Dr. Shari Sandhu, Associate professor, Faculty of Medicine

© 9to5iPad, 2012

Dr. Sandhu is an associate professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy in a research university in Canada. Her students are mainly qualified and experienced nurses wishing to specialize in occupational therapy and rehabilitation. Dr. Sandhu is one of the country’s leading researchers in the field, and is also one of a team teaching graduate courses in this area.

Meet George, VP Education, Cornbelt Community College

Dr. George Carter has been in the post for three months. He has a problem. About five years ago, the college started putting in a lecture capture system, which suddenly rapidly expanded across nearly all departments. At the same time, several academic departments started enrolling fully online students, mainly using the lecture capture system, and specially hired adjuncts to deliver the online programs. The college executive team had seen this strategy as a great success, as the online enrollments had rapidly grown by about 40% over the last three years. Now over one-third of all enrollments were distance students. Furthermore, because online students paid a higher tuition fee, and the college made a handsome profit on the online courses, they were a source of essential revenues to the college at a time when the state was cutting its operating budget.

However, a graduate student at the nearby state university had just completed a study for her dissertation that compared completion rates between students taking courses on campus with students taking the same courses online at the college. She found that male,  Hispanic, and low-performing students fared worse in the online courses. The study was reported on the local TV station, and picked up around the country. George was particularly disturbed by an e-mail the college president had received from a distinguished scholar at a major university, who accused the college of criminal negligence in failing to follow best standards and practice in the design of online courses, and of “gouging” online students. All this had been discussed at a recent meeting with the college board of governors. A statement had been drafted by the director of communications, but George had asked for and been given a mandate to “clean up the mess.”

One challenge he faces is that there is nothing in the college’s strategic plan about online learning, and no strategy or priorities for it. The main decisions in the past about online learning had been made by the individual deans and faculty, working with the director of IT services, who was the champion for the lecture capture strategy. George now had to think about the best way to go about tackling this problem.

The VP Education in this small college has a major quality assurance problem on his hands. What could the college have done to avoid the problem in the first place? What advice would you give to George about how to deal with the problem as it now exists in the college?

Other reading

The scenario is based on a study done by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research: see Figlio, D., Rush, N. and Yin, L. (2010) Is it Live or is it Internet? Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Online Instruction on Student LearningCambridge MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Although Cornbelt Community College and George Carter are fictional, the NBEC research did find similar results to those of the fictional case above when lecture capture was used for distance education in a ‘real’ college.

Besides Chapter 6, you may want to read about what is said about strategic planning in Chapter 4, committee structures and governance in Chapter 5, and Chapter 7 on resources.

If you are not already familiar with best practice in the design of online learning, you might also read some publications on this topic, for instance Designing and implementing e-learning or E-learning quality assurance standards, organizations and research.

Points for discussion (use the comment box below for your response)

1. What’s wrong (if anything) with using recordings of lectures for online courses?

2. Does online learning require different quality criteria or standards from classroom teaching?

3. Who should be responsible for assuring the quality of online learning? Individual instructors? The dean? The VP Academic? The President? The Board of Governors? The accreditation agencies? The state? Anyone else?

4. What processes or procedures could George suggest and/or implement to improve the college’s reputation for the quality of its online courses? What would you do in his position? Can this omelette be unscrambled?

5. Why do you think the instructor in the quote that opens this chapter hates quality assurance processes so much? Does he have a point?

At the start of Chapter 5, a VP Academic is meeting with a VP Administration to determine whether or not to renew the license for the university’s learning management system, and how the extra cost should be handled. We suggest that this could have been handled differently and better.

Dr. Angela Dubrowski, Vice-President of Academic Affairs and Provost, Eastern Seaboard State University

Dr. Dubrowski has been vice-president of academic affairs for nearly nine months. Before that she was dean of the faculty of arts. She is a respected scholar specializing in modern American literature, with two highly acclaimed books to her name. She had also earned the respect of her colleagues as dean by successfully protecting the budget for the faculty of arts when faculties of arts and humanities in similar neighboring state universities had been cut drastically. She is decisive, communicates well with her colleagues, and works in a very collaborative manner with the deans and her colleagues on the executive team. Her priority over the last nine months has been the integration of a former community college into the state university, as a result of a statewide reorganization aimed at saving money. But today she is facing a different problem.

