academic staff in the extended team arose through staff
development when the author organized an open Hypermedia Seminar (Lobodzinski,
1996). Further bottom-up promotion was
also intended through this seminar which was well attended by Wellington
Polytechnic staff from a wide range of departments. This indicated an increase
in interest in networked education. The Educational Development Department in
particular was well represented.
Using the
names of the workshop delegates as a base, an internal e-mail group of
“interested staff” was created and periodic messages about progress of the HYDI
project was distributed to this group as a way to internally promote networked
education (Appendix 11: 8). This group
was also invited to assist in the development of the first networked course in
any way they felt possible, and some assistance was offered by them.
A
team workshop in a group decision-making mode was held at the start of the year
to plan the development of the sampler networked course. This workshop was
specifically designed to incorporate the “early adopters” in the innovation of
implementing the virtual class infrastructure.
In the
first cycle the computer specialist, with the help of others, was also
responsible for integrating text and graphical elements into appropriate
computer formats in creating the on-line materials. However, when the
development of the sampler course was planned and some of the team members who
helped in this area in cycle one were no longer available, it became clear that
a distinct role within the hypermedia team of a media developer was needed. No
provision had initially been made for funding of this role and therefore it was
decided to use second-year multi-media students of the Department of Computer
Studies for creating the basic HTML code. This
was defined as a project within their course and was structured as a group
assignment (later in cycle 2 a staff member was added to the HYDI team in this
role). The work of one of the groups of students was selected as a basis for
further development (Appendix
At this
workshop the development process for a module (called a "chunk" by
the team) of the first networked course was defined. The content providers
would provide the content in electronic format to the project manager via the
head of the Educational Development Department. The project manager would be
the link with the computer specialist, the creative director (graphic designer)
and the lecturer (who convened the course in which the students acted as
on-line media developers). A flexible and dynamic process was created whereby
direct links between the content providers and the computer specialist as well
as the creative director were established for testing purposes and for
alterations. This process was followed over the next
five months in which the sampler networked course was developed (the long period of development was due to
the very limited staff allocation to the HYDI project).
The systems
development methodology of prototyping (Stair, 1992; Burch, 1992) was discussed at the workshop and was used with good effect
during the next few months as the sampler networked course was developed. The
process that was followed is depicted in Figure 5.1.
For whole
course:
Then for
every module relating to content, visual design and technical computer aspects:
Feedback
Figure 5.1 Prototyping Development methodology as
used in this study
(Adapted from Stair, 1992:406)
At certain
stages during the development process, joint evaluation meetings were held to
evaluate certain aspects of the course, and also to build more of a team spirit
and keep the “early adopters” group informed (Appendix 11: 18).
During the
iterative development process, it became clear that the additional role of an
editor was required. The editor needed to be an objective person who could
scrutinise all the materials and point out any inconsistencies, spelling
mistakes and typing and language errors. A staff member in the Educational
Development Department offered to act in this role. In the sampler course the
editor scrutinised the content of the sampler course and contributed
significantly to the quality of the content.
To evaluate
the instructional design of this first networked course, a session was held at
the completion of the sampler course, asking a group of on-campus students to
browse through the sampler and provide feedback on the course via an on-line
response form (Appendix 11: 14 - 17). They were asked to comment on factors
like interactivity, the use of graphics, off-campus access, navigation and how
it compared to printed materials. They
made valuable comments that were fed back to the HYDI team for consideration.
The HYDI
team found that on-line materials could be continuously re-published with ease
because of having a single source to update. This dynamic nature of change to
on-line materials therefore needed to be managed both in the development and
delivery of networked education. Changing the content of a networked course
while students are working through a networked course can cause confusion for
them. A revision page was therefore created in the sampler course to inform
students of changes.
A known
problem of traditional distance education courses is the isolation that these
students often experience; however, certain strategies can reduce this problem
(Henri and Kaye, 1993:29-31; Stacey, 1997
June). It is possible that these students don’t know their fellow
students or who their lecturers are (as the author experienced when studying
for an Honours degree at a distance education university). This is an area
which on-line communications can impact significantly (Mason, 1996 June). The HYDI team's attempt to facilitate and
manage the communications in the sampler course was to have a standard
hyperlink to an “Ideas Exchange” at the bottom of each Web page in the course.
Here students can post public messages for other students on a dedicated
message board, publish materials on-line, post public messages for the lecturer
on a dedicated message board, send private messages to the lecturer via
e-mail.
The issue
of privacy of information was analysed and the option was provided to students
to specify their e-mail address on the message boards if they wanted to receive
personal responses to their postings.
These
boards can be used to bridge the boundaries of space and time when using it
asynchronously (participants are not together in time). The boards, however,
can also be used for synchronous (participants need to be together in time)
communications to create a quicker feedback cycle. Current boards are designed
for asynchronous use and a proper CHAT facility would need to be investigated
in further cycles.
Networked
education did enable the development team to consider the individuality of
every student by catering for different ways of navigating a course and for different
learning styles. This also left the students more in control of the management
of their own learning. The navigational preferences of sequential and random
navigation were addressed in the sampler course. The WWW and intranets cater
very naturally through hyperlinks for the random learner. The HYDI team saw the
management of navigation through the materials as an integral part of
instructional design. No strict sequence was built into the sampler course,
although suggestions for sequential progression are made to the students. The
learner can thus take any route through the content and activities; the only
fixed requirement is that the assessments need to be completed before any
credit can be obtained.
