CHAPTER 7
CYCLE 4 –
NETWORKED EDUCATION IN OPERATION
In the
previous cycles, the virtual class infrastructure was implemented to the stage
where commercial networked courses were available and students started to
participate in these courses in an experimental way.
In this
final action research cycle that occurred from January to December 1998,
students would enrol and participate in networked courses, which took place
especially through a growth in the use of on-line message boards in the
Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) and Master of Education (M.Ed) courses.
The virtual
class infrastructure was to be implemented at Wellington Polytechnic to the
point where students enrolled for the commercial networked courses and on-line
interaction among students and with lecturers occurred. The operations of the
virtual class were still very much localised within the Educational Development
Department.
This
chapter has been structured, like the previous three chapters, according to the
typical phases in action research that is:
7.1. plan
7.2. act and observe
7.3. reflection.
The action
research log for cycle 4 comprises 227 electronic mail messages, some of which
are included in Appendix 24.
7.1 Plan
In cycle 4
the overall objective was to assess the appropriateness of the virtual
class infrastructure and to extend it where necessary to support commercial
networked education.
The plan
included further extending the diffusion of the virtual class to new academic
areas and also to expand networked education into the Master of Education
(M.Ed) courses within the Educational Development Department.
The
intention was to specifically investigate the management issues related to
teachers and students in networked education and the related administrative
processes.
A list of
planned operational actions for cycle 4 was included in the business plan of
the HYDI Educational New Media Centre of August 1997 (Appendix 22), which
highlighted the need for senior management support and for continued central
funding.
The modus operandi for cycle four was based
on the following strategies to meet the overall
objective:
7.1.1
analyse the operations of networked education
7.1.2
extend the diffusion of the virtual class further in
the Educational Development Department and into new academic areas
7.1.3 continue to liaise with institutions, organisations and
individuals working in the field of the virtual class.
7.2 Act and
Observe
This
section contains a discussion of how the strategies above were carried out.
7.2.1 Analyse the operations of networked
education
Most of the
students and lecturers who participated in the two commercial networked courses
had at that stage not worked on message boards (Viskovic, 1997 December) and
the response to using these boards was minimal. There was also an intermittent
technical problem with the boards, which did not receive priority treatment
from the computer support group who had been requested to assist HYDI in this
matter. This further discouraged student participation. However, electronic
mail was used extensively between students and lecturers.
The HYDI
team did more experiments with synchronous communication facilities over the
Internet, but did not promote these for use in networked education because the
team wanted to allow participants in the networked courses to first familiarise
themselves with the asynchronous communication facilities. Using the synchronous communication
facilities would also require a sharp increase in technical support, which
could not be provided by either HYDI or CSG.
The ICT
support for students in networked education was thus very limited and depended
on the availability of one or two members of the HYDI Educational New Media
Centre. A helpdesk using the 0800 was not available for students, and technical
queries often ended up with the author.
When the
networked course “Introduction to Educational Research” (Zepke, 1997a) was presented, a number
of students requested printed copies of the course because of technical
computer problems (mostly with down loading and decompressing the course) or
lack of access to the Internet. Other students requested that the course
materials be provided on floppy discs. This defeated many of the instructional
design and communication principles and intentions, and highlighted the
importance of designing networked courses
with the least possible "footprint", which is the required technology
on the student's side. This also underlined the need for consistent ICT support
for students and staff in networked education.
An intranet was implemented at Wellington Polytechnic in 1998 by the
Management Information Systems (MIS) group. This opened up new opportunities
for offering networked education to on-campus students. A few lecturers in
other departments started to experiment with this mode by putting some course
resources on the intranet for their on-campus students. This made it possible
to have on-campus and off-campus students participating seamlessly in the same
course occurrence.
The administrative processes necessary for networked education were still
largely print-based and designed for on-campus students. Library
facilities were still catering largely for on-campus students, while some
distance students expressed a need for accessing library resources
electronically. On-line registration was discussed but the Management
Information Systems (MIS) group was not yet able to support this possibility.
Potential students, however, could still register their interest in networked
courses on-line.
The global
nature of networked education was illustrated when the HYDI team received the
following e-mail from a trainer in the
We were having a difficult
time paring down the rather involved and extensive 'Train the Trainer' training
that is offered at
There was
interest from a number of international students to do the networked course
“Introduction to Educational Research” (Zepke, 1997a), but even a significantly
reduced international fee still cost more than what the potential students
could afford - the exchange rate also aggravated this problem. The same
occurred in the Virtual Teams course, but the fees – mainly because of the
exchange rate – discouraged enrolment to the point that none of the students
who had initially indicated an interest enrolled. The accepted view within
Wellington Polytechnic at this stage was that standard international fees had
to be paid by international students accessing courses from within their own
countries (the cost of which was amplified by the exchange rate). This
discouraged marketing of the networked courses as well as enrolments (as
illustrated above). A proper marketing strategy had not yet been designed and
needed serious consideration.
In the area
of course development, the course elements were still being stored in flat
directory structures. The HYDI Educational New Media Centre started work on a
software package to better manage these elements by using a fully relational
database. This software package would assist lecturers to develop on-line
courses without any requirement for technical computer knowledge and would
require limited technical input from the HYDI team. This software package was
in an initial prototype stage at the end of cycle 4.
