Making it Real: Project Managing Strategic e-Learning ...

1 JOURNALOF DISTANCE EDUCATIONREVUE DE L DUCATION DISTANCE2010 VOL. 24, No. 1, 21-42 Making it Real: Project Managing Strategic e-LearningDevelopment Processes in a Large, Campus- based UniversityMary-Helen Ward, Sandra West, Mary Peat and Susan AtkinsonAbstractThe University of Sydney is a large, research-intensive, campus- based AustralianUniversity. Since 2004 a Strategic initiative of Project - based eLearning support hasbeen creating teams of non-academic and academic staff, who have workedtogether to develop online resources to meet indentified needs. The University saims in continuing to provide this framework are to engage academics ineducational change and to implement innovation. Project management principlesare intrinsic, including an extended application and planning process (in whichcommittees of academics represent faculties); they provide a framework and ashared language for talking about both conceptual development and practicalissues involved in creating online learning and teaching resources.

2 This fostersteamwork, dissemination of ideas and networking of teaching practitioners bothwithin and across faculties. In this paper we will detail how the Project processhas allowed development teams to align the personal and pedagogical goals ofacademics and educational designers for teaching improvement with the strategicgoals of the university and its constituent sum L Universit de Sydney est une universit australienne qui est grande (plus de 45000 tudiants), ax e sur la recherche et qui a le si ge de ses activit s sur uncampus. Depuis 2004, une initiative strat gique impliquant du soutien l apprentissage en ligne fond e sur des projets cr e des quipes de personnelacad mique et non-acad mique, qui travaillent ensemble pour d velopper desressources en ligne pour r pondre aux besoins identifi s chez les enseignants(Wozniak, Scott, & Atkinson, 2005).

3 L objectif de l universit en fournissant cecadre est de soutenir l enseignement dans le changement ducationnel et demettre en place l innovation. La mani re de g rer l apprentissage en ligne l universit a t d crite dans un article ant rieur par Ellis, Jarkey, Mahoney, Peat& Sheely (2007)): ils d crivent comment le jeu entre l orientation strat gique del universit et les objectifs d apprentissage et d enseignement au sein des facult sd termine la forme de l apprentissage en ligne qui soutien alors l apprentissagedes tudiants. Le but de cet article est de d crire comment les principes de lagestion de projet sont appliqu s pour soutenir des collaborations strat giquesdans le cadre de projets entre les sp cialistes de l apprentissage en ligne et depetites quipes de professeurs afin de cr er des activit s d apprentissage qui sontalign es avec les r sultats d apprentissage des tudiants.

4 IntroductionThe University of Sydney is a large (more than 45,000 students), research-intensive, campus- based Australian university. Since 2004 a strategicinitiative involving Project - based e-Learning support has been creatingteams of non-academic and academic staff, who work together to developonline resources to meet indentified teaching needs (Wozniak, Scott, &Atkinson, 2005). The university s aim in providing this framework is tosupport academics in educational change and to implement way that e-Learning is managed at the university has been describedin an earlier paper by Ellis, Jarkey, Mahoney, Peat & Sheely (2007): theydetail how the play between the Strategic direction of the university andthe learning and teaching goals within the faculties determines the shapeof e-Learning that then supports student learning .

5 The purpose of thispaper is to describe how Project management principles are applied tosupport Strategic Project - based collaborations between e-learningspecialists and small teams of academics to create learning activities thatare aligned with the learning outcomes of management principles are intrinsic to the approach used onthese Strategic projects. In brief, the process includes: an extended application and planning period, in which committeesof academics represent faculties and help to articulate andprioritise projects over a six-month period followed by aconceptual planning process lasting from three to seven months(involving a Project manager and academic staff) a Project development process lasting up to nine months (involvingproject manager, academic staff and educational designer/s) a learning and evaluation period during which the studentsexperience the e-Learning activities.

6 These three stages provide a framework for talking about both theconceptual development and practical issues involved in creating onlinelearning and teaching resources. They provide a shared experience thathelps to foster teamwork, dissemination of ideas and networking ofteaching practitioners both within and across faculties. The traditionally understood role of non-academic support staff ischanging within the modern university (Housego, 2002). As well asproviding support for academic teaching (as these staff have traditionally22 Making ITREAL done), the Sydney eLearning team also sees its role as directly supportingthe academic endeavour by working with academics who are interestedin jointly engaging in educational change and implementing roject managers work closely with academics, developing thepedagogical underpinning of each Project , suggesting technical solutionsand negotiating with the academic to determine Project workload andestablish realistic Project time frames.

7 The team s educational designerscontinue to liaise closely with the academic as the Project is developed,and the evaluation and consequent tweaking of resources after studentshave used them is built into the Project s scoping process. It can be a challenge to create new teams with members who each havespecialised knowledge, and who require a shared understanding of howtheir skills and strengths interact most effectively (Caplan, 2004, pp. 186-187). Previous re s e a rch (Wozniak, et al., 2005) identifieduncertainty about roles in multidisciplinary e-Learning teams; bothdisciplinary specialists and educational designers reported difficulty inunderstanding what the other team members roles might specialists viewed their own roles as including coming upwith ideas to put online , showing the best way to teach content in mydiscipline and fostering creativity in the team (p.)

8 738). Educationaldesigners saw their roles as to provide specific information andcontent , provide good examples , ensure that Project outcomes are met , provide technical and educational expertise , and as an agent of changeby promoting new ways of looking at old problems (p. 738). This article aims to describe and discuss our experience in meetingthese challenges. It begins with a description of the structure of the e-Learning teams, then details the stages of development a Project goesthrough and how these relate to the faculty planning cycle, beforeanalysing the key stages of the Project management process and therelationship between the Project development process and pedagogicaldevelopment within the institution.

9 Structure of eLearning Project TeamsEach Project team consists of faculty- based academics who are usuallycourse or unit of study co-ordinators, e-Learning designers who workwith them to develop the online activities, and an e-Learning projectmanager. Each Project team works on a specific Project that has beenendorsed by a faculty sponsor (usually the Dean or Head of School). Asthe university is currently comprised of 17 faculties, Sydney eLearning isorganised on the basis of three clusters that loosely represent the strongdisciplinary culture of the Project managers workwithin a single cluster, educational designers work across the clusters, Making ITREAL23depending on the skill mix that is required at different times in differentclusters.

10 This has allowed the team to develop a broad view of learningand teaching work across all of the faculties within the 1 provides a visual representation of the team structure asimplemented across the three disciplinary clusters. It also shows howteams are both informed by and contribute to both faculty and university-wide learning and teaching goals. Figure 1: Structure of e-Learning Project teamsFaculty RepresentativesFaculties' learning and teaching plans, aligned to the university learningand teaching strategy, determine the Strategic direction of the e-Learning representatives are therefore a key part of strategicproject initiatives. Faculty Deans each appoint a representative whofosters the implementation and development of e-Learning withinfaculties by active membership of the Faculty learning and TeachingCommittee.