For the
sequential learner, special measures needed to be taken in the design of the
first networked course. In the sampler course a clickable navigational
"course map" was used as an anchor, which is a graphical presentation
of the proposed sequence of the main sections in a course, and is presented at
the start of the course. One of the standard hyperlinks at the bottom of each
page within the course links to this "map" to help students orient
themselves. From the page that contains the "course map", students
can also access an "Index" page which contains an extensive list of
most of the hyperlinks within the course. The inherent capability of Web
browsers to change the colour of all followed links is used on this
"Index" page. A student can access this page and see which elements
of a course have been visited and which elements still need to be done. This,
however, is a crude method as Web browsers reset these colours after a user
specified period and furthermore does not indicate to the student that the work
on the page has actually been completed but merely that the page has been
visited.
Certain
facilities were included in the sampler-networked course to support specific
learning styles. Learning styles refer to the preferred way that a person
processes information and describe the typical mode of thinking or
problem-solving of individuals (Kearsley, 1994). Mind maps were used
extensively to provide a visual overview of areas within the course.
Kolb's
description of learning styles (1984) was used by the Educational Development
Department content providers to cater for the individuality of students and to
allow the student to manage their own learning. Kolb (1984) postulates that
learning styles may be seen along a continuum running from concrete experiences
(CE), reflective observation (RO), abstract conceptualisation (AC), to active
experimentation (AE). Using these preferences, Kolb postulates four types of
learners namely divergers, assimilators, convergers, and accommodators.
For those
who prefer active experimentation, that is to say those who learn best by
actively engaging in a practical application of the theory, a
"Gymnasium" section was created (which has a hyperlink at the bottom
of each Web page within the sampler course) where students are provided with
exercises of both a practical and a theoretical nature
The
"Gymnasium" section in the sampler course also assists those learners
who prefer concrete experiences, that is to say those who learn best when they
are involved in new experiences. The WWW also naturally lends itself to "discoveries"
through hyperlinks to other course materials or to external sources. Students
can also have new experiences in their learning through random navigation, a
high level of inter-activity through e-mail, message boards, on-line feedback
on assignments as well as the use of multi-media that is graphics, colours,
sounds and movement.
For
students who prefer learning by reflective observation, that is to say learn
through watching others or by developing observations about their own
experience, a "Reflection" section (which is hyperlinked to form the
bottom of each Web page within the sampler course) was created to provide
students with "thinking" exercises - often more advanced questions or
points to ponder on. The
"Gymnasium" section also assists this learning preference.
Asynchronous on-line communication in networked courses on the WWW also assists
this learning preference since the student has the opportunity to reflect
before responding to students, lecturers, the content or to assessments.
Students
that learn best through abstract conceptualization, in other words by creating
theories to explain their observations, are catered for through the extensive
narrative within the sampler course.
The content
providers and educational director from the Educational Development Department
gave pre-eminence to the learner by also looking to incorporate constructivism
in the sampler course. The central tenet of the constructivist approach is that
"…the world is constructed by
the individual" (Boyle, 1996
June:751). Constructivism is a philosophical educational approach by which it
is argued that since knowledge is socially and culturally constructed (
The implications of educational media instructional design are well
summarised by Boyle (1996), who suggests that such instructional design should focus on
construction of knowledge rather than instruction, developing of contextually
authentic rather than artificial learning tasks, setting collaborative tasks within clearly defined
social contexts, giving students voice and ownership within the learning
process, enabling students to construct knowledge from their own life
experiences and awakening students to their part in the knowledge construction
process. There should also be an expectation on the part of the lecturer to
receive valid but different expressions of meaning in assessments.
The
importance of networking with others engaged in similar projects to verify
ideas and learn from them was illustrated when the author attended an overseas
conference and visited tertiary education institutes. The author formulated the
lessons learned as recommendations (Appendix 8). Specific
aspects relating to the networked courseware
included the possibility of having an area on the screen where a student can
make personal study notes (annotations) that are saved on their own computers.
Also that students can develop valuable hypermedia “text books” as part of
their course assignments that can be used by future students (Bos, Kikstra and Morgan, 1996 June); the same
would be true of examples of student assignments in general that can be used as
a learning resource for future students. This illustrated another way that
networked education can connect or network students to other students by
bridging the barrier of time and essentially connecting past and present.
Another
aspect that came to the fore was that of taking cultural differences and
preferences into account in the design of courseware (Chyou and Esiley, 1996
June). Target markets will have to be well researched to establish any specific
cultural preferences and then to investigate possibilities of incorporating
these.
The
HYDI team was still responsible for maintaining the Website too. An attempt was
made to formalise the Website change process (updated in February 1996; Appendix
4). A discussion was held with the senior manager of the Management Information
System (MIS) group in which it was
decided that MIS would take over the maintenance of the Website. This signified
a positive development in the wider diffusion of the vision for networked
education at Wellington Polytechnic as the Website was increasingly seen as an
important marketing tool for the Polytechnic. The Management Information
Systems (MIS) group also wanted to engineer it to become part of the mainstream
activities at Wellington Polytechnic
(Appendix
The HYDI
team had face-to-face meetings from time to time to discuss issues arising from
the tasks that were being completed and to build team coherence. Most of the
intra-team communications, however, were via electronic mail as this
multi-disciplinary team were physically located in different parts of the
Polytechnic, and therefore still operated for most of the time as a virtual
team.