She is having lunch with Michael Blackstone, the VP of administration. The university’s contract with a commercial learning management system company is coming up for renewal. The CIO, who reports to the VP of administration, has recommended renewal of the contract, at a cost of approximately $1.2 million a year. However, as usage increases, this cost will also increase. Up to now, the cost of licensing has been absorbed wholly within the Admin VP’s budget as part of IT infrastructure. Now, however, Blackstone wants this budget to be split 50–50 with the provost. His argument is that this is mainly an academic cost, but he is also constrained by the fact that the new contract represents an increase of 40% over the previous contract, and he has no room to maneuver in his own budget to absorb this extra cost.

Dr. Dubrowski’s problem is further compounded by a memo from 25 faculty in education, who had argued that the university should move to other forms of electronic delivery, such as Web 2.0 tools, to “improve learner-centered teaching and more constructivist ways of learning,” and by a very unpleasant meeting with the dean of science and the head of the computer sciences department, who had strongly criticized the CIO’s decision to renew the commercial contract. They had argued that the university should be using an open source platform, such as Moodle, which would be much cheaper and better for teaching.

Adding to Dr. Dubrowski’s anxiety about this decision was the fact that she herself had not much experience in using technology in her own teaching, which was largely classroom based, although she had used the learning management system for students to access her list of recommended reading, curriculum information and sample assignment questions. She privately dreaded the thought though of having to move all her “stuff” to another system, and she sensed that many faculty would also have the same fear.

She was also concerned about how to find another $600,000 a year from her own budget, which was already stretched to the limit. Furthermore, this issue is one she could really do without, as there were many academic issues to be resolved with the merging of departments across the two campuses. In this context, and given the fact that she may need some financial support from the VP of administration for the merger, she decided to support his decision to renew the commercial contract, and would try to find “her” $600,000 from perhaps the modest increase in tuition fees that she was proposing for next year, which the VP of administration also supported. However, she knew was going to have to face some unpleasant meetings with some deans and faculty as a result of her decision—and possibly from students too, given that tuition fees would have to go up. But at least Blackstone had the decency to pick up the tab for lunch.

Other reading

There is certainly discussion in  Chapter 5 of governance, i.e. how decisions should be made about technology. However, Chapter 4, on leadership and strategic planning, Chapter 7, on resources and money, Chapter 8, on preparing administrators, and Chapter 9, also on governance structures, all provide ideas or suggestions that might assist in thinking about how this decision might have been better handled.

Points for discussion (use comment box below for your response)

1. Is this a realistic scenario for you? Do you think that some administrators would really make decisions like this? What is your experience?

2. From the above reading, how would you have managed this decision if you had been Dr. Dubrowski?

3. Do you have a technology committee or committees in your institution? What is their mandate and decision-making authority? Does this work well? If so why, or if not why not? What could be done to improve its work/their work?

4. Does your institution have a learning technology support unit? How does it relate to faculty development or distance education? How well does this organizational structure work? How does it relate to academic departments? What could be done to improve support for learning technologies in your organization?

5. Can you draw a map or diagram of where decisions are made about learning technologies in your organization? What does this tell you?

The scenario at the beginning of Chapter 4 discusses the challenge being faced at a large research university with its very large first and second year lecture classes. How could technology help improve the quality of teaching and learning for these students?

Pushing the Envelope: Using Technology to Improve the Quality of Teaching

L’université de Vaud is one of the top 100 research universities in several world rankings. It has an excellent IT infrastructure; a young and energetic vice-rector of technology with business experience who focuses technology development on the main “business” of the university, namely teaching and research; and an executive team that has a clear vision for the university built around excellence in teaching and research.

Since the 1980s it has had a rolling five-year plan for technology, linked to the university’s overall strategic plan, which is updated every year. The university supports an open source learning management system (Sakai) that is widely used by faculty throughout the university, mainly but not exclusively to support classroom teaching. It also has an extensive range of online distance education programs, offered not only through continuing studies, mainly for noncredit courses, but also through several faculties, such as the school of business and the faculty of education, also using primarily Sakai. Several of these programs at the postgraduate level are offered internationally in English, particularly but not exclusively to students in other European countries. Online courses at an undergraduate level are generally restricted to courses in the final year as an alternative to the face-to-face courses.

The vice provost of academic affairs has called a meeting with the deans and the vice rector of technology, as a result of recent external reviews of four of the 12 academic departments (faculties) over the last two years (schools of business, health, social sciences, and science). Generally, the reviews were excellent, particularly regarding research, the academic credentials of staff offering the courses, and the overall content of the programs.

