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Executive Summary

1 Introduction

2 Context

3 Methodology

4 - 9 Findings, Analysis and Discussion

10 Summary of Findings

11 Discussion of Findings

12 References

13 Case Studies

Acknowledgments & Partners

Case Study Map 

Institution H2

7 Impact of networked learning on staffing and collaboration

Networked learning brings the potential for changing existing roles, creating new roles and offering new opportunities for collaboration; however, it may also impact on workloads and on attitudes to this form of learning. The technology also allows for new forms of communication to emerge.

Staffing – change of role and new staff

In responding to the questionnaire, five staff felt that there had been new posts created to support networked learning and more details of these new positions were given in the interviews; an e learning adviser, a growth in support staff with a new role of VLE administrator, and an e learning support unit were referred to by two respondents.

… the people I’ve worked with have been university appointed people for e learning or the e learning area. I’m talking about [name] who you’ve met, the e learning adviser, I’m talking about … the e learning support unit [and] there are some staff development people like [ICT] training people in the library... (H2I3)

A secondment scheme that provided funding for six staff to be seconded to implement the Learning, Teaching and Assessment strategy, was mentioned by four of those interviewed, although supporting e learning is only one part of their remit.

There is something like six secondees, … one for each school … who are 50% seconded to implement the university’s learning and assessment teaching strategy. (H2I3)

The number of support staff has increased from one to four:

… [originally there was] one member of staff, and then that went up to two. [There are] now four, one of whom [is] seconded to the Health School for two years to develop an MSc in Midwifery and one of whom has just started and is doing a JISC project on accessibility and video. [There also] have an information officer and an e learning developer. (H2I2A)

The concept of a rapid development task force as emerged from the Business School and could be viewed as an informal change in roles on a temporary basis for various members of staff:

In the Business School we have someone who is the e learning leader, who has lots of time to help people, and what she’s done is establish these rapid development taskforce groups, where people come together for two days, and at the end of the two days, they have got to have [developed a] module [for online delivery], and that seems to be working well, [they have] made a lot of progress in that. So in a sense we are giving pockets of time to people in various areas of the institution. (H2I4A)

Changes in staffing in the library were referred to by two people, but it was not clear whether these were new posts or evolutionary changes in role.

… there have been some significant changes for example in learner support. If you want to borrow a book, you do it through a [self service] machine; you don’t do it through a person. We’re moving away from involving people in those routine tasks…. [but] they are … [still available] and they can provide help on all sorts of stuff. (H2I4A)

Changes in registry included taking on temporary staff each year at registration time, but with the advent of online registration this was no longer necessary and was replaced by careful long term planning.

… that's made a huge difference to our work because … we're trying to move to paper less office [and] we don't have a registration form any more…It's different. … there's been a registration form for years… [where] temporary staff that we had recruited would sit and enter the details live onto our data base [and] to do that and we had a specific day which would mean that [the students] had to be here. And we don't have that any more. But we have a great deal more in the planning to make sure that this is there. It's much more complicated. (H2I1)

There has also been a new appointment in ICT support, a VLE administrator.
I suppose the position of VLE administrator wouldn’t exist without it [Networked Learning]. [He] largely administers the portal and [the VLE] so without it [that post] wouldn’t [exist]. (H2I5)

Staffing – workload

The questionnaire responses indicated that workload has increased across all areas, with the possible exception of administration. All those interviewed felt that workload had changed; the majority spoke of increased demands on their time, but for the technical support and Registration areas it is suggested that there a change in workload, rather than an increase; the work was now different, and, in the case of registration, needed more careful planning.

I think there’s been an increase in workload obviously and there will be resentment about that. I think there are people around the university who are feeling pressured by their Head of Department to move online and they don’t particularly want to; and there is a lot of time and effort and learning of skills involved. (H2I2A)

It's different… when students came in, temporary staff that we had recruited … would sit and enter the details live onto our database… and we had a specific day, which would mean that [the students] had to be here. And we don't have that any more. But we have a great deal more [to do] in the planning to make sure that this is there. (H2I1)

It’s different. We’ve made a few more things automatic so that there are fewer manual tasks. (H2I5)

Staffing – research

There were few references to research, one respondent spoke of obtaining small amounts of funding for e learning research, and one respondent raised the issue of research and teaching; respondents felt that teaching has not had the recognition that it has deserved in the past, but new Teaching Fellowships have been introduced, and these might well be awarded for e learning achievements in the future.