5.2.2 Advance the visibility and ownership of virtual
class concepts among senior and middle managers
The
continued support of the President as sponsor of this project was a source of
encouragement for the HYDI team throughout cycle 2 (Appendix
The
importance of senior management support was again demonstrated in cycle 2 when
the President requested that the author become a member of the Computing
Advisory Committee. This committee discusses and makes proposals to senior
management on operational computer issues (Appendix 11: 6). This contributed to
linking the HYDI project to the recognised structure of the institute.
A
report was presented to senior management on the author’s overseas visit in
cycle 2, containing the observation
based on the conference workshops and presentations (Appendix 8) that
“distance education via hypermedia delivery has been validated as an important
delivery medium.”
At the
invitation of the President, the author provided input on a monthly basis at
the meetings of the Senior Management Group (SMG) and periodically also
progress reports (Appendix 9 and N). This invitation was an indication of the
President’s continued support for the project and his desire for a successful
outcome and wider implementation. For instance, the name of the virtual campus,
“Wellington Polytechnic On-line Campus” was decided on by the SMG with input
from the HYDI team. These sessions in retrospect could have been used much more
effectively to gain support from within the SMG. The assumption of the author,
however, was that everyone in the SMG fully supported and felt a sense of
ownership of the HYDI project. It was later learned that the support base was much smaller than
assumed, which pointed to the difficulty of implementing an innovation in
conventional tertiary education and to the need for understanding the culture
of an organisation.
The author
suggested to the President that the first networked course as well as the
Wellington Polytechnic On-line Campus be launched at an open session to be
followed by a small celebration (Appendix 11: 1) to which some senior managers
were invited. This was designed to be a motivational instrument for the HYDI
team members, for showing public recognition for the team and the vision for
networked education, and as further internal promotion of the possibilities of
networked education.
A positive
view of HYDI was reflected in a memo in December 1996 by the head of
Educational Development Department to the writer (Appendix 23) after
discussions with the President, Vice President
and other staff. The memo stated that
"it was agreed that HYDI and the development of ‘new media’
involving computer mediated learning is very important for the polytechnic”
and "it was agreed that the work of
coordinating ‘new media’ developments would grow to a full-time load from 1998
and that the polytechnic would commit itself to funding such a full-time
position from 1998.”
5.2.3 Implement a stable technological
architecture for the virtual class
The plan
was to conduct a second pilot project aimed at
developing a CD-ROM with the "Website" information for the
Wellington Polytechnic. CD-ROM technology was seen as an important
complementary medium to the Internet with which the HYDI team wanted to
experiment in order to create hybrid systems because of the bandwidth
limitations of the Internet. The directorate, however, decided that HYDI should
not pursue this planned second pilot project because of the resources required.
What in
fact came to be created were the technological architecture to support the first
networked course (Wellington Polytechnic, 1998 April) as well as the Wellington
Polytechnic On-line Campus (1998, June).
This virtual campus, which was called the "Wellington Polytechnic
On-line Campus", was created as the entry point for students in networked
education at Wellington Polytechnic. It was made accessible from the Website
for marketing purposes and includes links to all networked courses:
Website On-line Campus
Figure 5.2 Wellington Polytechnic On-line Campus
positioning
The On-line
Campus includes hyperlinks back to the Wellington Polytechnic Website
(Wellington Polytechnic, 1998 July), which describes the activities, support and
other courses at Wellington Polytechnic and provides contextual information for
the student in networked education.
To minimise
Internet access costs for the student, the instructional design included an
option for the student to download a compressed version of the whole course,
enabling them to study off-line. Students thereafter need to come on-line only
to participate in on-line communication.
In the
On-line Campus a “Help” section was included to assist students in a variety of
areas. A hyperlink to this “Help” section is included at the bottom of each Web
page of the On-line Campus for easy access. Various technical computer issues
are covered including more information on down loading the zipped course files,
setting up the Web browser to send e-mail, down loading applicable plug-ins for
the Web browser and the minimum computer configuration required. The following
general information was included in the On-line Campus: How to enrol for
networked courses; how to communicate on-line with lecturers and other
students; how to navigate through courses; how on-line note-taking may be
conducted.
The need
for ICT literacy and expertise within the wider institute was recognised and
the author suggested to colleagues in the Computer Studies department that they
develop and present a course in Java (a cross-platform programming language
especially useful for Web applications) in order to build up expertise in this
field within the institute. This was not pursued further because some databases
allowed the development in a fourth
generation language to be exported as Java applets (Appendix 11:7).
Managing
the relationship with the Internet Service Provider (ISP) continued as the
on-line campus and sampler courses were also hosted at the same ISP. A program
(script) was down-loaded from the WWW and placed on the Web server for use with
the on-line message boards. The delays in communication between the ISP and the
HYDI team during experiments with asynchronous communications indicated that having
an internal Web server would be the
preferred option. The technological architecture within the HYDI team
comprised the PC and MAC multi-media computers, multi-media authoring packages,
graphic design software, Web browsers, software to convert word processing
documents to HTML, a scanner, as well as access to the Internet, the World Wide
Web and access to a Web server.