Quality
assurance emerged as a management issue since students from other countries
inquired about enrolling in the networked courses. Courses have prerequisites
and the qualifications of students would have to be assessed for equivalence to
7.2.2 Extend the diffusion of the virtual class
further in the Educational Development Department and into new academic areas
The
interest in the virtual class within Educational Development Department was
positive, and staff of the Educational Development Department
were interested in extending the use of on-line message boards. On-line
message boards for four Master of Education (M.Ed) courses were created. In the
second semester of 1998 work also started on another Bachelor of Education
(B.Ed) degree course, “Adult Learning”.
The
prospective on-line educators within the Educational Development Department
were invited to do a short networked course “Virtual Teams: Managing the
on-line meeting” (Pauleen, 1997). As the operations with the virtual class were
akin to the operations of a virtual team in which participants are removed in
space and often time (Jarvenpaa
and Leidner, 1998; Lipnack and Stamps, 1997), the participation level was low owing to other
higher priorities of staff and the culture within the Educational Development
Department, which did not respond well to the invitation being framed as a
pre-requisite for networked education.
A number of
bottom-up initiatives were taken to extend the diffusion of networked education
beyond the Educational Development Department. A brochure to promote the
services of the centre both internally and externally was designed by the HYDI
graphic designer and distributed by the author and other team members. A
document containing guidelines for the development of networked education was
also created and provided to the small number of prospective teachers in
networked education.
Alison
Viskovic, an educational adviser within the HYDI Educational New Media Centre,
participated in the Wellington Polytechnic Winter Lecture Series during which
she discussed the possibilities of using hypermedia in networked education
(Viskovic, 1998a).
The need to
train more academic staff within the Wellington Polytechnic in computer
mediated learning contributed to the development and presentation of a new
course of “Computer
Mediated Learning” for the Bachelor of Education qualification. Interest was
reasonable and ten staff members from departments representing the areas of
Engineering, Nursing, Fashion Design, Computer Studies, Communications and
Music enrolled. Three workshops on “Finding Things on the Web Fast”, “Educational uses of Telecommunications and the
Internet" and "Creating a Website" were held by the
author to stimulate further interest in networked
education. These workshops also contributed to increasing the computer literacy
level necessary for networked education within Wellington Polytechnic. The
interest in these workshops was extensive and the workshops were repeated on
demand, but even then could not cater for everyone on the waiting lists. This
pointed to the use of staff development as an important strategy to manage the
implementation of networked education.
In the
second semester of 1998 initial discussions for on-line short courses in the
areas of Nursing and in Business Writing (within the Communications Department)
were held. s However, owing to other priorities of the
content providers, this did not materialize.
The author of the course on
Virtual Teams (Pauleen, 1997) was included in the HYDI Educational New Media
Centre for possible future consulting work; unfortunately, he resigned from the
Wellington Polytechnic late in 1998. He expressed some personal concerns he had
about his work in a letter to senior management. Their response made it
impossible for him to continue in any capacity within the HYDI Educational New
Media Centre and nullified the role he could have played in diffusing networked
education in his department. This was a serious setback for the bottom-up
diffusion of networked education at Wellington Polytechnic and indicated how
important it is to understand and work within the culture of an
organisation.
The author
(content provider) of the on-line statistics resource (Lovrich, 1997), which
went on-line during the previous cycle, also resigned from Wellington
Polytechnic. This
highlighted a management issue relating to the continuity of on-line materials.
The networked course materials still remained
on-line but it was extremely difficult to find anyone in the area of statistics
to take ownership of this resource. In an effort to ensure continuity in future
scenarios, a form was designed where the head of department and head of school
had to give permission for a lecturer to put materials on-line. This would
contribute to ensuring continuity of on-line materials by placing the
responsibility to maintain the materials within the academic department and
school.
A new
"Forum for Enabling Networked Education " (a
sub-committee of CTAG) was established late in cycle 4 and met once.
Establishing this forum was part of the plan to extend the diffusion of the
virtual class into new academic areas and also to start addressing more of the
strategic and operational issues related to networked education. Staff members
from various academic and administrative departments were invited. This
invitation also included representatives from senior management.
It seemed
that while the bottom-up interest in networked education was growing, the lack
of top-down support and priority being given to these developments frequently
discouraged interest when commitments of time and energy were required. This was illustrated when a lecturer
in another department who had been keen to experiment with networked education,
was discouraged by his head of department and asked to focus on the
face-to-face courses he was currently teaching.
The importance of middle management (heads of department) support when
implementing the virtual class infrastructure has been illustrated in a positive way through the
support and participation of Nick Zepke, the head of the Educational Development Department. The implementation
of networked education at Wellington Polytechnic would probably have stalled if
it had not been for his continued support.
I think that it greatly
helps an innovation diffuse if it has top management support, especially for
its rate of adoption to reach critical mass, after which further diffusion can
be self-sustaining. But top management support may not be
necessary if the innovation has
sufficient relative advantage, compatibility, etc.
This
research indicates that unless the bottom-up support is matched by top-down
strategy (that included senior and middle management), diffusion of
technological innovation in conventional tertiary education will be slow and
cumbersome.
7.2.3 Continue to liaise with institutions,
organisations and individuals working in the field of the virtual class
The growing
interest in networked education in New Zealand was illustrated when a relatively
small community polytechnic in the Wellington region contacted the HYDI
Educational New Media Centre to request graphic design assistance for their
virtual class project (Appendix 24: 3).
