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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

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; 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

There appear to have been a small number of formal changes of role for some staff. Those changes that have occurred seem to have been evolutionary, with people moved from one role to another without being given a new formal position, in line with the Corporate Plan view on restructuring as might be expected. The main changes appear to be in the Learning Support Services, comprising the library and computer support, and in the training of faculty/school champions. As noted in Section 6 these champions do not receive any additional funding for taking on this role and the arrangement does seem to be quite informal. Technology Services have had an increase in their workload, which they have accommodated by creating one new post, that of a VLE administrator, and by employing contract staff on a temporary basis.

… [the] Divisions of Learning Technology Services… and Learning Support Services, which is essentially the library and they now run our student portal. So they’ve got a couple of staff designing and building a portal. Now obviously that relates to networked learning… so we’ve probably got… three or four staff who are supporting networked learning in some format… The other thing that I think was good was the fact that we funded a member of staff in each school to do the train the trainer course, so we do have these champions. (H3I4).

There has been increase [in staff] we’ve maybe gone from 9 to 12. … It was a change of role for one or two and additional people coming in… because we were extending the facilities that we are providing. The number of PCs that we are providing is much bigger than it was before, requirement for access externally [and] internally has changed, provision of students file stores [has] extended and will change again next year. So the overall the requirement for IT systems is just generally increasing, it’s management of that whole change for additional staffing. (H3I5B)

Examples of the evolutionary changes are referred to in the following extracts and include: changes in the role of faculty/school administrators; change in the focus of library support to include online resources; and changes in the balance of learning support resources from print based media to include electronic resources.

… the work has gone to the willing… if you’re interested and enthusiastic and prepared to do it, then you’re encouraged to get on with it… there has been funding for a single administrator… For [the VLE] [the administrative load] has increased. And the course administrators in the schools, again, have taken on the additional [VLE] administrative load. (H3I2B)

… I would think over the last five years, the percentage we have spent on print has gone down considerably and [the percentage we have spent] on e services and e journals, e books, subscriptions to databases and so forth has gone up… we still have in effect a subject librarian but they are now dealing across the media. So for example our librarians… have to create quality assured resources which [include] online resources. (H3I4)

So in terms of staffing and the structuring within Computer Services it hasn’t made major changes, it’s just doing the additional workload that we’ve had to deal with … [Regarding] the virtual learning environment in particular, I think we did it simply by re arranging the work but we had an awful lot of work on … We just did not have the resources to do it and it was fairly obvious we had been down as a department for 12 months… we clearly needed a lot of other support which involved contract staff (H3I5A)

Workload

Some of the changes in role that have been referred to above were clearly related to increased workload, and there was some agreement in the questionnaires that workload had increased, particularly for support staff. In interview there was more general agreement that there had been an increase in workload; five people specifically referred to increased workload, although one person did not talk about increased workload but rather about lack of time to do additional tasks now seen as necessary, to develop new skills and go on courses etc.

… I think quite justifiably both academic staff and administrative staff have said we’ve got a huge workload and we’ve been asked to get used to a new finance system, new student system and you are asking us to put all this information in. At the moment we are actually using for the first time a student administration system recording student marks and that is putting a big burden on our administrative staff so there is an awful lot of work and changes in working practices and the technology that is used, [and] the time that things have to be done by, so I think they have been the biggest problems. (H3I5A)

… [X’s] is the only new post, and the rest of the work is just being done by staff who were already in post, that’s in addition to what they were doing before. (H3I2B)

There is little recognition of the extra workload on academic staff in developing, delivering and maintaining online TLA [teaching, learning and assessment]. There appears to have been no increase in staffing or allowances in staff deployment to take account of this. (H3I3 questionnaire)

One respondent maintained that workload was different rather than more, but also said that staff felt they had a greater workload.

[it’s a] different workload… what happens with staff … is, [that] a lot of the e learning and network learning is done over and above the time we are allocated. So from a member of staff’s point of view the frequent cry I hear is “We haven’t got enough time to do it and we haven’t got the administrative infrastructure that lets us pass it on” and if we’re going to move to this in a big way then we’re going to be in trouble. (H3I6)

Another person recognised that many staff feel that workload is greater, although he clearly did not share that view.

… to get people … to realise that it does not mean a massive commitment of their time to get over that initial hump … we still haven’t won that battle with many staff. Many staff … think the investment is too great, they are doing all sorts of other things, it’s another imposition (H3I4)

Attitudes

Attitudes to networked learning range from enthusiastic to resistant. There are a number of enthusiastic staff who have taken on board the new technology and attended courses and workshops to support the change. There is also a substantial group of staff who are not enthusiastic, who are resisting change, and have not attended any of the available courses. Four of those interviewed spoke about staff attitudes, three of those mentioned both positive and negative aspects, two other respondents spoke only of negative attitudes. On balance, in interviews, there were slightly more emphasis on the negative attitudes than on the positive, which suggests that there is still a way to go in changing the culture of the institution.