The
report on the author’s overseas visit in cycle 2 contained recommendations and
observations about technological architecture (Appendix 8), and it proposed that HYDI
acquire a multi-media object-oriented database in 1997/1998 for more
appropriate management of the courseware data (Lobodzinski and Williams, 1996
June; Lennon and Maurer, 1996 June; Schultheis, and Sumner, 1989). HYDI also
had to employ someone with database management skills on the project to carry
out this function.
A workshop
in adaptive educational hypermedia at an ED-MEDIA conference (Brusilovsky,
1996) led the author to believe that, although complex to achieve, adaptive
educational hypermedia should be a key design goal in hypermedia development at
Wellington Polytechnic from 1997 onwards. This means that educational material
is presented in an individualised and possibly unique way to students on the
basis of mapping systems that are created for each individual student. This
highlighted the centrality of the student in networked education which allows
the students to navigate the materials and have the material presented to them
in a way that suits them. This is one of the basic advantages of networked
education over the traditional classroom method. A skilled programmer in some
scripting language or another, eg JAVA or PERL would be required.
Virtual
reality could possibly also be explored to enhance the learning experience of
students because it has the potential to encourage more active participation
and increased accuracy in illustrating features and processes. Although
Chambers et al. (1996, June) indicate
that VR in education is in its infancy, they are positive about the potential
of VR in education as computing power increases and cost decreases.
Although
the technological architecture for the on-line campus was developed as part of
the implementation of the virtual class at Wellington Polytechnic, no (on-campus)
student Internet access policy was yet in place (Appendix 11: 21). This indicates the need for also addressing wider
policy issues when implementing a technological innovation.
5.2.4 Identify and implement effective
administrative services
At this
stage the enrolment procedure for networked courses was designed and tested
since it was envisaged that students could enrol for the free sampler course if
they desired to obtain credits for it. An on-line form was designed for
students to indicate when they were planning to start studying, their highest
educational level and some biographical and contact details. The Educational
Development Department, as content providers of the first networked course,
would receive this application and follow it up by sending out a comprehensive
printed application form.
Students
who wanted to gain credit for this course would have to enrol and payment could
be made by faxing credit card information through to the Educational
Development Department or by using a bank order. If demand for the Wellington
Polytechnic's courses was high in a specific country, possibly creating a local deposit account for student fees was
envisaged.
As the
sampler was a free course available to the public, security measures like access
to the course via user identification and password were not used (as would be
the case in the following cycle for commercial courses). The course files were,
however, technically protected through the security measures of the ISP so that
only designated members of the HYDI team could update the on-line materials.
In terms of
assessment, the plan was that students who enrolled for the sampler course
would send their assignments to the course convenor by traditional mail or as an
attachment to electronic mail.
5.2.5 Establish
a marketing strategy
The
specific marketing strategy that was decided on was to develop a free sampler
networked course. This procedure was based on a similar very effective strategy
that was used to market the popular Web browser Netscape (1996).
No market
research was done before selecting the first networked course. The Educational
Development Department had been active in distance education and one of the
courses that they offered was selected. It was also believed that the specific
course selected as the Sampler course could have a more general application. At
the extended HYDI team workshop in February to plan
the development of the sampler networked course, the target market for the sampler course was identified as being part-time
New Zealand students interested in learning to teach adults - this included
supervisors and people in the workplace.
The
international possibilities of networked education were becoming more apparent
and early in 1996 a meeting was held with the directorate member responsible
for external liaison and international affairs. It was decided that the contact
information of the International Student Office and the Course Information
Centre would be prominently placed on the Website to assist national and
international students to make on-line contact. The importance of marketing
networked courses internationally using conventional means that included
international educational fairs, as well as the possibilities of adapting a networked
course for students in different geographical areas were discussed. The author
saw a new role for the International Office in promoting networked education
internationally.
The
report on the author’s overseas visit in cycle 2 (Appendix 8) contained a
marketing recommendation that short courses for niche markets based on thorough
market research be selected for development in the next cycle and that these be
developed in parallel to the core formal courses in the next cycle. It was clear that all the resources of the
HYDI project could be fully tied up for the foreseeable future in the networked
education development of the Bachelor of Education, leaving no resources to
move the innovation wider. It was therefore considered desirable for short courses
to be developed and that they should have an emphasis on the international
market, since the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) was primarily focused on the
5.2.6 Identify and implement appropriate
organisational structures
Obtaining
adequate staff resources was difficult as this initiative was funded solely
from the President's development budget.
The HYDI project still operated as a virtual team with members from
different departments from various parts of the campus. Involvement in the HYDI
project for all team members was secondary to other permanent duties. The
project manager, for instance, had a 30% time allocation towards the HYDI
project in cycle 2. The computer specialist also received a time allocation
towards the project and duties within HYDI were included in this person’s
annual performance objectives.
Information
was obtained from the
Recommendations
concerning the organizational structure were included in the report on the
author’s overseas visit in cycle 2
(Appendix 8). One such recommendation was that the hypermedia
project should be placed on a firmer footing from 1997 in order to achieve the
goals of this venture as specified by the President. It was felt that the
structure at the time did not provide adequate focus and potential for the
achievement of these goals. The conviction grew that the initiatives concerning
the virtual class should not be localised in a specific school or department
within a school because the implications and possibilities of the virtual class
were seen to be institute-wide. It was also felt that continuity would be
provided to the HYDI project if the project in 1997 were to be located closer
to where it might reside eventually. This concern arose through the impending
retirement of the President (and sponsor) at the end of 1997. In addition,
relocation of the project would move the reporting structure of the
project and budget to a department like the Educational Development Department,
which was closely involved in the vision of networked education at Wellington
Polytechnic.