The
importance of networking was illustrated when the author, through a visit by a
staff member of a South African polytechnic to New Zealand, was invited to lead
a project to extend networked education in that institute (Appendix 24: 1).
This project did not materialize, but a consulting visit to this polytechnic
was included in consulting opportunities in
The growing
interest in networked education in
During a visit to the British Open University (April 1998), a staff
member commented that the most significant loss students experienced from
paper-based to networked education is the mobility of the study materials which
now resided on computers. This naturally impacts on the mobility of the
students.
7.3 Reflection
7.3.1 Managing the implementation of the virtual
class infrastructure
These
findings address the following elements of the MIT90’s schema (see Figure 1.3):
7.3.1.1.strategy
7.3.1.2.roles and skills of individuals
7.3.1.3.organizational structure
7.3.1.4.technology.
7.3.1.1 Strategy
Although
the ICT allowed for sophisticated use, the HYDI team realised that the students
might not have the required access to appropriate computer technology. This
highlighted the importance to design networked
courses with the lowest possible "footprint", that is to say the minimum
required technology on the student's side, as well as to consider the financial
cost required from students for effective participation in networked
education.
Contact
with students in the networked courses highlighted the importance to manage the
affective domain, which is the area of feelings and emotions in communications
within the virtual class. Negroponte (1997, June) said that the role of
emotions in communication must be taken seriously. Instead of viewing as
“noise” any emotions in the communication process that negatively influence the
"true message", it is a very important and natural part of human
communications that should be included and facilitated in computer mediated
communications. The challenge is for networked education, as a computer
mediated education system, to accommodate, facilitate and communicate emotions (be
it verbal, body language or otherwise) as an integral and vital part of the
message. Networked education can deliver some support for this aspect through
on-line audio and video conferencing, emoticons and well-designed graphics. Teachers need to be aware of, and able to manage,
the new dynamics of communication in a virtual environment. Gundry and Metes
(1997) draw attention to the fact that working online fosters the feeling of
communicating with a computer and not with other human beings. In such instance,
this man lead to a loss of “self-regulation”, manifested in angry or abusive
online communication quite unlike the person’s face-to-face behaviour. How
to manage the affective domain effectively in the virtual class points to a
significant area for future research.
The management issue of ensuring privacy of personal information in
networked education can be illustrated in on-line communication. Providing
students with, for example, the ability to create their own password protected
discussion groups and boards for private conversations contribute to the
privacy of students’ conversations. The degree of access that students in
future course occurrences should have, and benefits of public access to
internal course communications and student work are issues facing the teacher
in the virtual class.
The
management issue of intellectual property and copyright in the academic
environment has been problematic in conventional tertiary education, but is
amplified in networked education where copying and replicating materials are
alarmingly easy. Viskovic (1997, December) refer to Wellington Polytechnic’s
copyright license which did not cover reproduction over computer networks as a
factor in why course readings were still print-based. On the one hand, this issue
relates to providing materials of others to students, as Barnard (1997:33)
points out: "the primary roadblock to providing written material online is
not the technology… The main hindrance is paying authors of copyrighted
material”. On the other hand, the issue also relates to academic staff who put
their work on-line, for Barnard (1997:32) points out that “…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”. David Noble (Appendix 13: 3) further elaborates:
Once faculty put their
course material online, moreover, the knowledge and course design skill
embodied in that material is taken out of their possession, transferred to the
machinery and placed in the hands of the administration. The administration is
now in a position to hire less skilled, and hence cheaper, workers to deliver
the technologically prepackaged course. It also allows the administration,
which claims ownership of this commodity, to peddle the course elsewhere
without the original designer's involvement or even knowledge, much less
financial interest. The buyers of this packaged commodity, meanwhile, other
academic institutions, are able thereby to contract out, and hence outsource, the work of their own employees and thus reduce
their reliance upon their in-house teaching staff.
Johnston
and Challis (1994) explored 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.
These authors point out that one of the concerns of the academics related to
the ambiguous status of the written materials prepared for the distance mode. The
academics questioned: whether the materials would be recognised as original
works of scholarship: who would own the copyright and would these academics be
recognized for their research or teaching activity.
The issues
regarding intellectual property and copyright are further complicated by the
preference for instructional design teams in networked education, which stems
from the requirements of integrated educational design, graphic design and ICT
design in networked education. Different team members may also create different
elements of a networked course. Ownership can increase quality as it is
essential that
knowledgeable, committed faculty members continue to have responsibility for
course content and delivery. Therefore, intellectual property policies should
allow for faculty ownership of online courseware (University
of Illinois, 1999). A model of
shared ownership of the networked course may be explored to include retention
by the institute of the rights to use the materials if members of the course
development team should leave the institute. Staff can have the right to use
the materials developed in their new work environment or in further
publications. It seems necessary that when a conventional tertiary educational
institute embarks on networked education that the management issues of
intellectual property and copyright be resolved at the outset.
The HYDI team learned through the lack of ICT support how important it is
to ensure that solid technological expertise is consistently available in the planning,
development and deployment of networked education. During
cycle 4, the full-time teaching commitments of the computer specialist limited
his participation in the work of the HYDI Educational New Media Centre. The
Computers Services Group (CSG) still focussed on operational aspects of ICT at
Wellington Polytechnic. These two factors caused a lack of technical computer
skills, technical development and ICT support for students (documented in
Appendix 17).