I am quite frustrated by the fact that we don’t recognise the achievements of people as teachers or learning facilitators, or whatever you want to call them. All of the recognition goes to people who achieve results from research in a university where 96% of our income is from teaching. Now that just seems an enormous anomaly to me, and it’s something we need to address. We have started to address it because we have established Teaching Fellowships, we just haven’t got round to awarding any at the moment, and I’d be happy to award Teaching Fellowships to somebody who had real e learning achievements, and I think somebody who had done that actually would be more open to a team approach to e learning. (H2I4B)

Staff attitudes

Five people spoke about the attitudes of staff to networked learning, referring to both positive and negative aspects. Four respondents noted the many enthusiastic staff who are producing excellent e learning materials. Two respondents also commented on the ease of use of the VLE system which has made it possible for staff who perhaps are not ‘real enthusiasts’ to be successful and to gain satisfaction and confidence.

… there are lots of pockets of excellence and pockets of innovation that are really quite good. (H2I4A)

… the VLE has made it possible for everyone to get involved not just the enthusiasts it really used to be only the real enthusiasts that could do it themselves, whereas now anybody can start doing something on [the VLE]. They don’t have to be technically brilliant; they don’t even have to be a great exponent of technology. (H2I2A)

Reasons were suggested for the negative attitudes of staff: the lack of a formal e learning strategy at individual school level was seen by four respondents as a reason why many staff might lack motivation; three people referred specifically to a perceived lack of incentives for staff to take up networked learning; and two of those interviewed mentioned that a disincentive for some staff who had put a lot of effort into producing materials and then been let down by some historic technical problems, discussed earlier.

I come back to the absence of these targets and commitments to milestones in a university context or the motivation from individual lecturer’s perceptions that it is not a priority for them, there are other things that they give priority to and they don’t see the benefit for them in investing their own personal development and giving that time and energy to using and developing e learning as part of their own module or programme or teaching and learning strategy. (H2I3)

Recognition. Even if you do [e learning] and you’re really good at it, nobody says ‘well done’. You certainly don’t get a chair out of it, you certainly don’t get promoted, and you certainly don’t get into management, if that’s where you want to go. (H2I4A)

… there is a lot of time and effort and learning of skills involved – how you deal with that I’m not sure. I think one needs to have some sort of reward system in place. (H2I2A)

Another possible barrier mentioned by two people, was the lack of time coupled with an increasing workload, however, one respondent felt that this might be a cover for fear and apprehension, particularly of the technical aspects of networked learning.

And I think another barrier we’ve come across; … is that you get people who are very enthusiastic, effort in to developing online materials, they run the module and it all collapses because the university doesn’t support it. (H2I2A)

… I think when you dig deeper perhaps you would find it is due to fear and apprehension or [because they] feel maybe they don’t have the technical ability or didn’t know who to talk to for help or how to get started and so it’s too big a thing to consider; so therefore it [becomes] a time issue. (H2I2A)

The issue of converting unmotivated staff to the use of networked learning was discussed. Helping staff to gain confidence by getting them to do just a little was seen as a possible way forward by one of the respondents while a second respondent referred to keeping people informed and the use of a Buddy system (referred to earlier) as ways of improving confidence and reducing feelings of insecurity.

So it’s trying to be encouraging and trying to provide the support and the development and… the materials to make it an easy process and also to take the fear out of it and the apprehension. I think there is a lot of apprehension. (H2I2A)

And not just how we’re dealing with it, but how we’re communicating that to staff, making sure that everyone is kept informed and updated, so that this feeling of insecurity perhaps begins to shift a little bit. (H2I2B)

It is interesting to note that the issues of confidence and security were often mentioned, and it was not suggested anywhere that staff were opposed to the use of networked learning. One person talked about staff feeling that the pedagogical rational for networked learning had not been properly discussed or explained, and this might come to the heart of the matter.

… at ground level, shall we say, some staff were feeling that they were being pushed into it, and some of them were understandable reluctant for whatever reason. And it was felt that the technology was being pushed at them, without any real rationale as to why it was happening. Although we had our LTAS strategy, and e learning was part of that, the perception was that there was no real strategy for the use of Blackboard, for example, and they wanted to have a pedagogical justification for it. (H2I2B)

There was no suggestion that the culture of the university had changed yet, but two people expressed hopes that this would happen slowly over the next few years.

One respondent suggested that, networked learning should be viewed as a small player in the overall changes that were occurring, rather than the solution to all kinds of problems.