A unit
could be formed, perhaps to be called “The New Media Unit”, that would serve all the schools in the Polytechnic and
as such would be a general support unit like the Library and the Educational Development
department with a mission to research and implement appropriate new information
technology in appropriate curricula at the Wellington Polytechnic. This unit
would combine and balance the principles of education and of information
technology to achieve its goals. Therefore it was felt that such a unit could
reside within the Educational Development Department (second preference), or on
its own (first preference) due to its general support function, or linked in
some way or another with the computer development group (with the Academic
Registrar). The name of such a new unit was discussed within the HYDI team and
centered around the concept of “new media” (Appendix
Organizational
culture and project dynamics did not seem to harmonise well as personal politics
and institutional politics interacted. The dual reporting lines of the author
to the President and to the operational adviser, who was also the author's head
of school at that stage, proved to be problematic. Based on all the factors
above, the project manager proposed to the President that the HYDI project be
moved to the Educational Development Department - the “early adopters” group
(Appendix 11: 2). At directorate level it was decided that it was in the best
interest of all parties and that project HYDI be located in the Educational
Development Department. The HYDI project thus became the HYDI Educational New
Media Centre in the Educational Development Department at the start of 1997.
5.2.7 Further extend and forge new links with institutions,
organisations and individuals already implementing the virtual class
Networking
with others and maintaining these contacts was essential for the author to be
able to evaluate the implementation of networked education at Wellington
Polytechnic within a national and international context through feedback and
advice. Links with other researchers in this field also enabled the author, for
instance, to obtain information from the
Contact
with Prof Suave Lobodzinski who ignited the vision of networked education at
Wellington Polytechnic through his hypermedia workshop (1995, 1996) was maintained
and led to a seminar that he conducted in Wellington. This workshop further
promoted this innovation among other departments. He also provided information
on possible conferences that could be attended (Appendix 11: 7) for further
networking and learning from others.
Similarly,
the contact with Prof. Colin Latchem, Head: Teaching and Learning Group at
Curtin University of Technology in
The author
and the head of the Educational Development Department attended the ED-MEDIA
World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications in June 1996 to assess what other institutes are doing in
networked education. The networking at the conference renewed the vision for
networked education at Wellington Polytechnic, and inspired the head of
the Educational Development Department to actively explore networked education. The author also visited the
New Media Lab and Academic Computing Services Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as the
New Media Centre of California State University at
5.3 Reflection
5.3.1 Managing the implementation of the virtual
class infrastructure
These
findings address the following elements of the MIT90 schema (see Figure 1.3):
5.3.1.1.strategy
5.3.1.2.roles
and skills of individuals
5.3.1.3.organizational
structure
5.3.1.4.technology.
5.3.1.1 Strategy
Exploring the
possibility to publish student results on an intranet or the Internet
accentuated this serious management issue
and challenge to ensure the privacy of student information (Dearden, 1995).
Underwood (1995) points to the increase in the risks to personal privacy
because of ICT advances in general and the Internet in particular. Underwood
lists unauthorised access, insecure storage of data, incorrectly recorded
information and intrusion through ICT products and services as sources of this
increased risk. In networked education most information about a student and
also the teacher could reside in digital form on computers. Ensuring
appropriate access to this information is both essential and complex, as
digital information does not diminish when shared and is difficult to contain.
Developing
a free sampler networked course based on the "Netscape" (1996)
marketing strategy for on-line promotion was effective in that it did generate
interest nationally and internationally in the HYDI project. The “free give-away
of the first version” marketing strategy for on-line promotion can thus be
followed when promoting courses within the virtual class. In this strategy a
selection of courses, or parts of courses, can be made available free of charge
in order to entice the student to enrol for other courses or the entire course.
In some
conventional tertiary educational institutes decentralised organisational
structures whereby central services and responsibilities are devolved to
departments are becoming popular (Yetton,
1993; Randle and Brady, 1997; Hart, 1999 July). This devolution includes
budgetary aspects that might leave central services with little funding
for institute-wide innovations and projects requiring funds. The President’s
development fund at Wellington Polytechnic however, provided the central
funding necessary to start and maintain this initiative in cycle 2. Unless
adequate central funding is available for innovations like the virtual class,
these developments can easily occur in isolation and without wider impact.
The
prototyping development methodology that was proposed in the previous cycle and
described above was used to develop on-line materials and worked
satisfactory. The reason for this was
that the development of the first networked course displayed the features that
point to using the prototyping approach, namely a low degree of certainty about
input and outcomes, low user experience, immediate results are normally
desired, a high degree of risk, a large
number of alternatives (although the degree of complexity is average owing to
the ease of WWW publishing and the availability of Web servers and technologies
through Internet Service Providers) (Burch, 1992; Stair, 1992). The HYDI team
also experienced that the virtual class technologies have a large degree of
intrinsic flexibility and therefore facilitate prototyping. For instance, HTML
is very pliable and on-line message boards can be updated and changed rapidly.
On-line materials can be termed as being in a “living” format, that is to say hypermedia,
as most flexible, can be changed easily
and publishing on-line materials is a continuous and simple process. As each
module within the sampler course was developed, it was tested and reworked in a
series of iterative cycles until the content provider was satisfied.