Quality
assurance emerged as a significant management issue during cycle 4. Butterfield et al. (1999, July) believes that, in
the context of the emergence of virtual institutes, attention to quality
assurance (QA) is more necessary, but may be more difficult than in conventional
tertiary education. More necessary, because radical change
gives the opportunity for flaws to creep in, and more difficult because the
well-known and proven methods of QA may no longer work. They believe
that attention must come from the institutions themselves as well as from the
external quality agencies (EQAs). Ensuring that educational principles are
pre-eminent in on-line instructional design and that ownership remains with the
academic staff (University
of Illinois, 1999) can contribute to internal quality assurance. Quality
assurance also relates to the complexities
of national and international accreditation and certification. Some argue that
the virtual class often lacks recognition from employers and institutions of
higher education provided by accreditation and certification systems (National
Center for Higher Education Management Systems, 1995). A solution might be to use outcome-based education, which focuses on
assessing learning and learners instead of courses or other instructional units
delivered by providers, and is based on specific, standardised, and widely
accepted competencies (National Center for Higher Education Management
Systems, 1995). An existing national model
that illustrates a way of addressing national accreditation and certification
is Open Learning Australia (OLA, 1995), which represents seven Australian
Universities active in distance education. The institute through which the
students complete a specified percentage of their studies awards the
qualification. International collaboration is also emerging, which is likely to
contribute towards addressing international accreditation and certification (see 7.3.2 below).
7.3.1.2 Roles
and skills of individuals
The role of the teacher in networked education is changing. The
Educational Development Department content providers followed a constructivist
teaching approach and perceived themselves as facilitators of learning. Within
this environment, Zepke (1998:179) states, “…the teacher’s role is a limited
one… the role includes - facilitating students learning by communicating and
empathising with them; structuring knowledge and arranging a reasonable
workload; helping students develop, change and critique their own learning
structures”. Earlier Leslie (1994) had already identified the as one
consequence of the information explosion the fact that teachers can't know
everything of value to their students; however, assisted by telecommunications,
they often can guide students to the information they seek. A broad range of
studies seem to confirm the educational value of telecomputing networks.
O'Donnell (1996) contends that the real roles of the teacher in an
information-rich world will be not to provide information but to guide and
encourage students working through the extensive body of information available.
A "facilitator" would follow a developmental rather than a
dissemination approach (Hodgson, Mann and Snell, 1987; Mason, 1998), and would be spending more time
on on-line communication than face-to-face communication, being less of a
"guru" and more of a coach, being less of a "creator" of
courses and more of a "user”, especially of Web resources.
Clearly teachers will have to manage their own learning more efficiently
in the highly accessible and visible international environment. They will need
to be more observant of international developments in their academic fields; if
not, they might find that the students themselves would be pointing out these
developments through their use of the global networks. Collis (1998) points to
the following imperative for the teacher in the virtual class: abandon
self-encapsulated thinking. The dynamics
of change mitigate against what Collis (1998) calls "intellectual
parochialism", a phenomenon typified by “self-enclosed thinking and teaching”
by constraints imposed by one’s own work and ideas. This type of approach will no longer be
acceptable in the institutions of the future. The growing synergy between local
and global, with the pervasiveness of telematics, will assume such proportions
in society as a whole, in all aspects of commerce and culture, that the
instructor cannot but abandon the notion of relying on archives of
self-compiled notes, on a world circumscribed by individual research, for fear of
becoming a total anachronism.
This changing role points to the extensive need for training of teachers
in the virtual class to master the new ICT. Using the global networks will be
necessary for their own research and for networking with other academics, as
well as being able to facilitate networked learning, for example managing
on-line meetings and pointing students to appropriate on-line resources.
It could be that on-line educators in a networked course find themselves
in the role of either instructional designer or as facilitator. Laurillard
(1993) assumes that there will be a distinction between the tasks of teaching
and of instructional design. This is a model of design and development of
teaching and learning resources implemented by the British Open University. In
paper-based distance education this model is often used; it is highly probable
that this might become the typical scenario in the virtual class where instructional designers focus on
instructional design and development of networked courses as well as
researching their academic fields, while teachers (facilitators) are contracted
to facilitate learning in the virtual class.
These facilitators can in the virtual class be contracted in from any
geographical area since most of the facilitation will occur on-line.
The HYDI
team noticed that although the ICT allowed for sophisticated use, the students
often did not have the required skills to use these technologies effectively.
They had problems in particular with downloading the compressed version of the
networked courses and in using the on-line message boards. This emphasised the
need to provide computer literacy training
for students as part of the virtual class infrastructure.
As
indicated above, there is also a need for staff training, support and
motivation when implementing the virtual class infrastructure (Mason, 1999;
Rajasingham, 1999). The study by O’Donovan (1997)
highlights the need for staff training in general computer skills at Wellington
Polytechnic. Staff training in general computer skills is a pre-requisite for
effective participation in the virtual class. Caladine (1993:24) notes that
"staff generally are amenable to changes in
teaching strategies to accommodate new modes of delivery, where appropriate
development and support are in place”.