Despite this, in each of the reviews questions were raised about the quality of the undergraduate experience. Because of recent cuts in government funding, classes were increasing in size, more contract instructors were being hired, and there was less interaction between students and research faculty than in previous years. Student evaluations had shown a slight but consistent deterioration over the last three years.

The vice provost of academic affairs was particularly concerned by comments from some nonacademic members (mainly from industry and government) of the review panels who had complained that while students had good content knowledge, they often lacked the skills needed for work, such as creative thinking, problem solving, and taking responsibility for their own professional development. In particular, one review had pointed out that whereas 20% of undergraduates from the program went on to research in universities or industry, 80% went straight into employment. It was felt that these students in particular were not really well prepared for life after university. Some of the research faculty had also been complaining recently that graduate students were also not as well prepared as in previous years.

As a result, the vice provost of academic affairs is proposing a radical overhaul of undergraduate education, in order to maintain and improve the overall standing of the university. In particular, she is recommending a reorganization of first- and second-year programs, with three primary focuses:

• Interdisciplinary, theme-based programs that would lead to more specialization in the final year
• Teaching designed around problem or inquiry-based learning, drawing not only on the research experience of faculty, but also on the latest research into teaching and learning in higher education to ensure deep rather than surface learning
• A heavy use of learning technologies in a controlled way to:
  • Provide students with access to a wide range of online learning resources
  • Enable the development of independent learning skills and collaborative learning
  • Reduce time research faculty spent in large lecture classes
  • Free up faculty time for small group, face-to-face interaction and essential hands-on work in wet labs (which would be supported by online virtual labs, where appropriate)

Her main concern now is how to get buy-in and implementation for the change.

Other reading

Although Chapter 4 focuses on leadership and strategic planning, some of the other chapters may also provide suggestions for answering the questions below. Also, you may like to look at the following before discussing the questions below:

The National Center for Academic Transformation

Miller, B. (2010) The Course of Innovation: Using Technology to Transform Higher Education Washington DC: EducationSector

Stripling, J. (2009) Half-learned lessons Inside Higher Education, October 9

Points for discussion (use the comment box below for your response)

1. Do you agree that large lecture classes are a problem?

2. Have program reviews in your institution identified similar issues, such as large classes, too many contract faculty, and students without the skills needed in the workforce? If so, how has this been responded to?

3. What do you think of the Vice Provost of Academic Affairs’ strategy? Is this the right answer for the problem, or are there better alternatives? Will she know if she is  successful with her strategy? Are her objectives measurable?

4. ‘Her main concern now is how to get buy-in and implementation for the change.’ Does the book suggest she might have a problem with buy-in and implementation? Why? What would you do (or have done) in her situation to avoid this difficulty?

5. Does your institution have a strategic plan? How useful is your strategic plan? Are the goals measurable? Is technology mentioned in it?

6. Does your institution have other plans, e.g. an academic plan, or a technology plan, that addresses the use of technology for teaching and learning? If so, are the parts about technology useful or helpful to instructors, support staff, or administrators?

7. Who should develop visions for teaching and learning with technology? How? What does the book say about this? Do you agree or do you have better suggestions?

There is no scenario with this chapter.

Extracts from Chapter 3 can be accessed here.

Points for discussion (use comment box below for your response)

1. How well do these case studies reflect your experience of technology management? Is your institution different? How typical do you think these institutions are with respect to technology management?

2. What do you think of the methodology? Would we have got different results with a different set of case studies? (You may need to look at how we used information from the case studies in Chapters 4-8). Did we ask the right questions? What are the limitations of this kind of study?

3. If you have had experience of working in both Europe and North America, would you say that European higher education institutions manage technology differently from those in North America? If so, in what ways?

4. On pp. 71-74, we set out nine criteria to measure how well the institutions had integrated technology within their institutions. Did we have the right criteria?
Can you think of better ones? Is it right to rank institutions this way? If you are from one of the institutions, does this reflect the way you see technology integration? If not, why not?

© Corbis, 2011

Danny is 19 years old and has just started his first year in a state university. He uses new social media to extend friendships within the familiar contexts of college, sports, and other local activities.

Danny is “always on,” in constant contact with his friends via texting, instant messaging, mobile phones, and Internet connections. This continuous presence requires ongoing maintenance and negotiation. With these “friendship-driven” practices, Danny is almost always associating with people he already knows in his “offline” life. He uses new media to “hang out” and extend existing friendships in these ways.

