11 Discussion of Findings

This section will explore our findings in relation to the key themes within the literature, reviewed in Section 2. The Nicol et al (2004) version of the MIT90 model will be used to help us to present our discussion within a coherent framework.

Their framework assumes that an institution’s effectiveness in the use of ICT for teaching and learning is a function of six inter-related elements:

• "the external environment within which the institution is operating

• the institutional strategy in relation to ICT in teaching and learning

• the way human resources are prepared and deployed (individuals and their roles) to support the implementation of ICT in teaching and learning

• the organisational structures that support the application of ICT to teaching and learning
• the characteristics of the technology being applied.

• the management processes that facilitate the initiation, sustainability and success of the application of ICT in teaching and learning." (Nicol et al, 2004)

These can be summarised as the external environment, the institutional strategy, individuals and their roles; organisational structures; the characteristics of the technology; and the management processes.

11.1 The external environment

"the external environment within which the institution is operating." (Nicol et al, 2004)

Funding council policies appear to have had a major impact on the development of networked learning; in particular government policies and strategies for funding learning and e-learning developments.

The need to set up an ILT Strategy to obtain funding (FEFC Circular 99/45) probably explains the sudden emergence of top-down centrally driven networked learning in most of the FE institutions studied. Not all of the institutions felt the need to move to a top-down approach in response to external pressures, and although a top-down introduction was more common in FE, with seven institutions taking this approach, a dual approach (Nicol et al, 2004) was more common in HE institutions, with five institutions taking this approach.

Differences in the main drivers mentioned in FE and HE may well stem from differences in size of these institutions and in their funding arrangements; the availability of funding appears to have been important for FE institutions but less so for HE, whereas increasing student numbers and market pressures were important to HE institutions. In some cases it is clear that individual schools in HE institutions, were involved in promoting development and this is probably due to the larger size and more devolved nature of such institutions.

The government's widening participation agenda also played a role in influencing institutions implementing networked learning. All of the institutions (with one exception) felt that the use of networked learning increased flexibility for students in terms of access to learning. However, there appeared to be a difference between FE and HE in the relationship between widening participation and networked learning. Widening participation appeared to be a much stronger influence in FE colleges with five colleges noting that an increase in community outreach centres that use networked learning has enabled widening participation through these centres. Only two HE institutions commented on a link between widening participation and their implementation of networked learning and a further two gave examples of where networked learning was used to include particular groups. However two HE institutions felt that networked learning had not directly affected their widening participation strategy because this was already part of the institution’s mission. It is worth noting though that there are some mixed feelings in terms of the role of networked learning in widening participation. A small number of respondents felt that low levels of IT literacy and lack of access to computers may act as a barrier for those least inclined to get involved with post-16 education.

The Special Educational Needs Disability Act (SENDA, 2001) has had an impact on some of the case study institutions, but it seems that for these cases, provision varies from institution to institution. This could a concern since there is now a legal requirement on institutions to meet the needs of all learners, including those with a disability. It has been suggested that the SENDA requirements might provide an impelling argument for the imposition of central standards (Nicol et al, 2004), but the general issue of quality assurance and centralised standards did not appear to be high on the agenda for the majority of the case study institutions. Our data suggests that the majority of institutions see their quality procedures as robust enough to deal with the delivery of networked learning, and that major changes were most likely to have occurred where institutions were developing courses for distance, online delivery.