Nguyen, Tan and Kezunovic (1996) argue for the creation of a strategic
plan for training academic staff in new techniques. However, it should be noted
that lecturers and tutors will still need to take on the role of
advisers, helping students to get started, manage their time and cope with
self-doubt (Rowntree, 1992). Workshops could be introduced to cover course
writing and editing, instructional design and course development and the use of
the computer as a management tool in distance education.
The
interest by academic staff in the workshops on using the Internet in education
conducted by the author further indicated that staff development could be used
as an important strategy to advance the implementation of networked education
among academic staff. This is also one of the strategies within the training,
infrastructure and empowerment system (TIES) at the
Ensuring
authenticity in a “digital world” (Collis, 1996) is a significant management
issue to address in the virtual class. Ensuring originality of work is an issue
in assessment when most of the contact between teacher and student is computer
mediated. Electronic signatures can also be shared and students in networked
education can obtain assistance from others because of the lack of face-to-face
control in assessment. This problem in paper-based distance education is often
addressed by having a substantial part of the assessment done in a controlled
environment. Other strategies to manage this problem can be to use continuous
assessment, sampling of some assignments and conducting random personal
interviews on-line.
Another
area where authenticity impacts the virtual class is in on-line communications.
On-line communications often occurs in newsgroups, synchronous on-line meetings
and asynchronous message boards in which participants can take on a different
persona or an alias. This can create serious communication and virtual class
management problems when messages are incorrectly interpreted, on-line groups
are inappropriately constructed as well as the occurrence of incorrect on-line
student tracking (for example, incorrect statistics of student participation on
on-line message boards). It might be beneficial to obtain student photographs
at enrolment with some form of official confirmation of identity. The
photograph can then be used extensively in the whole educational process as in
the case of chat groups, assessments and printed certificates. However, proper
training and clear student guidelines and policies regarding this matter may be
the most effective way to address this issue.
Some
distance students in the networked courses indicated that the face-to-face
interaction with other students and the lecturer added a dimension not present
in communications over a distance. A Bachelor of Education student said after a
teleconference “If only we had met in person first” (Viskovic, 1997 December:9). Looking at the social environment within the virtual
class,
Addressing
the social needs of both students and teachers in the virtual class is
therefore important. Strategies such as using newsgroups, electronic mail
discussion lists, synchronous on-line meetings, arranging some meetings in the
physical realm with other students, designing courses with a high level of interactivity
and using photographs and video clips of students and lecturers within a course
can all be used to create a “personal” touch.
Losing the two content providers outside the Educational Development
Department was a serious setback for the diffusion of networked education into
other academic areas, and points to the vulnerability of using a bottom-up
approach only. In this approach the energy of the diffusion is invested in
individuals. The top-down approach can add to the continuity of the diffusion of
innovations with the objectives of an innovation captured in longer-term
strategic plans, annual plans, committee discussions and minutes, and
operational policies.
7.7.1.3 Organizational
structure
The virtual team expert became unavailable to the HYDI Educational New
Media Centre presumably because of not appreciating the culture of Wellington
Polytechnic. This highlighted the importance of addressing the internal
political patterns and dynamics of an institute when managing the
implementation of an innovation like the virtual class.
There was a
lack of technical computer support for the students and staff involved in
networked courses. The HYDI team already had limited time for the development
of courses and the wider implementation activities (all team members were
involved on a part-time basis only) and the computer support group (CSG) did
not offer a help-desk to students (on- or off-campus). Students had to “hunt
around” for someone with the skills and time to assist them if they ran into
problems. Staff could liaise with CSG but experienced that their focus was on
other operational matters. This pointed to
the need for sustained information technology support for students and staff in
networked education. Help facilities like context sensitive help buttons can be
built into networked courses and an accessible help-desk for both students and
staff can be implemented. It appears essential that an ICT Help Desk
facility be established to support students and staff in networked education.
7.3.1.4 Technology
The needs of students and teachers in networked
education impacts on the nature, management and services of the library. Students in networked education at Wellington Polytechnic used the WWW
and the print-based readings as well as the Wellington Polytechnic library for
obtaining books and journals. The main implication of networked education for
the library appears to be to be able to provide most of its services
electronically, including database searches, searching its holding database,
ordering library materials and issuing. Barnard (1997:33) sets out this
requirement: "being able to work on class material at any time, no matter
where you live, can be compromised by the need to find a library that carries
academic journals and books… seamless access to library resources is now a
common goal of university libraries”. Capital expenditure on physical
extensions to libraries can be replaced by subscriptions to on-line databases
and resources. There is a continuing
increase in valuable resources being available on the Internet and specifically
on the WWW.
The lesser use of paper in networked education, however, constitutes a
loss of mobility for students in conventional, paper-based distance education.
Smaller hand-held palmtop computers are a positive step in re-creating the
mobility for these students in networked education although cost would still be
a serious deterrent to widespread use.
7.3.2 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 describe the
“Management Processes” element within the MIT90 schema (see Figure 1.3).
There was
some international interest in the networked courses at Wellington Polytechnic,
which points to the global reach of networked education.
