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Title: Control freaks in a sharing world a bit of a dilemma


1
Control freaks in a sharing world - a bit of a
dilemma?
Prof Mark Stiles Head of Learning Development
Innovation Staffordshire University
TENCompetence Open Workshop GMEX Jan 2007
2
Outline
  • Institutional strategy policy are challenged by
    technological change
  • Innovation and Strategy - a quick look
  • Some Personal Experiences - from Revolution to
    Stalinism to Perestroika
  • More about Innovation
  • More about Universities
  • The new factors
  • About control
  • A framework for considering policy and strategy

3
Embedding
  • all policies, procedures, roles and
    responsibilities pertaining to the use of
    eLearning are fully integrated not just with
    each other, but with those applying to normal
    practice.
  • eLearning is part of the culture of the
    institution, and is seen by all as part of normal
    working practice, and as part of the normal
    portfolio available to facilitate learning by
    teachers and learners.

4
The point of strategies
Everyone starts out with a eLearning strategy -
either stand-alone or embedded in another
strategy BUT Strategies tend to be about
introducing or extending eLearning
e-Environment not their normal operation - i.e.
they are Objectives driven Once objectives are
attained, the focus tends to move elsewhere
5
The Strategy game
Build it and they will come (Field of Dreams)
6
The Strategy game
Build it and they will come (Field of Dreams)
7
The Strategy game
Let a thousand flowers bloom
8
The Strategy game
Let a thousand flowers bloom
9
The Strategy game
The philosophers have interpreted the world
the point is to change it (Karl Marx)
10
The Strategy game
The philosophers have interpreted the world
the point is to change it (Karl Marx)
11
The Strategy game
Seed change by funding innovative projects
12
The Strategy game
Seed change by funding innovative projects
13
In Reality
  • All these approaches both succeed and fail(In
    part)

14
Staffordshire 1996 - 2002
  • Transformational Strategy with
  • first, seeding change projects by bid
  • then, seeding change projects by departmental
    plan

15
And, by 2002
  • Significant Cultural Change
  • Many modules using e-learning for real
  • Successful distance e-learning awards
  • Good width of penetration across institution
  • Strategies quite well joined-up
  • Recognition and QAA success
  • Staff getting rewards

16
But...
  • Problems with development approach
  • Lateness, creep, false expectations
  • Late delivery, academic workloads
  • Support staff not always effectively or fully
    involved
  • Localised impact
  • Not a learning organisation

17
and...
  • Rate of change slowing
  • Projects rather than Production
  • Big holes in the admin net
  • Support uneven
  • SURF partners showed weaknesses in P2R2
  • Planning insufficiently sharp
  • Core support involved too late
  • P2R2 not joined up
  • eLearning not embedded University not Agile

18
Staffordshire 2002 -2006
  • eL-P3R2 - Focus on Policy, Procedure, Process,
    Role and Responsibility
  • Included
  • The integrative approach to course development
  • Holistic quality assurance and course development
    planning
  • Addressing vertical and horizontal
    organisational coherence
  • SURF partnership working

19
Reinforcing the Message
  • The rules of engagement
  • Vertical coherence
  • Policy
  • Horizontal coherence
  • Operational Policies, Procedures, Roles and
    Responsibilities
  • Changing behaviour influences culture

20
eLearning Policy
  • Designed to address/achieve
  • flexible and independent learning informal and
    individual learning.
  • equity of opportunity and alignment of student
    support
  • provision of a learning environment encompassing
    all of the learning experience
  • supporting the independent and lifelong learner
    and continuing professional development
  • access to eResources from point of need
    repurposing and reuse
  • robust quality assurance/enhancement with scope
    for innovation and employment of professional
    skills

21
eLearning Policy
  • Designed to address/achieve
  • encouragement of research, scholarship and
    development in eLearning
  • appropriate staff development, to ensure
    understanding of others roles
  • practice, policy and strategy are responsive to
    lessons learned and new opportunities removing
    barriers that impede or restrict effective
    eLearning.
  • resources and support are appropriate to
    requirements and understood
  • pricing of eLearning is both competitive and
    appropriate to the target populations.