The HYDI
team found that an effective method of introducing change is using a pilot
project (similar to the development of the first networked course during Cycle
2). The first networked course was essentially another pilot project (after the
development of the Wellington Polytechnic Website as the first pilot in the
first research cycle) since it was not a commercial networked course, but a
free sampler. This pilot facilitated experimentation in this new field, testing
of concepts and processes, the formulation of guidelines and principles, the
establishing of credibility, promotion of the innovation as well as analysing
how an organisation responds to the new paradigm of networked education.
The Lewin
and Schein model for organizational change (Stair, 1992:396) is used to describe the stages that occurred in this
second cycle of the project:
(i) Scouting: Identify potential
areas or systems that may need change: educational planning, development and
delivery
(ii) Entry: Stating the problems and the goals: these were identified through
team discussions and focused on creating the first networked course as well as
the Wellington Polytechnic On-line Campus
(iii) Diagnosis: Gathering data and determining resources required: included in the
budget request to the president for cycle 2
(iv) Planning: Examining alternatives
and making decisions: a large degree of exploration, discovery and
experimentation was allowed for in cycle 2 in all areas: educational, technical
and design (to be developed further in the following cycle).
(v) Action: Implementing the
decisions: decisions were followed through in a consistent manner and the first
networked course as well as Wellington Polytechnic On-line Campus was created
and launched in August 1996
(vi) Evaluation: Determining whether
the changes satisfied the initial objectives and solved the problems
identified: this was done through team testing, testing by internal students
and through feedback to the content providers
(vii) Termination: Transferring the
ownership of the new / changed system to the users and ensuring efficient
operation: at the end of cycle 2 full ownership of the first networked course
was taken by the Educational Development Department who provided the content
and ensured that educational principles
guided the course development process.
Our
experience of involving students as part of a teaching programme in a critical
role of networked course development was not successful. Although some of the
student groups produced good modules for the sampler course, it proved very
difficult to couple the deadlines of this commercial project of developing
networked education with the academic learning outcomes of the course. There
was no academic justification to link project deadlines to the assessment
criteria of the course, which lead to difficulty in having students produce the
work on time (Appendix 11: 19). The
author's conclusion was that the development of networked education is to be
managed as a commercial project in which professionals fill the required roles
and where deadlines are set and treated seriously.
The
motivational tools that were available to the author in cycle 2 were again the
"non-hygiene factors" (the "motivators") in Herzberg's
theory (1960), to encourage those involved in the creation of the virtual
class. These included a feeling of achievement, recognition of achievement, how
interesting the work was, responsibilities for decision-making, opportunities
to develop and to learn new skills. Wellington Polytechnic could not offer any
financial incentives to HYDI team members.
Collaboration and exchanges with others in the field have proved to be
invaluable in cycle 2. The importance for a conventional tertiary educational institute
that aims to progress along this path to link up with others working in this
field in order to learn from them and to collaborate with them, was underlined
in this action research cycle.
The cost of
distribution of materials shifts considerably from the institute to the
student, as the students have to pay their ISP for studying on-line. This is a
management issue that needs to be addressed, especially considering that the
student in the virtual class additionally also requires ICT to access courses.
5.3.1.2 Roles
and skills of individuals
It became
clear that there was a serious need for student training in basic IT skills as
well as having access to the Internet when learning in the virtual class. The
teaching of computer skills could ideally be integrated as part of the learning
process of each academic department, not only in the department that teaches IT
courses. This can be achieved by pursuing a strategic organisation-wide goal to
enable students to increasingly engage in the learning process by using the ICT
of the emerging information society.
Although
the sampler course was not intended to have any students who actually enrolled,
a lecturer within the Educational Development Department was nominated to
respond to e-mails and also to monitor the message boards. This pointed to new
processes of communication whereby students can reach a lecturer by electronic
mail and whereby the lecturer needs to respond to electronic discussions on
on-line message boards, and raised the management issue of a how to construct
an appropriate workload formulae for teachers in networked education. Barnard
(1997:32) highlights the concern this is causing some academic staff: “…others
may be concerned over additional work loads and how their position will be
affected once their expertise is readily available as a packaged course over
the Internet”. “Contact time” - the time a lecturer spends in front of a class
- is often used as an important yardstick and component of a lecturer’s
workload in conventional on-campus tertiary education. In conventional distance
education, again, a certain amount of "office time" might be
required. How relevant is “contact time”
or "office time" when no or very little face-to-face contact is
occurring? The networked education teacher also finds that, because the virtual
class is unbound in space and time (except when synchronous meetings are held),
a new flexibility is required in academic activities like communicating with
students. This can amount to a significant number of “invisible” or “virtual”
hours. Changes in the working lives of six academics who moved from teaching a
Master's degree in a traditional face-to-face tutorial format to one in which
they also taught the same program in a distance mode were explored by
In cycle
one a project team composed of the sponsor, external contacts adviser, academic
adviser, project manager, content director, creative director/graphic designer,
computer specialist and educational director was proposed. In cycle 2 the
author realized that two more roles are required, namely that of an editor and
an on-line media developer while students evaluated the course. These roles
incorporate the "five actor categories" that Paquettee,
Ricciardi-Rigault, Paquin, Liegeois and Bleicher (1996, June) distinguish in
the construction of a virtual campus namely learner, trainer, content-expert,
manager and designer. The gatekeeping did not work well because the external contacts adviser and the academic
adviser had high workloads and were thus passive in the role of gatekeeping.