In the virtual class with its global character the importance of culture
as a significant determinant in how students desire to learn, how the content
should be structured and how the learning experience should be facilitated must
be appreciated. The HYDI team did not design networked education for use by
students of different cultures, and realised that this needed to be addressed
to cater for international students. Woodhouse
(1999) points out that education is definitely not culturally neutral. This might be a significant reason why a singular
"MacDonalds" type networked course in each academic area for global
use will probably not be feasible. Students may choose to study close to home
because of convenience or physical security factors, but culture may also
contribute to this choice. Dealing with foreign cultures requires teachers to
have a knowledge of cultural differences and
sensitivities for these differences. This can easily be overlooked in networked
education where communications often exclude clues (like pronunciation,
expressed moral values, and physical appearance) as to the culture of the
communicators. For example, Gundry and Metes (1997) argue that online
communication can unite the organization, but it can also highlight fundamental
cultural differences. Online communications can suddenly pitch a person into a
different national culture in which taken-for-granted perceptions of
communication, time, power and information are quite different. These authors consider that training in
working cross-culturally has become a necessity, not an option since
understanding each other's world view, biases, and preferences will be
essential to building trust and shared perceptions, and maintaining the
communication that drives work.
Offering
courses globally has implications for the pricing of these courses since
conventional tertiary education is often subsidised by government and therefore
differentiates between fees for local students and those outside its
geographical area. In the virtual class,
however, the fee structure needs to take the local target market of the student
into account in order to be competitive in that specific market.
The centrality of the learner in networked education leads to increased
autonomy for the student. With the student's ability in the virtual class to
access other students, lecturers and resources globally in a predominantly
flexible environment of enrolment and assessment, the learners in the virtual
class can be in control of their own learning in a real way. This emphasis supports and can be facilitated
through the use of constructivist approaches in networked education as used in
networked education at Wellington Polytechnic.
Networked education facilitates ease of publishing on-line. Students at
Wellington Polytechnic participated in on-line discussions, while on-line
journals were also available in the networked courses. This leads to the
ability of students in networked education, in contrast to the conventional
student, to be on-line providers and publishers themselves by using facilities
like hypermail threaded discussion boards and newsgroups (Uys, 1997b June).
This ability increases student control of and participation in the learning
process, which can lead to added motivation for the student.
Students that are used to paper-based distance education seem to
experience a significant loss in mobility when studying by networked education.
The affordability and weight of portable computers such as laptop computers and
notebooks mitigates against these technologies being an
adequate solution to provide this mobility. Smaller hand-held palmtop computers
with infra red updating capabilities are a positive step in re-creating the
mobility for distance students in networked education.
Management of the learning environment within the virtual class parallels
the operations of a virtual team, that is a group of people working
towards a common goal in a computer-enabled environment where they are removed
in space (and often in time). Lipnack and Stamps (1997:7) define a virtual team as
"a group of people who interact through interdependent tasks guided by
common purpose" that "works across space, time, and organizational
boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technologies" . Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1998) aptly define a global
virtual team as a temporary, culturally diverse, geographically dispersed,
electronically communicating work group. Therefore, understanding how a virtual
team operates is important in managing the on-line learning of students. Zack
and Serino (1996) explain that effective team leaders also act as process
facilitators, thereby promoting team effectiveness by educating the team about
how to work collaboratively. For Gundry and Metes (1997) existing communication
and work skills, developed over years of face-to-face, collocated work, do not
transfer to and sustain high performance online work. Time, effort and
bandwidth involved in online conferences and forums often suffer because the
organizers overlook basic principles of need and relevance, being unaware of
the special techniques required to sustain online dialog. Gundry and Metes
(1996) stress the fact that teaching in the virtual class also requires
proficiency in knowledge management.
Increasing use of electronic group collaboration tools in support of
team work has sparked interest in how others can capture, store, and re-use the
ways by which what goes on when people use those tools. Called 'knowledge
management', this is important for enterprises whose principal currency is
knowledge, rather than physical or financial resource. At the heart of
knowledge management lies the issue of placing
knowledge under management remit in order to derive value from it, that is to
realize intellectual capital.
Elements of the virtual class like the vast resources on the World Wide
Web, on-line databases, newsgroups, threaded message boards with evolving
discussions, discussion lists (like Listservs), and increasing volumes of
electronic mail can create real information overload and stress. Users of ICT
in the past had to deal with data
overload through computer output (characterised by irrelevant and redundant
information), but students and teachers in networked education have to manage a
real information overload: an overload of relevant and valid information.
Gundry and Metes (1997) sums this up by pointing out that electronic
communication fuels information overload, which is a major cause of stress in
online workers. Developing critical analysis skills will become increasingly important as the information or knowledge
society grows. Gundry and Metes furthermore suggest that communications
protocols, along with filtering devices, are required in order to develop an
appreciation of, for example, the consequences of overcirculating electronic
mail. Simply by indicating message
priority in the e-mail header helps people get to the most important
communication first.
Viskovic (1997, December:9) reports that a
Bachelor of Education student commented: “Less easy to set aside time for
learning if there is no set meeting time for the group. Scheduled Internet time
for a group would be valuable”. It seems that the requirements for
self-discipline and continuity of motivation in tertiary students are amplified
in networked education owing to its virtual and asynchronous nature when the
traditional prompts such as physical materials on a desk, or scheduled class
times are often absent. Strategies to address this issue include effective
instructional design to use appropriate multi-media, effective monitoring of
participation through computerised or manual tracking, as well as asynchronous
and in particular synchronous communications. Synchronous on-line communication
tools may assist in producing both a sense of belonging as well as
accountability in the student in networked education.
Managers of the virtual class need to address the issues of dialogue
across the response and psychological distance between teacher and learner.