Danny also uses the online world to explore interests and find information that goes beyond what he has access to at college or in his local community. His participation in selected online groups enables him to connect to peers who share specialized and niche
interests of various kinds, whether that is online gaming, creative writing, video editing, or other artistic endeavors. In these “interest-driven”networks, Danny finds new peers outside the boundaries of his local community. He also uses this network to publicize and distribute his work to online audiences and to gain new forms of visibility and reputation.

In the process, Danny has acquired various forms of technical and media literacy by exploring new interests, tinkering, and “messing around” with new forms of media. Through trial and error, he has added new media skills to his repertoire, such as how
to create a video or customize games or his Facebook page. He then shares his creations and receives feedback from others online. Sometimes he “geeks out” and dives into a new topic or talent. He seeks out specialized knowledge groups from around the country or world, with the goal of improving his craft and gaining reputation among expert peers.

While both teens and older adults participate, Danny does not automatically recognize the resident experts by virtue of their age or reputation. Geeking out in many respects erases the traditional markers of status and authority.

New media allow Danny a degree of freedom and autonomy that is less apparent in his classroom settings. He finds he has to “gear down” in class and finds it hard to “do nothing” except concentrate on what the instructor is telling him, so he is constantly
texting and receiving texts during class, which occasionally gets him into trouble with his instructors. When he’s online, he respects the other participants’ authority, and is often more motivated to learn from his online peers than from his college instructors. His efforts online in social media are also largely self-directed, and the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals.

As a result, he often feels he is living in a different world when in class at
college.

Source: Adapted with permission from Ito et al. (2008).

Points for discussion (use the comment box below for your response)

1. How typical do you think Danny is? Is he representative of the students you are teaching?

2. The book suggests that students are different today from 25 years ago. In what ways? Do you agree? If so, what are the implications for teaching?

3. If you are currently teaching, how would you classify your use of technology for teaching? Do you think you are ‘cautious’? If so, what’s holding you back?

4. What is your philosophy of teaching? Do some of the newer technologies, such as open educational resources or mobile learning, fit with your philosophy of teaching or would you have to radically rethink your philosophy to justify using these tools? How could, would or do you use these newer technologies in your teaching. Why?

5. Is there really a significant shift in teaching (actual or potential) resulting from web 2.0 tools, or is it just hype or old wine in new bottles?

The scenario

Samantha is 25 years old, with a one-year-old baby, and lives with her boyfriend, Shaun, who works as a trainer in a fitness center. She works part-time at a local day care center. She has an old Honda Civic, a “smart” mobile phone, and her own laptop computer with broadband Internet access. She regularly uses Twitter, Skype, Google Search, Google Mail, Facebook, Flickr, iTunes, and YouTube, as well as standard PC software such as Word and Excel.

She is taking the fourth year of a bachelor of commerce degree from her local college, which is a 35- to 45-minute drive from her home. This is her fifth year in the program. She was unable to complete all her courses in her third and fourth years, because her classes often clashed with her day-care hours, and she kept getting behind with her studies. She is taking almost all her classes on campus, but she managed to find one course in her program that was offered online, which she is enjoying.

In her first year, there were around a hundred students in most of her classes, but this year there are about thirty per class. The college prides itself on its high-technology classrooms, with Smartboards, wireless access, clickers, and three screens in most classrooms. Some of her instructors have started to record their lectures, so she can download them, but others refuse to do so, because if they do, they fear students won’t come to the classes (and she agrees with them).

Samantha often uses Facebook to discuss her courses with friends who are in the same class, but most of the instructors don’t use anything more than e-mail outside class for communication with students, although one of her instructors has organized online discussion forums. On the whole, she likes being on campus, especially meeting the other students, but the lectures are often boring, so she sometimes joins in the class Tweets about the instructors while they are lecturing, which she finds amusing, if distracting.

She worries about the stress her studies are causing in her relationship with Shaun. She is always studying, driving, working, or looking after the baby. She particularly resents the eight hours a week she spends driving to and from the college, which she would rather spend studying. Shaun has a friend who has moved out of state who wants Shaun to join him as a partner in running a fitness center, but this would mean giving up her studies at her local college, and she doesn’t want to do that, as she may have problems getting credit for her courses at a college in another state. The thought of having to start her studies all over again fills her with dread. If that happens, she will enroll with either the University of Phoenix Online, or another of the fully online forprofit universities. They seem to understand her needs better than her local college.