The computer specialist, graphic designer, educational director and
specifically the content director acted as predominantly internal gatekeepers
while the author acted in a boundary spanning gatekeeping role.
5.3.1.3 Organizational
structure
Taylor,
Lopez and Quadrelli (1996) (who investigated the relationships between
diversification in modes of delivery, use of ICT, academics' teaching
practices, and the context in which those practices are employed in two of the
three large universities in Brisbane namely Griffith University and the
Queensland University of Technology) strongly recommend that teams should be
used when developing more flexible modes of delivery. This was also the
experience at Wellington Polytechnic and reinforces the idea that in the design
and development of networked education a multi-disciplinary team is required because diverse disciplines like education,
graphical elements and ICT are involved. This is in contrast to the
general practice of instructional design in conventional tertiary education,
which is often a solo activity of an individual lecturer. Spender (1996a, September) bases the
multi-disciplinary nature of instructional design and development of networked
education on the progression towards the information age and the corresponding
blurring of the lines between learning and work, and education and the media.
In the education industry, Spender foresees infinite possibilities across the
board for creative people, including writers, artists, sound technicians, film
makers, media researchers, graphics geniuses, animators and computer
professionals. In fact, Spender sees this as a new development for the
education enterprise to amass a vast array of talent.
It seemed
important to ensure that the implementation of the virtual class infrastructure
was not localised in a specific school or department within a school because
the author saw the implications and possibilities of the virtual class as
operating institute-wide. A central unit instead of a localised project seemed
a better basis for providing sustainable
training, support, research and development. A separate unit to house this initiative was proposed as
the first preference, and as second preference, to locate it within the
Educational Development Department (which serves the whole institute).
The
implementation of the virtual class infrastructure calls for appropriate
policies to be developed, for example access of on-campus students to the
Internet, publishing on-line and on-line communication protocols. Policies can
blend the requirements of an innovation with the institutional capabilities and
culture and are therefore necessary for wide implementation. This top-down
aspect was neglected in this action research and could have been used to obtain
positive support from administration.
5.3.1.4 Technology
The focus
in terms of the technological architecture at this stage was still on
implementing front-end technologies,
that is to say those technologies that support the user-computer
interface. This allowed a rapid start with networked education at Wellington
Polytechnic without having to set up a complicated and costly technological
architecture. Acquiring back-end technologies such as database generation of
HTML pages had to be postponed owing to limited staff resources in managing and
maintaining these technologies. However, the technologies in the virtual class
generally are most flexible, for example HTML, which allows for the back-end
technologies to be introduced at a later stage. Focusing on the implementation
of front-end technologies at this stage, therefore, appeared to be a good
initial strategy to rapidly implement networked education. The need for a relational or object-oriented
multi-media database was, however, identified during cycle 2 for managing the
elements of a networked course.
5.3.2 Managing the operations of the virtual class
The
research findings in this section support the second research question (How does one manage the operations of the
virtual class?) and describes the “Management Processes” element within the
MIT90 schema (see Figure 1.3).
In cycle 2 the author started investigating appropriate administrative
processes for networked education in preparation for commercial networked
education planned in the next cycle. Enrolments in conventional education
(where physical structures are used) enforce a strict regime where students and
administrative staff need to be at certain times and specific places - the
virtual class removes these barriers and allows flexible enrolment. This may
cause difficulties for conventional administrative procedures, related computer
systems and academic work processes. Anywhere/anytime enrolment might be technically
possible within the virtual class, but it might not be feasible to implement it
in a totally open way because of the complexities it creates. However, the
potential openness in the enrolment processes and procedures that the virtual
class allows needs to be exploited. Some courses, where group work is not
essential, could be offered on a continual, flexible basis.
On-line applications and enrolments that use the asynchronous
possibilities of the virtual class can remove the typical bottlenecks that
occur during enrolment time at most conventional tertiary education institutes.
Students can provide the necessary details in a secure on-line environment and
have it electronically verified for completeness and correctness. A single page
that constitutes the contractual arrangement between the institute and the
student and that carries the student's signature, could be faxed or posted to
the institute.
Boone
(1985:130) indicates that instructional design "…involves translating the
identified and analysed learning needs of target publics into meaningful and
cogent designs and developing effective teaching-learning strategies for their
implementation". Although instructional design deals with "…how to
make instruction work as well as possible with the tools at hand" (Mager,
1988:1), the reality in conventional tertiary education is that instructional design often does not deal with graphic design or ICT
design. In networked education, however, instructional design in practice
generally also includes graphic design as well as ICT design. Therefore the
scope of instructional design in practice in the virtual class is wider and
hence different from conventional education practice.
The virtual class brings a new flexibility to learning through its asynchronous
components that include the use of the WWW or intranets, electronic mail and
message boards. Students can study at their own choice of pace, place and time
but also have the advantage of synchronous communication activities when
required.