"Distance" in this environment is no longer defined in terms of
physical proximity or remote but in response time (Negroponte,
1997 June). There is also another type of
distance, which Moore (1993) and Caladine
(1993) explain as transactional distance, which is the psychological distance
between learner and teacher. Caladine posits that transactional distance in
technology-delivered education is greatly impacted by the technology (the
medium) itself. Evans and Nation (1992:9) seem to support this view when they
point out that that virtual class practices do not eliminate problems of
distance between teachers and learners, but on the contrary create their own.
Synchronous on-line communications like voice over the Internet, on-line
video-conferencing, on-line whiteboards, CHAT and shared applications can play
an important role in bridging transactional space in the virtual class - but it
needs to be managed properly.
The computer mediated dimension of virtual class management is
illustrated as having an electronic record of on-line communications that can
be saved for future reference by the students and teachers. Gundry and Metes
(1996) explains the special significance computer conferencing has for
knowledge management, namely that a team using computer conferencing to
collaborate, is creating a permanent, shareable, record of what they write and
send to each other,
The availability of an intranet at Wellington Polytechnic signalled the
potential to offer networked education to on-campus students, which reflects a
trend in the private sector to use intranets to access internal documents
through a Web browser (Cher, 1995; Gundry and Metes, 1997). The
potential of a new convergence of on-campus and off-campus students
participating seamlessly in the same course emerged. This phenomenon arises from the greater ease and feasibility of
simultaneously offering a networked course to on-campus students as well as to
distance students. This possibility extends collaborative on-line learning from an activity that can be used
effectively for distance students (Stacey, 1997 June) to one in which distance and
on-campus students can jointly participate. The synergy that networked education brings is that both local and
distance students can participate in the same course occurrence in a real and
meaningful way through synchronous and asynchronous on-line communications. This convergence of learning modes, which
traditionally have been called "distance education"
and "on-campus education" is a new management challenge for
both teacher and student. Learning control and responsibility are distributed
as well as on-line learning and teaching materials to both local and distance
students using the same interface (that is a Web browser). The use of networked
education for on-campus students will increase the demand for access to
on-campus ICT. The convergence of traditional on-campus education and distance
education could therefore require a decrease in spending on lecture theatres
and an increase in spending on extending computer facilities like computer
laboratories and the availability of intranet access in public areas such as
libraries.
As experienced by the HYDI team, the materials and teaching process in
networked education seems to be in a state of continuity: once a course is on
the WWW, it remains available and no special arrangements are needed to keep it
continually available - special arrangements, however, have to be made to
discontinue availability. In contrast, course materials are in a state of
discontinuity in conventional tertiary education. Two factors contribute to
this problematic situation. Firstly, the on-line materials are often registered
with search engines and guides on the Internet. The Universal Resource Locator
(URL) is then bookmarked within a web browser by users who often may share the
URL with others in a network of contacts. Secondly, the on-line materials need
to be kept up to date. Berners-Lee (1999b) noted that it would take up a great deal of time and
effort to keep that web of material up to date, to
the extent of giving the impression of requiring more effort than creating it
in the first place. Lennon and Maurer (1996, June) emphasised the importance of managing the
hyperlinks which are embedded in on-line materials. Effectively managing the discontinuity of on-line
materials as a result of the discontinuity of human involvement is necessary to
meet student expectations and provide ongoing support, and in so doing to avoid
the institute from falling into disrepute. An example of discontinuity of
on-line materials is a course in a specialized academic area in which the
lecturer concerned discontinues his/her involvement (as happened with the “Virtual Teams”
course and “Statistical learning resource” in cycle 4). The networked course
materials still remain on-line and might become outdated or, when removed,
cause frustration to on-line users when unsuccessfully attempting to locate it.
In a paper-based distance education environment or a face-to-face physical
teaching environment, the discontinuity of a lecturer can be addressed by the
discontinuity of the mailings or the classes at an appropriate point. The
virtual class thus needs special approaches to ensure a seamless discontinuity
like de-registering the materials with the search engines and guides, replacing
the course materials with clear notices to that effect and notifying parties
that might have bookmarked the materials. Furthermore the hyperlinks in
particular need to be managed effectively, which may require specialized
software (Lennon and Maurer, 1996 June).
Ergonomics emerged during cycle 4 as a management issue for an institute
using networked education. Networked education is per definition enabled
through ICT (Chapter 1) and therefore leads to an increase in the use of ICT by
students and staff. The instructional design of networked education should
therefore take into account the computer-user interaction, which includes the
ergonomics of the physical and technological equipment. It is necessary for
both the teacher and the student in networked education to manage this aspect
of the computer-user interaction in order to avoid the possibility of
repetitive strain injuries (RSI) - also called operational overuse syndrome
(OOS). The institute has a responsibility to create awareness and to provide
the necessary knowledge and skills to both the teacher and the student in
networked education to manage the computer-user interaction appropriately.
Another management issue for the operation of the virtual class is to
provide large-scale student access to intranet(s) and the Internet at the
lowest possible cost since these technologies provide the basis for the
implementation of networked education. Networked education students at
Wellington Polytechnic did not all have access to the Internet and requested
hard and soft copies of courses. Networked courses need to be designed with the
lowest possible "footprint", that is the required technology on the
student's side. Addressing the cost to students includes designing networked
education so that students can stay off-line for most of their study time,
while they naturally have to be on-line for communications. This can be
achieved through compressing a course into a single file for the student to
download. In addition, the institute can endeavour to negotiate favourable
contracts for Internet access and ICT on behalf of their students. For
on-campus students participating in networked education via the intranet,
"drop-in" computer labs can be provided and computers can be placed
in public access areas such as the library.