Points for discussion

As with all the scenarios, this one is fictional. Here are some points for discussion (assuming you have the book).

1. How typical do you think Samantha is? Does this fit with your understanding of your students?

2. Samantha thinks that for-profit schools such as Phoenix ‘understand her needs better than her local college.’ Why do you think she feels this? Is this a fair assessment of local, publicly funded post-secondary institutions? If so, what could your college, or you as an instructor or administrator, do to meet Samantha’s needs better? 

3. What does Chapter 1 suggest are the factors contributing to her difficulties? 

4. Do you think that mass higher education is either necessary or desirable? What are your reasons? If you have concerns about mass higher education, what do you see as the solution? Can technology help?

5. Do you think that ’21st century skills’ is a meaningful concept, or is it just spin or hype. Don’t institutions already teach these skills? If not, what’s different? 

6. Are students different today than they were 20 years ago? If so, should institutions change to accommodate them, and if so, how? 

7. Should technology be used for teaching? If so, and given that it costs money, how would you assess its cost-effectiveness? What would justify the investment, and could you measure this? 

Use the comment box below to post your own responses.

We will add new publications relevant to the book’s topics over time. These will appear at the end of this page.

Alberta, Government of (2008) Report of the Auditor General of Alberta – April 2008 Edmonton: Government of Alberta (retrieved 13 June, 2010)

Alexander, B. (2004) Going nomadic: mobile learning in higher education EDUCAUSE Review Sept/Oct 28 – 35

Allen, I.E. & Seaman, J. (2006). Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006. Needham MA: Sloan Consortium.

Allen, I. E. and Seaman, J. (2008) Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008 Needham MA: Sloan Consortium

Alsop, R. (2008). The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation is Shaking Up the Workplace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Ambient Insight Research (2009) US Self-paced e-Learning Market Monroe WA: Ambient Insight Research

APQC/SHEEO (1998) Benchmarking best practices in Faculty Instructional Development: Supporting Faculty Use of Technology Houston TX: American Productivity and Quality Center

Australian Graduate School of Management, Fujitsu Center (1996) Managing the introduction of technology in the delivery and administration of higher education Canberra, Australia: Government of Australia Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs

Barker, K. (2002) Canadian Recommended e-Learning Guidelines (CanREGs) Vancouver BC: FuturEd

Bates, A. (2000) Managing Technological Change: Strategies for College and University Leaders San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Bates, A. (2005) Technology, e-Learning and Distance Education London/New York: Routledge

Bates, A. (2007) ‘Strategic Planning for e-Learning in a Polytechnic’, in Bullen, M. and Janes, D. Making the Transition to e-Learning: Strategies and Issues Hershey PA: Information Science Publishing

Bates, A. and Poole, G. (2003) Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Batson, T. (2010) Let faculty off the hook Campus Technology, March 17

BCIT (2009) BCIT launches The CUBE: Centre for the use of 3D simulation technology taking teaching and learning to a new level Vancouver BC: BCIT, November 2

Birnbaum, R. (2000) Management fads in higher education: Where they come from, what they do, and why they fail San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Bowen, W., Chingus, M. and Mc Pherson, M. (2009) Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press

Bradmore, D. and Smyrnios, K. (2009) ‘The writing on the wall: responses of Australian public universities to competition in global higher education’ Higher Education Research & Development Vol. 28, No. 5, pp. 495 – 508

Brinkman, P. and Morgan, A. (2010) ‘Financial planning: strategies and lessons learned’ Planning for Higher Education, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 5-14

Bullen, M. et al. (2009) ‘The Net Generation in Higher Education: Rhetoric and Reality’ International Journal of Excellence in e-Learning Vol. 2, No. 1

Bullen, M. and Janes, D. (eds.) (2007) Making the Transition to e-Learning: Strategies and Issues Hershey, PA: Ideas Group

Burgos, D., Tattersall, C. and Koper, R. (2007) ‘Re-purposing existing generic games and simulations for e-learning’ Computers in Human Behavior Vol. 23, No. 6 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1265679

The Canadian Services Coalition and the Canadian Chambers of Commerce (2006) Canadian Services Sector: A New Success Story Ottawa: The Canadian Services Coalition 

