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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 H3

6 Impact of networked learning on infrastructure and support services

The infrastructure in relation to networked learning requires examination of both the technological aspects of networked learning and the support that is required by staff and students.

Technical

The move towards the development of large scale networked learning has presented challenges. Over the past few years the university has made a considerable investment in the network infrastructure. However some respondents suggested that there was a sense that some people felt insecure about the reliability of the network arising from a systems failure that occurred a few years previously. This apparently led to a loss of confidence amongst the academic staff that some respondents suggested has been difficult to regain, despite the investment and improvements. This may suggest that staff perceptions might not always reflect the reality of the situation and may be difficult to change. It involves changing perceptions and culture, not just the technology.

There was a very, very uncomfortable year where it was virtually impossible to log in the student labs… computing services went through a major restructure, which brought together… the old management information services, which supported the admin side of computing, together with the old computing services, that supported the academic side. Those were merged into one department. Most of the staff left in this restructuring, quite a painful business. (H3I2A)

… there have been an awful lot of changes, …which do have a knock on effect on academic staff and support colleagues and I think that the message that we are getting now is that we need consolidation, we need to get used to working with the VLE and [the student portal] and so forth. (H3I5A)

[there was] almost total disbelief by academic staff … that this could be done centrally... [their] absolute belief was the only way they could get anything to function was if it was done by their department staff, the only thing they could trust was they felt by, and probably rightly so, as they had been let down by central services in the preceding year. (H3I2B)

The choices that were made about which VLE to use appear to have been driven by the aim of having a fully operational managed learning environment (MLE) by 2004 rather than pedagogical considerations.

I think the management were actually thinking a little bit further ahead than the introduction of a particular VLE, … the implications of the use of VLE had to other admin systems within the university. I would suspect that in spite of the evaluation, the decision on which VLE were likely to use, was in reality driven, not by pedagogic evaluation … but … on which VLE would best support corporate systems. (H3I2B)

The university was also planning for the next phase, which was to achieve full interoperability of the university information, administrative and teaching systems to create an integrated MLE, as one respondent explains.

The plan is eventually, to integrate [our student portal],[and] the VLE. … with [our student information system]. … the systems will still remain separate, but from the outside they will appear to be integrated. So we’re aiming towards the single sign on. So you log into your computer once, and that’s logged you into [the portal], and into your email, …into the VLE… and… the library system. (H3I2A)

However, one respondent suggested that there is a tension between this rapid planning process on the technical front and the academic staff’s desire for a period of consolidation.

… we are …running a project now to look at our… next generation e management system … which is causing … controversy because a lot of people are saying hang on we are only getting used to [the VLE]… What we need to do is … sharing of content, the management of content … [things] that [the VLE] doesn’t do. [The VLE] is very good at individual module and tutor level but it’s not good at an enterprise level. (H3I4)

Two respondents explained some of the difficulties of moving towards a fully integrated and interoperable MLE; these appear to be partly human and partly technical.

… data is [the] key, we have got to have that information to make the rest of our managed learning environment work… we have been … going round the university and preaching the managed learning environment story. We have shown how it all fits together, [in a] fairly basic and simplified way so that people can understand that we are not demanding this information just for the sake of it, [but that] it’s actually important for the teaching and learning processes as well. (H3I5A)

As the infrastructure has increased in size, the technical and security problems have also increased. The questionnaire responses show that there have been changes in systems to reduce the risk of breakdown by increasing the network’s reliability and resilience to breakdown, and to improve data protection, and standardise the technology and software.

Yes – we are currently working through upgrades [to Systems to reduce the risk of breakdown] to offer resilience. (H3I4 questionnaire)

The interviews revealed that the need to trial and test new services and hardware has been difficult to achieve because of the scale of demand, and the additional complexities of the extended infrastructure, for example new firewalls have been put in place because security has become more of an issue. There resource implications arising from these increased demands were being met by the existing team.

People say ‘I need a service’ but they don’t think about… where do you put it? … It’s part of the full cost of the project not just the delivery, it’s how you support and test things before you move forward… there is more… than just a connection, you may have proxy servers … a firewall, … So it’s not just about providing that service, you are protecting it as well…Unfortunately it’s the same staff that manage the whole thing… [and] obviously that time you’ve got to support it keeps diminishing as you put more and more services in. (H3I5B)

Support

The Staff Development Handbook indicates that there is a wide range of support available to all staff free of charge. This was confirmed by four of those interviewed. Three of the responses to the questionnaires also indicated that staff support had increased.

One of the first things we did together was to run [VLE] awareness sessions… for about four or five hundred [staff]. There was a substantial six month period where we did that… And then we have… the staff development publication, that we bring out twice a year, …There’s a section on there on [the VLE] we have a program of… three courses: a general introduction to [the VLE], using [the VLE] to provide module content, and working with assessment in [the VLE]… So that’s some idea of the kind of support that’s available that’s driven from the centre. (H3I2B)

However, the issue of support appears to be complex and full of tensions. Although support is available, some respondents suggested that training was limited either by the staff’s knowledge of what was available, or by their lack of time (courses available but time not), or by policy decisions to provide training but not support for the production of materials. Perceptions varied amongst staff with different roles: some staff felt that there was a very wide range of development opportunities available that have been there from the start and which were being continuously updated and extended. However, others suggested that the courses were not well advertised and it was possible that people did not know what is available.