22
So now
  • eLearning embedded in Strategies e.g.
    Information, Learning Teaching and Assessment
  • eLearning Policy acts as change enabler
  • Operational Policies, Processes and procedures
    being aligned e.g. Quality Assurance, WBL
  • Goal - eLearning just part of normal practice e
    disappears

23
But
  • Rate of increase of use is high but mainly
    eSupported or mundane
  • Mainstream probably now less innovative than
    before
  • P2R2 focus seen by some as Stalinist
  • Enthusiasts and Innovators subverting policy

24
Freedom vs. Control
  • How to loosen the chains to encourage
    innovation without losing control?

25
Innovation
  • the intentional introduction and application
    within a role, group or organization of ideas,
    processes, products or procedures, new to the
    relevant unit of adoption, designed to
    significantly benefit the individual, the group,
    organization or wider society. (West and Farr,
    1990)
  • What makes innovation happen and work is still
    not well understood
  • Organisations struggle to sustain innovation long
    term


26
Innovation - Factors
  • Characteristics of innovative corporations
  • Clear vision of an innovative company and the
    support needed to sustain it.
  • Visions tied to the realities of the marketplace.
  • Total organization flat and project teams small.
  • Managers encourage the parallel development of
    several projects.
  • Learning and investigation cut across traditional
    functional lines
  • Uses groups functioning outside traditional lines
    of authority.
  • (from James Brian Quinn)


27
Innovation Management and Culture
  • What does the organisation WANT from innovation?
    - e.g. effectiveness, quality, satisfaction
  • Reward behaviours that contribute to innovation -
    remove barriers that impede it.
  • Specialisation, standardisation and
    centralisation inhibit innovation.
  • Values such as rigidity, control, predictability,
    stability and order inhibit innovation
  • In must be OK to fail and make errors


28
Technical Innovation a problem approach
Centralised adoption of new technologies which
are then spread through the organisation Tends
to assume the innovation is inherently a good
idea people will make use of it failure of
take-up is their fault or an organisational
failing Doesnt help learn what new technologies
help and dont Technological innovation involves
competition and conflict no right answer one
size doesnt fit all has periods of stability
and change

29
The Learning Organisation
  • Anticipates and adapts to new pressures and
    drivers
  • Can readily develop new products, processes, and
    services
  • Learns from competitors and collaborators
  • Effectively transfers knowledge around the
    organisation
  • Learns from mistakes
  • Uses employees at all levels at an organisational
    level
  • Can implement strategic changes quickly
  • Actively encourages continuous improvement in all
    areas

30
Communities Networks of Practice
  • A natural CoP is largely informal and of people
    with similar activities and interests
  • Organisations can have multiple CoPs and CoPs can
    cross organisations
  • Innovation normally happens where different CoPs
    meet (or usually dont)
  • So CoPs can actually act as a barrier to
    innovation
  • NoPs are normally cross-organisational but still
    have distinct (professional) cultures
  • NoPs work well with a field but not outside of
    it, even within an organisation
  • Hence Professions - and their cultures - can be a
    barrier to innovation.


31
Communities Networks of Practice
  • Management set up CoPs to structure and control
    innovation
  • This appears to work but NOT for radical
    innovation
  • Radical innovations depend on cross-field
    synthesis
  • Managers need to draw CoPs together
  • Created CoPs tend to focus on what the manager
    is looking for instead of practice
  • Innovation tends to redefine professional tasks,
    and result in partisan conflicts


32
Universities Control Barriers
  • Much is outside the control of the individual
    tutor and learner
  • Much institutional structure and policy controls
    tutor and learner behaviour
  • Academic culture and discourse are, in their own
    way, conservative
  • Many students do not actually appreciate
    learner-centredness(This is reinforced by the
    business model of the student)
  • Moves away from the orthodox which reduce control
    are often opposed by those who currently control
    the process in question
  • Multiple external drivers for controlling
    approaches

33
Universities Management
  • No single Institutional culture - consists of
    multi-subcultures
  • Subcultures are typically in conflict and need to
    understand each other for Institutional culture
    to be addressed
  • A University can be typified as a Professional
    bureaucracy
  • A decentralised mechanistic form which accords a
    high degree of autonomy to individual
    professionals. Characterized by individual and
    functional specialization, with a concentration
    of power and status in the authorized experts.
    The individual experts may be highly innovative
    within a specialist domain, but the difficulties
    of coordination across functions and disciplines
    impose severe limits on the innovative capability
    of the organization as a whole.
  • (Mintzberg)


34
The new factors
  • SOAs and the e-Framework
  • Systems such as ePortfolios
  • Web 2.0
  • All of these pose challenges for institutions
    around ownership and control of processes,
    systems and information