Now within that overall context, I have to say networked learning plays only a relatively small role. Well, I mean rightly so networked learning is seen by me as one tool in a whole armoury of things that we can do to improve the student experience. Others of course have treated networked learning as though itself is a solution to all kinds of problems. It’s not a solution, it’s a possible vehicle for solutions, it’s a possible way in which we can do things differently, it’s a way that we could get better attention to individual students but by itself it doesn’t achieve anything except nicer graphics and the ability to communicate instantly with people. So there is a big agenda of change going on and networked learning is part of that story… (H2I4A)

Collaboration

Networked learning offers opportunities for collaboration. The questionnaire responses indicate that there has been an increase in both internal and external collaborations. Seven out of eight respondents felt that there had been an increase in internal collaborations and all respondents agreed that there had been an increase in external collaborations. Interviews revealed more about collaborations.

Internal collaborations

Five respondents agreed that networked learning had led to a greater number of cross university groups working more closely together, two groups were mentioned in particular; the Rapid Development Task Force was mentioned by four respondents as bringing people together and engendering more team spirit, and the VLE group, was referred to by two respondents as helping to build better relationships.

I think [networked learning] has helped things. For example, we now have a VLE support group, and a mailing list and website of information etc and that has brought together staff from across the university who are looking for support from [the VLE]. Within [some] schools, academic staff are working… more in teams than they did before. And also with all the online collaboration and conferencing that’s going on in some of the courses, the staff are having to do a bit of team teaching, and more group work which perhaps they didn’t do as much of before. I think that’s quite interesting. (H2I2B)

That Rapid Development Task Force, it builds courses for various departments and it gives members of those departments, I don’t know, it allows them to put a face to a name …Yes, it’s put me in touch with an awful lot more of the academic staff. (H2I5)

External collaborations

This was not discussed a great deal but two examples were mentioned: the Engineering school is working with students in Finland; and there is a collaborative project with Hong Kong.

I know the Engineering department, one of my colleagues there works with Finnish students at an institution in Finland and there are marketing students and engineering students and they do collaborative work with the engineers developing a product and the students marketing [it]. (H2I3)

The collaboration with Hong Kong, that would not have happened without the IT developments. (H2I6)

Communication

Four respondents felt that communications were now easier and more effective, mainly because of email facilities. They felt that there was a more efficient flow of information now because of the portal and the VLE, but one respondent would like to see more openness, at present the VLE system does not allow access to all courses, only those one is registered for, allowing more access would allow identification of areas of good practice.

Students can communicate with us much more regularly now, … they can email us much more regularly and we can do that to them and that has changed quite a lot, … they still come to your door but the fact that they can email, they do use that. (H2I3)

So at that level there is a flow of information which happens more efficiently and the course and the module handbook will be on the web for the students, the main course materials will be on there. (H2I4B)

… some of the courses on [the VLE] have guest access, so that some of the materials for example, might be there for other people to use and see how they have been laid out. But only a few of the courses allow that. Most of them are private, and you can only get access if you are a student or have asked permission to do that. So I’m wanting to get over that I think…. if we can identify examples of good practice, and get the permission off the staff involved to use that within staff development sessions for example, or show it to other schools to see what’s going on. (H2I2B)

Learning Community

The Internet Café, mentioned above, is more than just another learning centre, it was designed to foster a sense of community, and its part funding by Scottish Enterprise could be seen as an acknowledgement of this aspect.

Summary

The evidence provided in this section would suggest that networked learning has had an impact on staff within the institution in terms of developing greater collaboration and opportunities for communication. New roles have been developed within the institution and new members of staff have been employed as a result of this development. Most of the respondents suggested that networked learning had increased the workload across all areas, with the possible exception of administration.

Both positive and negative attitudes were mentioned. The many enthusiastic staff and the ease of use of the VLE system were cited as positive aspects. It is interesting to note that the issues of confidence and security were often mentioned, and it was not suggested anywhere that staff were opposed to the use of networked learning. Reasons suggested for the negative attitudes of staff include: the lack of a formal e learning strategy at individual school level, a perceived lack of incentives for staff to engage in networked learning, and lack of time coupled with an increasing workload.

Networked learning had led to more cross university groups working more closely together, two groups were mentioned in particular as helping to build better relationships – the VLE Group and the Rapid Task Force Development Group. Communications were now easier and more effective, mainly because of e mail facilities. There was a more efficient flow of information now because of the student portal and the VLE.