The virtual class environment enables students to be in charge of
managing their own learning. In networked education the student may have the
materials on-line, have hyperlinks to Websites for further research, can
communicate with other students in the course as well as communicate on-line
with students and lecturers in other locations - be it nationally or
internationally. Correlating to this greater autonomy of the student, is a
change in the role of the teacher in networked education from being an
instructor to being more of a facilitator (Mason, 1999). Thompson (1997:2)
challenges teachers to expand their intellectual and professional horizons in
the virtual class environment:
Professional
development, particularly those activities intended to introduce instructors to
distance teaching, should not only train participants in the use of educational
technology, but also encourage participants to reflectively view distance
education as part of a larger educational vision. In the current educational
environment this vision must include a commitment to the process of
non-traditional instruction, sensitivity to the unique needs and challenges of
a variety of distance learner populations, and readiness to expand one's
intellectual and professional horizons beyond past practices and individual
institutions.
One of the significant differences between conventional education
(whether it is distance or on-campus education) and networked education seems
to be the connectivity that networked
education facilitates by bridging the boundaries of both space and time. The HYDI team initially used the term
distributed on-line education to capture this characteristic of virtual class
education; the author later started to use the term networked education to highlight this aspect even more. It connects
or networks student and student, teacher and student, student and resource,
teacher and resource, past and present independent of geographical position or
time differentials. Managing this connectivity is an important difference
between the management of the conventional class and the virtual class. Hawkridge
(1995:8) contends that "the greatest difference, however, between the old
and new media is their capacities to sustain two-way communication that aids
learning”. On the class level, there is a
new relationship between student and lecturer. In the conventional class, the
teacher often has a one-to-many relationship with the students, which is based
on the conventional teaching model as well as on convenience for the students.
Students in a course will often relate with the academic community solely via
the convenor of the course when seeking clarification, feedback, additional
instruction or wish to challenge ideas. The on-line student, however, is "...no longer confined to our campus and
its teachers and students and activities" (
Networked education enables the instructional designer to consider the
individuality of every student by catering for different learning styles, ways
of navigating a course as well as individualised presentation. This provision
increases the possibilities for students to manage their own learning. Mediated
individualised instruction is an appropriate educational goal (Romiszowski,
1984) and extends the provision for different learning styles and different
ways of navigating through a course to true adaptive hypermedia systems where
personalised presentation can occur (Brusilovsky, 1996). Carver, Howard and Lavelle (1996,
June:121) provides an example of adaptive
hypermedia based on learning styles:
Students
determine their learning style by answering a series of twenty-eight questions.
Based on the student's responses, a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable
calculates each student's individual learning style, stores this student
profile as a file on a WWW server, and associates it with the user's login.
When the student logs in to begin a lesson, the student is given the option of
exploring the course material according to their learning style...
Using a
constructivist approach also adds to the centrality of the learner in the
virtual class. It gives pre-eminence to the learner since it is argued that as knowledge is socially and
culturally constructed by the individual, it is the learners who need to
construct knowledge for themselves. Landow (1992) asserts that hypermedia
systems should be seen as learning rather than teaching systems since these
systems strongly facilitate the use of a constructivist approach in
instructional design.
5.4 Conclusion
The
implementation of the virtual class infrastructure at Wellington Polytechnic
moved closer to being able to offer networked education, but this innovation
was still being primarily located within the Educational Development
Department. Notwithstanding the support of the President, the lack of general
ownership of the vision for networked education at Wellington Polytechnic among
senior and middle management as well as the cultural and political complexities
that this innovation experienced, contributed to this position.
The action
research findings of cycle 2 are documented in 5.3.1 and 5.3.2 above.
The
implementation process during cycle 2 highlighted and confirmed a number of
heuristics for managing the implementation of the virtual class in conventional
tertiary education and also pointed to more features of virtual class
management (as described in 5.3.1 and 5.3.2 above).
The overall objective for this action research cycle was to manage the
implementation of the virtual class infrastructure at Wellington Polytechnic
from the preliminary pilot stage to the infrastructure required by the
institute in order to offer networked education through the following
strategies:
5.4.1
the promotional activities which focussed on the
“early adopters”, the Educational Development Department, by developing the
first networked course was successful
and full ownership of this course was achieved
5.4.2
the visibility
and ownership of virtual class concepts among senior and middle managers was
still very limited
5.4.3
a stable, albeit basic, technological architecture for
the virtual class had been developed
5.4.4 only
limited administrative services were implemented because the sampler course was
a free course and not intended for student enrolment
5.4.5
a basic marketing strategy was established and
implemented
5.4.6
appropriate organisational structures were explored
and recommendations were made for the implementation thereof
5.4.7 new links with institutions, organisations
and individuals already implementing t he
virtual class were forged and established contacts were maintained.
It became
evident that the implications for managing the operations of the virtual class
in conventional tertiary education were extensive and pointed to significant
differences between conventional management of tertiary education and
management of networked education.
A second
order question that emerged was whether conventional tertiary education could
adapt its management approaches and processes to the extent that is required to
effectively use networked education. This would be further explored in
subsequent cycles.
This
concluded the second of four cycles of this action research.
As
indicated before, the action research had to progress to the point of
fee-paying students enrolling and participating in networked courses at
Wellington Polytechnic in order to address the two research questions. The
sampler networked course was not intended to attract any fees and during cycle
2 no students participated in this course.
In the next
action research cycle that occurred from January to December 1997, the plan was
to develop and deliver the first commercial networked courses and to establish
the HYDI project as an integral part of the organisational structure. Through
these strategies it was envisaged that more would be learned about managing the
implementation of the virtual class in conventional tertiary education, and
that more features of virtual class management would be identified.