At Wellington Polytechnic the course elements were still being stored in
flat directory structures on account of limited staff and financial resources.
Work on a database application has started.
Many networked education software packages take the notion for granted
that course elements ("course objects") are to be stored in flat
directory structures. HTML files, media elements and scripts are stored on
servers in an organised flat directory structure, which is reminiscent of how
data was stored before the emergence of databases (Stair, 1992:141). This can
be an effective initial strategy to rapidly engage in networked education, but
does not constitute effective data management in the long run. Relational
databases and object-oriented databases have emerged as effective, sound and
popular ways of storing data in computer systems (Stair, 1992:144). It is
therefore suggested that managing the data in networked education should occur
through the use of proper database management systems.
Only adults participated in the networked courses at Wellington
Polytechnic in this cycle because of the nature of the courses (being targeted
to tertiary teachers), and the flexibility it offered to working students. This
links up to one of the reasons why tertiary education institutes are
considering moving towards the virtual class, namely to address the need for
lifelong learning (Mason, 1999:77). Education is becoming more of a lifelong
endeavour compared to the traditional few years stint
after school, a development that stems from the fact that most careers require
continued training to keep up with the growing body of relevant knowledge and
also from the modern tendency to develop more than one career during a person's
working life. Spender (1996b, September) claims that the whole of society is
becoming the student body. Networked education is attractive to those already
in the work force because of its open and flexible nature. Class management
within networked tertiary education will increasingly therefore have to take
the principles of adult education into account. A priority then for
conventional tertiary education and especially teachers in networked education
will be to research and understand how adults learn.
Equity of access is an issue that was often raised within the Educational
Development Department (Viskovic, 1997 December). Terms often used in this
regard refer to those who are "information rich" and those who are
"information poor" - which often leads to social and financial
impoverishment (Hope, 1998). Not only can access to the virtual class be
limited through inadequate access to ICT and Internet costs, but also through
computer illiteracy. Spender (1996, August) argues that the borderless
information environment is not open to all the peoples of the world because of
access and equity issues. The ongoing changes in ICT have been creating a
seemingly unending spiral of regular upgrades to software and hardware, which
leave many students wanting when they desire to access networked education.
There are initiatives to address these issues,
like Cybercafes, Internet access in public spaces such as libraries,
arranging adequate on-campus computer access, collaboration with other
educational institutes to provide access to remote students, as well as
Telecentres which are used in Australia (WA Telecentres, 1995) and Europe, and growing in number in Africa
(Naidoo and Schutte, 1999:90).
Linking with others working in the field of networked education in cycle
4 again proved enormously helpful to verify concepts, learn from the experience
of others, contemplate possible collaboration and
consulting. Many universities and colleges are indeed positioning themselves
for effective participation in distance and particularly networked education
through collaborations at institutional level. Examples include Universitas 21
(1999) that comprises 21 universities in
7.4 Conclusion
The research
findings of cycle 4 are documented in 7.3.1 and 7.3.2 above.
In this action research cycle the overall objective was to assess the appropriateness of the virtual class infrastructure and to
extend it where necessary to support commercial networked education by carrying out the following strategies:
7.4.1
the virtual class was operational at Wellington
Polytechnic, but it was clear that much could be done to make it more
effective; it was still very much based on the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) and
Master of Education (M.Ed) degrees offered by the Educational Development
Department; work on a database application started; effective administrative
and educational support services were not in place, especially in the area of
ICT support
7.4.2 networked
education within the Educational Development Department did expand primarily
through the use of on-line message boards both in the Master of Education
(M.Ed) and Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) courses; after extending the diffusion
of the virtual class to two new academic areas, the diffusion contracted again
when the two content providers left the Wellington Polytechnic; staff
development proved to be a successful bottom-up diffusion strategy; middle
management support proved to be necessary for wider implementation of networked
education
7.4.3
liaison with
institutions, organisations and individuals working in the field of the virtual
class continued through attendance at conferences, the electronic mail
discussion list OnLinEdu and consulting.
During
cycle 4 the goal that was formulated at the outset (see Chapter 1) was
achieved, that is to progress with the action research to the point of
fee-paying students enrolling and participating in networked courses at
Wellington Polytechnic. The implementation of the virtual class infrastructure at Wellington Polytechnic was
operational, albeit small.
Wellington
Polytechnic took its first steps towards the information-based operations of
the virtual class and experienced what Drucker (1998:100) had predicted: “… as soon as a company takes the
first tentative steps from data to information, its decision processes,
management structure, and even the way it gets its work done begin to be
transformed”. The research findings were pointing to the need for a new
educational management paradigm for managing the operations of the virtual
class.
At this
stage it was not clear whether conventional tertiary education was able to
adapt its management approaches and processes to the extent required for the
effective and widespread use of networked education.
At the end
of this final research cycle a set of heuristics can be formulated as a
tentative model for managing the implementation of the virtual class
infrastructure in conventional tertiary education. These heuristics are derived
as much from the failures of implementing networked education at Wellington
Polytechnic as from the successes of this project.