Carlton, D., and Perloff, J. (2000) Modern Industrial Organization, 3rd ed. Reading MA: Addison Wesley Longman

CDW-G (2009) The 2009 21st-Century Campus Report: Defining the Vision Vernon Hills IL: CDW-G

Christensen, C., Horn, M. and Johnson, C. (2008) Disrupting Class New York: McGraw-Hill

Christensen Hughes, J. and Mighty, J. (eds.) (2010) Taking Stock: Research on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Montreal QB and Kingston ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press

CIBER (2008) Information behaviour of the researcher of the future London: British Library, UCL

Clark, D. (2009) Donald Clark Plan B retrieved 26 November, 2009

Clark, R. (1983) ‘Reconsidering research on learning from media’ Review of Educational Research, Vol. 53, pp. 445-459

COIMBRA Group of Universities (2002) European Union Policies and Strategic Change for e-Learning in Universities (HECTIC Report) Brussels: European Commission

The College Board (2005) Trends in College Pricing Washington, D.C.: The College Board

Conference Board of Canada (1991) Employability Skill Profile: The Critical Skills Required of the Canadian Workforce Ottawa, Ont.: Conference Board of Canada

Dalrymple, M. (2007) Strategic Planning in Higher Education Saarbrücken Germany: Verlag Dr. Müller

Daniel, J. (1999) Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media London: Kogan Page

Davis, J. (2008) Beyond the false dichotomy of centralized and decentralized IT deployment, in Katz, R. (ed.) The Tower and the Cloud Boulder CO: EDUCAUSE

Desmond, Adrian (1997), Huxley: vol 2 Evolution’s high priest, London: Michael Joseph

Downes, S. (2005) ‘E-learning 2.0’ eLearn Magazine October 15

Downes, S. (2006) Understanding Learning Networks keynote: 4^th EDEN Research workshop, Castelldelfels Spain

Drucker, P. (1969). The Age of Discontinuity; Guidelines to Our Changing Society New York: Harper and Row

Ehlers, U-D. and Schneckenberg, D. (eds. ) Changing Cultures in Higher Education: Moving Ahead to Future Learning Heidelberg/London/New York: Springer

Epper, R. and Bates, A. (2001) Teaching Faculty How to Use Technology Westport, CT: American Council on Education/Oryx

eSchool News (2009) Stakeholders advise on national ed-tech plan eSchool News, November 17

Figlio, D., Rush, N. and Yin, L. (2010) Is it Live or is it Internet? Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Online Instruction on Student Learning Cambridge MA: National Bureau of Economic Research

Financial Times (2009), Make and mend: reindustrialising Britain, Financial Times, February 8

Fritz, R. (1989) The Path of Least Resistance New York: Columbine

Gansemer-Topf, A., Saunders, K., Schuh, J., and Shelley, M. (2004) A Study of Resource Expenditures and Allocation at DEEP Colleges and Universities: Is Spending Related to Student Engagement? Ames: IA: Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Iowa State University

Garrett, R. (2009) Online Higher Education Market Update Boston MA: Eduventures Inc.

Gilbert, J. (2005) Catching the Knowledge Wave? The Knowledge Society and the Future of Education Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand Council for Educational Research

Hanna, D. (2003) ‘Organizational Models in Higher Education: Past and Future’ in Moore, M.  and Anderson, W. (eds.) A Handbook of Distance Education Nahwah NL: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Hartman, J., Moskal, P. and Dziuban, C. (2005) ‘Preparing the Academy of Today for the Learner of Tomorrow’, in Oblinger, D. and Oblinger, J. (2005) Educating the Net Generation Boulder CO: EDUCAUSE

Hartman, J. and Truman-Davis, B. (2001) ‘Institutionalizing support for faculty use of technology at the University of Central Florida’ in Epper, R. and Bates, A. (eds) Teaching Faculty How to Use Technology Westport, CT: American Council on Education/Oryx

Higgins, A. and Prebble,T. (2008) Taking the Lead: Strategic Management for e-Learning Wellington: Ako Aotearoa, funded by the New Zealand Ministry for Education

Hiltz, R. and Turoff, M. (1978) The Network Nation Cambridge MA: MIT Press. 1978

Instructional Technology Council (2008) Tracking the Impact of e-Learning at Community Colleges Washington, DC: Instructional Technology Council

Ito, M. et al (2008) Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project Chicago ILL: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Jaschik, S. (2009) The Distance Ed. Tipping Point Inside Higher Education, May 26