We offer support to staff throughout the whole range, from the member of staff that says, OK I’ve heard about the VLE, … where do I start? … [but] they don’t necessarily know what they want… So we’ve got somebody who helps with video and media, we’ve got someone who helps with design work, somebody will help with the HTML side of things… if you advertise it as HTML for [the VLE], you get [the VLE] people. … its all [about] marketing. … most of it is word of mouth. We have a little booklet that goes out twice a year, and we do put in that that if you want help with, then contact [us]… and we’ll try and work out what you want. (H3I2A)

One respondent commented on the difficulties experienced in finding out what courses were available and the lack of time and technical support to take advantage of these. This respondent agreed that there were staff development courses, but that there was no time to attend them nor was the necessary technical support available to allow staff to make real use of the technology.

… there is support there for people … there are centrally run staff development courses…
The only problem with that is that courses … are only useful if you have the time to actually go on them and quite often what happens is people are overloaded [and] if there are courses at the time when they are teaching or can’t go … [and] are not going to benefit, or alternatively they go on the course but because of lack of time they can’t follow it up very quickly…So there is central support. I'm not aware … that people really get deployment for this because I count that as a type of support, because unless there is time and deployment you can’t take advantage of the support that is available. (H3I3)

There are clearly some issues still to be resolved, which might in part stem from the perceived lack of a central e learning strategy; there are tensions about who delivers staff development and some of the devolution to individual faculties and schools does not appear to sit well with a centrally supported infrastructure.

I don’t believe, in so far as there is a policy or a strategy for e learning… that the support for the VLE is driven from the centre. There’s some tension there between different people in the centre. And there has been a quite substantial drive to fund individual faculties and individual schools to develop their own local support for [the VLE]. (H3I2B)

There is a debate about what sort of staff development and support is most appropriate and whether this should be simply technical training in the use of the VLE or whether it should address pedagogic issues. Similarly the issue of whether staff should learn to use all the tools themselves and create their own resources or whether technical staff should support them is also being debated.

Certainly the pedagogical implications of the VLE would be… certainly recognised as something that people need to get to grips with. (H3I2B)

I think content is a particularly difficult area, where … there does have to be a bit more of a teasing out and more support. I mean if there was … somebody who sat alongside the person who has actually got the learning content there, the learning object in traditional form… you will need a lot of support to transfer that online appropriately. (H3I3)

One respondent, whose comments are shown below, felt that the current approach was correct, because it was the best way to achieve the desired cultural change.

Now we are at a level where there is enough… [feedback] from those staff who are saying the reason we can’t get on the boat is because we haven’t got the time to develop, we haven’t got the skills and therefore what you should do is create a big central unit to build all these things for us. We’ve resisted that [and], what we are saying is when you first [used] PowerPoint we didn’t make your PowerPoint slides for you, [and the VLE], it’s another tool, which you as a professional tutor have to learn to use. … we want people to engage directly and … actually the materials are a small part of it. So I’m very happy, some people say all they’ve done is put the lecture notes up on [the VLE]. … before, they gave out handouts,[so] it’s no different but if they are then starting to use the communication tools effectively and… they’ve got to engage because it’s a communication dialogue. (H3I4)

Rather than compulsory training for everyone, a representative from each school has received extensive training and is expected to provide help and provide training to others in their school.

… we’ve put somebody in every school through the VLE ‘Train the Trainer’ programme … [so the staff] get [support] from a fellow economist or a fellow whatever. (H3I4)

However, these ‘VLE Champions’ do not get any additional resources to enable them to transfer their knowledge, and it seems likely that only the real enthusiasts are actually taking up development opportunities.

As more and more staff are coming on board there have been some sessions from the [VLE] champions … As far as I am aware there is no extra funding or anything for them they do not get time off. It’s the real enthusiasts that have taken it up, and I think they’ve taken it up because they’ve explored [the VLE], they’ve got their modules going… And I think it’s their way of keeping interested in it. (H3I2A)

It seems possible that the support and development on offer, particularly for students, might be in need of expansion, in view of this comment by one respondent.

I think the only other thing I’d really like to see for definite over the next three to five years is proper structured support. People brought in specifically … who are trained, and who know the right answers and the right questions to ask, and who are out there, available in the learning centre for students to call in and say, I’ve got this problem, and somebody [to] tell them, exactly what they need there and then, rather than somebody having to take details, get in touch with me, if I’m not there leave me a message, drop me an email. I’d like to see a proper network of support. (H3I2A)

Summary

Over the past few years the university has made considerable investment in the underlying network infrastructure and considerable effort is being invested in planning the next phase – a fully interoperable MLE. However there are resource implications arising from these increasing demands on the network that are having to be met by the existing team.

Staff support had increased with a wide range of support available to all staff. However, it is suggested that training is limited by staff’s knowledge of what is available, or by their lack of time, or by policy decisions to provide training but not support for materials development. ‘VLE Champions’ were appointed in each school and were tasked with providing help and training to their colleagues. Each champion received extensive training but did not get any additional resources to enable them to transfer their knowledge and understanding to their peers. So, it is possible that only the real enthusiasts are taking up development opportunities and that the support and development on offer might need to be expanded if the university is to support networked learning on a large scale.