35
Process ownership
  • In education many processes are
    inter-organisational and
  • Loose in structure
  • Based on informal cooperation
  • Have no explicit or implicit agreement on process
    ownership
  • Process ownership has become very complex and can
    involve
  • Process designer
  • Process manager
  • Process users
  • Software designer
  • Software procurer
  • Software users


36
What is ownership?
  • Ownership includes
  • possession - right to determine the uses of
    assets
  • authority - a variable aspect of ownership
  • control - roles and responsibilities - refine
    ownership
  • of systems and their interoperation
  • Ownership of a computer system involves
    hardware, software, and processes, and is
    probably divided among a number of parties.
  • Who owns the relationship between interoperating
    systems?
  • Someone must have the right to alter or sever a
    relationship.
  • Orchestration and Choreography are important here
  • (based on Carney et al)


37
What is ownership?
  • Data Ownership
  • an individual is empowered to make decisions, and
    can act to address his needs
  • designs and controls own processes
  • Data Stewardship
  • - a facilitation role.
  • uses a consistent process to achieve alignment
    across organization - needs of all considered
  • Data Custodian
  • - responsible for physical security of data -
    creates and enforces data standards
  • (Schlenker)


38
Web 2.0
  • Tutors and learners will build their own toolsets
    from
  • what is provided by the institution
  • what they have on their own (personal) computer
  • what is available on the Web.
  • Learners will
  • opt out of systems institutions and tutors
    might prefer them to use for formal learning
    activities
  • initiate sharing and community activities
    outside of the formal learning experience using
    tools they themselves have chosen.
  • engage with and draw on much wider and more
    diverse communities.

39
Web 2.0
  • A varying spectrum of control and ownership
    require thought about
  • how learning strategies will be articulated
  • how they will be communicated to learners
  • how learning will be managed and facilitated
  • how learners can translate outputs from
    self-generated activity
  • There is in effect a blurring between informal
    and formal learning and the key to understanding
    the future may be in understanding the nature of
    this intermediate zone and how, why and what
    activities and artefacts exist within (and pass
    through) it.

40
Web 2.0
  • Practitioners will need to
  • cope with a very diverse range of approaches
    taken by learners
  • guard against making stereotypical assumptions
  • consider how their chosen learning strategies may
    be interpreted by learners
  • Institutions will have to consider what (and at
    what level) they need to control and/or influence
    and what might be let go or exploited.
  • This impacts on quality assurance, academic
    planning, course design and development, and the
    core process.
  • Institutions need to be sure that that an
    appropriate approach to ownership is being taken
    in any given context.

41
A Decision-making Framework
  • The world will consist of
  • Institutional systems
  • External systems both web and organisational
  • Private toolkits
  • And interoperating mixtures of these!
  • It will require a cultural shift in how IT
    management view risk and control the use of
    systems by tutors and learners.
  • Some form of decision making tool is need to
    inform strategy and policy and hence influence
    and guide practice.

42
A Decision-making Framework
A possible spectrum of control Control - to
exercise restraint or direction over dominate
command. to hold in check curb Manage - to take
charge or care of. to dominate or influence.
to handle, direct, govern, or control in action
or use Facilitate - to make easier or less
difficult help forward (an action, a process,
etc.). to assist the progress of Enable - to
make able give power, means, competence, or
ability to authorise to make possible or
easy Recognise - to identify from knowledge of
appearance or characteristics. to perceive as
existing or true realise
43
A Decision-making Framework
Possible loci of activity Institution Initiated
at a corporate, departmental, or course
management level Tutor Initiated as part of
the learning process and conduct of course
delivery Learner Initiated either completely
independently, or as part of the learners own
learning strategy Using these in a
decision-making grid, it should be possible to
position processes and systems and to reflect on
the validity of the positioning. Once
positioning is decided, strategy and policy can
be examined to see if they reflect the
organisational needs arising
44
A possible framework?
45

Thank you for your time - and
patience m.j.stiles_at_staffs.ac.uk www.staffs.ac.uk
/COSE/cosenew/reportsandpapers.html
46
Sources used
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    Education Institution, in "Virtuality and
    Education. A Reader.", eds Hoang Nguyen, T. and
    Preston, D.S., Rodopi, 2006
  • Read B., Archer L. and Leathwood C, Challenging
    Cultures? Student Conceptions of Belonging and
    Isolation at a Post-1992 University, Studies in
    Higher Education   Vol 28 (3), 2003, pp  261 -
    277  
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    organisational culture that stimulates creativity
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