JISC (2005) Innovative Practice with e-Learning: A good practice guide to embedding mobile and wireless technologies into everyday practice Bristol, U.K.: JISC

JISC (2006) Effective practice with e-Assessment Bristol, UK: JISC

JISC (2009) Responding to Learners Pack Bristol, UK: Joint Information Systems Committee

Johnson, N. (2009) What Does a College Degree Cost? Washington DC: Delta Cost Project

Kamenetz, A. (2010) Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education White River VT: Chelsea Green

Katz, R. (ed.) (2008) The Tower and the Cloud: Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing Boulder, Co.: EDUCAUSE

Kelly, P. and Jones, D. (2005) A New Look at the Institutional Component of Higher Education Finance: A Guide for Evaluating Performance Relative to Financial Resources Boulder CO: National Center for Higher Education Management Systems

King, J. (2008) ‘Iconic UQ lecture theatre re-opens for business’ University of Queensland News, July 11 Brisbane: University of Queensland (retrieved 11 June, 2010)

Knapper, C. (2010) ‘Changing teaching practice: barriers and strategies’ in Christensen Hughes, J. and Mighty, J. (eds.) (2010) Taking Stock: Research on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Montreal QB and Kingston ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press

Kozma, R. (1994) ‘Will Media Influence Learning? Reframing the Debate’, Educational Technology Research and Development, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 7-19

Lamberson, M. and Fleming, K. (2008) Aligning Institutional culture and practice: The University of British Columbia’s e-Learning Framework Tokyo: NIME International Symposium

Laurillard, D. (2002) Rethinking University Teaching (2nd edition) London/New York: Routledge Falmer

Laurillard, D. (2007) Modelling benefits-oriented costs for technology enhanced learning Higher Education, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 21-39

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In preceding chapters we have identified and critiqued a number of strategies employed by our case study institutions. In this chapter we have two aims. The first is to suggest a number of practical steps that senior managers and administrators can take to ensure the better use of technology for teaching and learning. The second is to provide a very brief summary of the main conclusions that we have drawn.

TAKING CONTROL OF CHANGE

Hope and reality

We have argued that the post-secondary system internationally is facing major challenges, and major structural changes are needed, if universities and colleges are to meet the needs of learners and society in the 21st century. The management of technology should be a key part of that restructuring. In particular, our expectation for technology is that it can:

• facilitate an increase in the overall number of students receiving post-secondary education
• provide more flexibility in delivery to meet the needs of a very heterogeneous student body
• help improve the quality of teaching, through the development of 21st century skills and competencies
• and do all this at the same or less cost as conventional classroom teaching.

We have also argued though that to date, these expectations, with the exception of increasing flexible access to learning, have not been met. In particular:

• we could find no convincing evidence, either in the case studies or the literature, to indicate that the investment in technology was leading to improved learning;
• there was evidence that technology costs are going up, especially in the areas of faculty workload, learning management systems, and learning technology support;
• in some cases, there are concerns about quality through the failure to follow best practice, the use of untrained instructors or adjuncts, or through the inappropriate use of technology, such as lecture capture for distance delivery.

Developing effective strategies to drive change

Thinking holistically (extract)

A book is linear; management and especially decision-making are not. We have written about leadership, planning, organization, quality assurance, resource management, training, and organizational culture as if they are separate, independent activities. They are not.  They all inter-relate.

Furthermore, technology now permeates throughout the whole organization. Faculty and students make decisions about technology, not just IT staff. At a senior management level, it is essential to think holistically about the management of technology. Senior managers need to have the whole picture about where decisions get made about technology; this will be particularly important when it comes to technology governance, but it is also important to be clear about where decisions of different kinds are being or should be made in terms of network infrastructure, choice of teaching technologies, teaching applications, technology support, resource allocation, security, privacy and many other areas. Figure 9.1 provides one way of looking at the whole picture of technology management in academic areas (details will vary from institution to institution).

You will notice that this is not quite the same as a typical organizational chart showing line management. Nor is it top down (or bottom up). All the circled entities are key areas for actual decisions about the use of different technologies for teaching. We have deliberately not identified individual positions, such as VP Academic or CIO, as it becomes increasingly unlikely that decisions about technology will be taken by an individual acting alone.