We’ve got some real enthusiasts, yes. ….
Some of the staff … are really anti technology... We’re working on them slowly, we haven’t totally overcome them. We’ve had one or two converts, and each one is a victory. They’re slow going [but] at the minute we’re not pushing them too much, we’re working on the ones in the middle – the ones who want to use [the VLE] but are either frightened, not sure what to do, [or] they’ve started using it and they’re not quite sure where to go from here. (H3I2A)

It is starting to roll out now from that group of initial enthusiasts. Some people are using it in a very basic way and putting no more than lecture notes up, which is fine for the time being, at least they are starting to embrace the technology.
… some of the academic staff aren’t over enthusiastically approaching it. I think they recognize that this is the way things are moving, this is what our consumers are wanting and this is one of the ways, which will help us to address issues of widening access, and it’s one of the ways that we’ve got to grow. (H3I5A)

I think in terms of teaching what we’ve got is a situation where… about 20% of our teaching staff are pretty enthusiastic about network learning and [the VLE] and are pushing forward the barriers. We’ve got about 40% who probably feel they have been dragged kicking and screaming and we’ve got 20% who say … things like ‘prove to me that online learning works’ and I’m saying prove to me that your current version works, … the point that I’m actually making … is that whether you are online or not it is good learning design and makes the course work, it’s not the technology. They… seem to think that the technology will change the learning and I say it will change the nature of the learning but it won’t change the quality of the learning necessarily, it might do. (H3I4)

Conversion

The discussion of attitudes led on to discussion about how to persuade resistant staff to take the new technology on board. As one respondent noted, the uptake of e learning by the enthusiasts and self motivated practitioners has reached saturation point. There were many references to the need to convert staff to networked learning approach and some ideas about how to do it. Ideas included marketing – taking it to the people, using the enthusiasm of some to encourage the others, sending Heads of School on a NetSkills course, and producing a case study of how someone who has never used technology has converted a course to use the VLE.

I think… that the people who are luddites of e learning are people who have not developed their approaches of pedagogy… they need training in pedagogy rather than training in technology and they are frightened of being exposed. (H3I4)

I would say there has been quite a substantial drop in the last year of the uptake of the VLE…I think we’re at the stage now where… we need to market this now and generate the interest and support. And remind people and go out and sell it. (H3I2B)

… if you’ve got one anti technologist in a room full of people that are using it successfully, hopefully their success and enthusiasm can rub off a bit. (H3I2A)

… every one of our Heads of School [is offered funding] to attend the NetSkills course… and at the same time the university is requiring of all [of them] to do the e learning strategy for their own school. So… at least they are going to think about it. (H3I4)

However, as mentioned previously, the university has not put aside any resources to provide incentives for academic staff to develop or to use e learning materials. As the respondent suggests this issue may need to be addressed by the institution before the engagement with networked learning can expand further.

… but there's no reward for that, there's no time for that, there's no structure staff development and time allowed in their deployment to develop that role. I feel that for this to go forward now you have probably got all the people on board that are prepared to do this over and above everything their doing... well I think that there has to be some recognition that that probably does need even more resources, infrastructures and probably even more explicit direction for staff as to what's expected of them. (H3I3)

Culture change

Some of the staff feel that the culture is slowly changing, that it will take a long time, and that there are likely to be problems along the way.

… some people will make good use of [the VLE], some people… might use it at a basic level, … [and] over time that will change as they become more familiar [with the VLE]. I don’t expect too much too soon … changing academics is painfully slow. (H3I4)

… but I think longer term the bigger impact is changed expectations of what people expect that we are going to be delivering in the future. Both amongst students and academic staff. I think … some of the academic staff aren’t over enthusiastically approaching it. I think they recognise that this is the way things are moving, this is what our consumers are wanting and this is one of the ways that will help us to address issues of widening access and it’s one of the ways that we’ve got to grow. So I think it is changing culture. The way we have always looked at it is [that] changing technology is fairly easy, changing business processes is harder but you can do it, changing culture, that’s a really tricky one and I think we are starting to change the culture. (H3I5A)

Internal collaboration

All of the questionnaire responses agreed that internal collaboration has increased as a result of networked learning, and many examples of new internal collaborations were offered in the interviews. Some of these collaborations appeared to have come about as a direct result of the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Strategy; for example, the production of re usable learning objects (RLO) and the Teaching Fellow Network. Others appear to have been formed as a consequence of the introduction of the VLE, for example the VLE User Group.

There are internal collaborative projects such as that aiming to produce RLOs for research methods courses. (H3I3 questionnaire)

Well also we do have something called the Teacher Fellow Network … a group of people that can meet cross school, cross faculty and there is… a group of people interested in e learning … there are groups of people that are interested in computer based assessment … and even within an office small bits of collaboration go on where people mentor each other. So there's low level collaboration that goes on right up to full scale actual projects like the one developing the research methods that is a bit more official if you want to put it in those terms. (H3I3)

Those are new collaborations – the VLE user group, and there’s one set up on assessment as well, with meetings and so on. You know, the last one I went to, well I’d never been to a meeting where there was such agreement, between, this is a group of 15 academics all from different departments, and were saying look, these are the issues, and they addressed them with great spirit. (H3I2B)

These collaborations appear to involve more face to face communication as well as an increased use of online contacts.