The rationale behind the model is that expertise in technology and its applications are spread throughout the organization. A good governance structure ensures that all the key stakeholders are engaged in decision-making at the right time and the right level. In a sense, we have presented a model for knowledge management rather than a model of command and control. Such a ‘knowledge management’ model fits not only the collegial culture of higher education, but also represents a model for organizations with a heavy dependence on information technologies and knowledge creation and dissemination.

The executive team and board’s main responsibility lies in overall leadership (‘championing’ the use of technology for teaching and ensuring that it is properly managed) and in the governance of technology, not just the technology component but also the ways in which it is used and particularly to ensure security and privacy issues are being properly managed.

The strategic plan should have some very broad stroke references to the importance of technology for administration, teaching and research and the direction it should be taking over the next few years. The Academic Plan will be more detailed, setting strategies for the use of learning technology, driven by the overall academic direction in the plan, which in turn should be influenced by input from the Faculties, Schools or academic departments in particular.

We will discuss the role of the Technology Committee in more detail below, but for us this would be the heart of institutional strategy, resource allocation, evaluation, and project approval for both academic and administrative technologies.

The role of Senate, Faculties, Schools or academic departments in making decisions about learning technologies is in our view relatively small. These bodies will of course approve programs, and programs will have plans for technology, but at the level of the Senate, Deans or Faculty approval committees, we would not expect detailed decision-making about what technologies should or should not be used in a program, although they may have something more to say about the method of delivery (campus, hybrid or distance). The main job of these bodies is to ensure programs (and their use of technology) align with the overall institutional and departmental academic plans.

For us, the critical location of decision-making about technology should be at the program level, which is why we have placed it at the center of the chart. It is here that the market for the program, and the vision for teaching and learning, should be determined, as well as the method of delivery, and the main technologies to be used, with strong input from central or local IT services and learning technology units to the discussions.

At the course level, the course teams begin to make specific decisions about the role of technology and how it will be used. Individual instructors will also usually have some freedom to decide on how the technologies will be used, and of course students will too, as they also have access now to a wide range of technologies that may help them with their studies, whether recommended by faculty or not.

Note also that individual instructors and students have access to technologies ‘in the cloud’, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Google, that are outside the direct control of central IT services or the institution. These web 2.0 tools are not only located on servers anywhere in the world, but are also open to those not within the institutional community of students, instructors and staff. For this reason, the institution needs to have policies in place about the use of such technology by instructors and students, within a context where control and enforcement of policy is difficult.

It is probably contentious of us not to include either IT services (central or local) or learning technology units as key decision areas. They certainly can and should heavily influence decisions and be completely integrated into the decision-making process, but the responsibility for using technology for teaching and learning lies elsewhere, at the level of the program, course, individual instructor, or student.

Lastly, such a model provides an essential component of a governance structure for (information) technologies, extending beyond a narrow definition of IT to include the application of technology to a core component of a post-secondary educational institution, namely teaching and learning. The governance structure suggested in Figure 9.1  will need to be integrated with or expanded into a similar model for administrative and research applications.

The need for multiple visions for teaching and learning in the future

Developing measurable strategic goals for learning technology

Develop a systematic annual academic planning process that drives budgets

Create a high level Technology Committee

Building a coherent governance structure

ROLES FOR GOVERNMENT

Strategic goals for technology investment

Funding to support innovation in teaching and learning

Creation of new institutions

Mandatory training in teaching

EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?

BUILDING BETTER UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES

The benefits of successful technology integration

A balanced approach to technology integration

Successful technology integration requires professional management

Creating an environment that encourages innovation and change

What does not need to change

CONCLUSION

The existing system is showing signs of strain and more importantly the trend is towards increasing pressure on the system. Institutions have adapted poorly to the massification of higher education. Our current higher education institutions are costly and inefficient, and could do a lot better, if information and communications technologies are applied intelligently.

We see this as a work in progress. Much more research and evaluation of the conditions necessary to integrate technology are needed. We know that there are other methods and approaches that could be tried that might well be more effective. What we want to encourage most of all is innovation and change in our institutions, so that the needs of students and the public are better served in the future. We want to stimulate a debate or discussion about how best to do this, so we hope readers will follow up this book by going to our web site at http://batesandsangra.ca. At this site, you can join us in online discussion about the scenarios, be able to access a collection of resources on this topic, including many of the references in the bibliography, see reviews of this book by academics and other readers, and above all, we hope, make your own contributions to the black art of technology management in higher education. In the meantime, we thank you for your interest and patience in sharing this journey with us.