… its not just e learning and e networking, there is more networking, physical face–to face networking going on because of the interest in VLE. There’s a VLE user groups being set up. (H3I2B)

… we had module teams before, but now they are working in a different way, they are working online so they can actually be at home and actually contribute to those discussions in a way they couldn’t before so I think it’s cemented those collaborations rather more effectively than when they had to rely on the face to face contact. (H3I4)

External collaboration

Only two examples of external collaborations were referred to in interviews, and only two out five questionnaire responses stated that there had been major changes in this area. However, it is possible that more is going on than was mentioned.

Yes more networking enables you to talk to more experts in the field across the world more quickly. So I can communicate with people in Europe or America much easier now than I could when I had to write a letter. And that does encourage the relationships and being able to send attachments via email makes a big difference in how you communicate… it’s easier for individual members of staff to have relationships with people across the world… I lead a network across Europe called Embracing Quality in Teaching and Learning for the European University’s Association and it covered nine countries from the UK to Azerbaijan. And there is no way I could have conducted that project without email and without networking through electronic sources. (H3I6)

What I don’t think we have done very much here yet … [but] we ought to be looking at this and making sure we are not reinventing the wheel and collaborating with other institutions where it’s appropriate. I know there is a project on at the moment … on the use of learning objects. (H3I5A)

Communications

There was agreement that the growth in networked learning has made communications easier. In particular communication with part time and placement students has improved, as well as the potential for increased communication amongst students, as the comments from two respondents illustrate:

… so even in a module that you teach face to face the communication tools can be very useful because, I taught a module where I had part time students together with full time students and even just using a notice board feature is of benefit because students that are off campus most of the time are only going to see those notices when they come in. (H3I3)

… placement students, students on years out, especially things like the nurses, who are up and down the whole country, are using it to keep in touch with the lecturers here, the lecturers here are using it to keep in touch with the students, students are using it to keep in touch with each other. It’s not necessarily a really technical work related discussion board, but it’s keeping everyone in touch, and if somebody’s having problems feeling lonely, there’s people there. (H3I2A)

These comments also suggest that the improved communications have a social benefit as well as a work benefit. Two respondents felt that the growth in networked learning was beginning to have an effect on the university community, for example in meeting a previously unmet need of cross course/school/faculty communication. Although the current version of the VLE did not easily allow cross group links the next generation probably would and the newly created portal had already been proved to help build community links.

But I do know there are staff who are trying to get these groups together and make more community type of information. I think one of the limitations of the VLE is that it is module based and it doesn’t have the concept of a course (H3I5B)

What we did find was when we put in the portal, the portal has the groups, so you can establish a group right, a common interest right, so you can do it for a course obviously but you can do it across courses and we very quickly… had lots of academics trying to set up groups which were cross course, cross groups, cross faculty a common interest group. Almost all of them academic related so people, [felt] there was a need, which was clearly unfulfilled by structures in the university to bring people together with a common interest. So it might be [an] interest in books or whatever so people set these groups up. We’re not monitoring them in any way because many of them are private groups so I don’t know whether they sustain their initial enthusiasm but groups are still being set up. (H3I4)

One person raised the issue of increasing social isolation caused by the increased use of e mail, and the need for more face to face meetings as the electronic communications grew. However, this person also recognised the value of electronic communications, the ease and speed with which communications could now occur.

Well, it’s actually quite interesting. The increase in electronic communication has [brought] with it a parallel and exponential need for people to be more face to face and so what happens is as the university becomes more automated and more computer network based, the need to go out and see people and keep communication moving is greater. … getting the message across it is very important that there is a parallel growth and you see people face to face… I suppose you become more isolated if anything. They used to have staff rooms they used to walk down the corridor. People slam off an email and they don’t go and see each other. It hasn’t helped the social infrastructure of the institution at all.
… It is easier now to make contact with people who you would be interested in talking to across the world… if I want to contact the institutional facilitators group in the UK to find out what is happening in 80 institutions… I can do that at a touch of a button and that’s greatly improved.
… On the other hand the project wouldn’t have succeeded if we didn’t have three face to face meetings. So it was a combination. But now I can keep in touch with them and update them having established a connection. Now that is much better than in the past because people can answer emails quickly, if they want to. (H3I6)

Summary

There appear to have been a small number of formal changes of role for some staff. Some of these changes related to an increased workload and the creation of new tasks, and there was some agreement that workload had increased, particularly for support staff. The workload for Technology Services increased and they created one new post and employed contract staff on a temporary basis.

Attitudes to networked learning range from enthusiastic to resistant. On balance there appeared to be slightly more emphasis on the negative attitudes than on the positive, which suggests that although some staff feel that the culture is slowly changing, there is still progress to be made.

Internal collaboration appeared to have increased as a result of networked learning and seemed to involve more face to face communication and an increased use of online contact, but few examples of new external collaborations were cited. Networked learning seemed to have made communications easier, and possibly the improved communication has had a social benefit as well as a work benefit; it was suggested that the newly created web portal had helped to build community links. However, there was also perceived to be a possibility of greater social isolation as a result of the increased use of e mail.