In a similar vein, the development of the Kuali consortium and its goal of developing open [...]]]> I try not to use this site to promote particular products or services, but occasionally something that is likely to be of genuine interest to readers comes up – hence my previous posting on the Canadian launch of the iPad.

In a similar vein, the development of the Kuali consortium and its goal of developing open source solutions to replace commercial products in the administrative areas of higher education is an important and interesting development. I therefore pass on information I received from Moderas, a Kuali Coeus Commercial Affiliate dedicated to the Kuali Coeus® product for research administration:

As part of our ongoing effort to provide value and help our customers and peers we’re happy to announce that Moderas will be hosting a conference July 25-27th 2010 in Saratoga Springs New York catering to those who are planning to implement Kuali Coeus, and those who would like to learn more about what it has to offer their institution.

Please visit www.moderas.org/conference for more details, visit www.moderas.org/kc2010 to register, or call us at (518) 698.2446 for more information.

For more information on Kuali, go to: http://www.kuali.org/

I was just writing a conclusion to a chapter for a book that said efficiencies need to be found in administration and teaching to justify the use of technology when I came across this article about how the University of [...]]]> Carter, D. (2010) Universities save much-needed cash with the help of technology eCampus News, March 26

I was just writing a conclusion to a chapter for a book that said efficiencies need to be found in administration and teaching to justify the use of technology when I came across this article about how the University of California claims to have saved $168 million through the use of business intelligence software/dashboards on risk management, mainly on health insurance claims.

Now what if we applied the same thinking to an analysis of data on teaching and learning? How would that work? Any suggestions?

The book is based on a variety of sources, but in particular we have drawn on case studies [...]]]> I’m currently writing a book with Albert Sangra of the Open University of Catalonia on the integration of technology within post-secondary institutions.The book is being published by Jossey-Bass and should be out by the end of the year.

The book is based on a variety of sources, but in particular we have drawn on case studies of 11 institutions, five in North America and six in Europe. I found myself ranking the institutions in terms of how well they had integrated technology into their institutions. This led to considering what my personal criteria were for making this ranking (I’m still waiting for Albert’s response).

Here’s what I came up with, and I realised that the questions could be used by institutions to provide a framework for an internal audit on technology integration. (Note: by technology I mean primarily information and communications technologies – not waste disposal, as important as that is).

1. Are there ‘champions’ with power and influence in the institution who recognize the importance of technology for conducting the business of the institution?
The one thing all the institutional case studies had in common was a desire by the senior administration – or at least some key members of the senior administration – to integrate technology into the activities of the institution. It is now taken almost for granted that large and complex organizations, such as universities and colleges, depend increasingly on technology for the efficiency and effectiveness of at least some of their operations. The question becomes then not whether to use technology, but how best to use and integrate technology within post-secondary institutions, and whether it has powerful ‘champions’ to drive this activity. We will be discussing in more detail later in the book the whole issue of governance and decision-making, but it seems clear already that strong commitment to technology from the senior administration is a necessary condition for effective integration.

2. Does the institution have an advanced, comprehensive technology infrastructure that enables all staff, students and faculty to access computers, networks, software and services as required?
Again, nearly all institutions in the cases had good technology infrastructure in place. This is then a necessary condition. However, as a factor it was not a strong discriminator between the institutions in this study.

3. Has the institution digitalized its administrative systems, and can staff, students and faculty access administrative information and services easily over the web?
This is one of the first actions most institutions take, even in some cases before a comprehensive technology infrastructure is in place. However, we begin to see some divergences between the case study institutions on this criterion, particularly regarding the provision of web services, such as student portals, online admissions and registrations, and so on. Also there was a wide variation in the dates at which institutions reached this level of integration.

4. Has the institution identified a clear, strategic rationale for the use of technology within the institution?
We will discuss later in the book the value or otherwise of formal strategic plans for technology. This question however is somewhat broader. Why is technology being used? What benefits are perceived to be gained from using technology? How can this be measured – or put another way, how will we know whether the intended benefits have been achieved? Some institutions were using technology for quite specific reasons, such as to increase access to the university’s programs, to use technology to maintain quality with fewer resources, to improve the quality of teaching by moving to a more constructivist approach, and so on, while others were quite vague about their reasons, such as ‘to be a modern university’ or to be seen as a leading university in using technology (without defining what this meant). We will argue elsewhere in the book that clearly defined and measurable goals are essential to justify the high cost of using technology.

5. Has the institution identified additional financial resources or reallocated resources to support the integration of technology within the institution?
Information and communications technologies require substantial investment in both money, and the time of faculty and staff, if they are to be successfully implemented and integrated within the institution. There were several examples in the case studies, particularly regarding the use of technology for teaching and learning, where no investment or additional resources were provided, either in the form of cash or training of faculty.

6. What proportion of staff, students and faculty are using technology and for what activities?
This is a minimal and somewhat obvious criterion. The more technology is used, the better it is likely to be integrated within the institution. This does not of course answer the question as to whether technology is being used well; that comes in later criteria. Again, we saw a wide variation in the degree to which technology had penetrated different institutions. At one end, we have some institutions where over 50 per cent of the faculty are using technology in their teaching on a regular basis, and others where there is almost no use of technology for teaching. Some institutions have widened use beyond merely supporting classroom teaching, to new methods of program delivery. Some have almost no online distance education students while others have many (indeed in two cases, all students were online). In some cases, very few faculty were using a learning management system; in others almost all faculty were using an LMS in some way or other. Regrettably, one or two institutions did not know the level of usage of technology, because no data were collected, analyzed or published.

7. How innovative is the use of technology, particularly for teaching?
One institution had completely redesigned its mathematics undergraduate program so that it was all available by computer. Another institution was using technology for a province-wide distributed undergraduate medical program. In other institutions, the main use was for course information and loading Powerpoint or pdf files as back-up to classroom teaching, which may be useful, but is not in our view an innovative use of the technology. Again, there was not always evaluative data about the success of innovative approaches, but at least where innovation occurred the institution was trying to exploit the potential of technology for teaching.

8. What level of support and training is given to instructors to ensure good quality teaching when using technology?
We will discuss standards and best practice in more detail later in the book, but in some of the cases, instructors were woefully supported in using technology for teaching. We will argue the case that proper training for anyone planning to use technology for teaching is essential. We will also argue that instructors should have reasonably good access to instructional design and technical support.

9. Are students learning better and getting better services as a result of technology integration?

This is probably the most important question and the hardest to answer. Only one of the 11 institutions had made any attempt to measure better learning (and the answer was yes), and one had attempted to answer the better services question (the answer was also yes.) The real issue here is that there needs to be a much wider discussion about what constitutes better learning in a knowledge-based society, and how this can be measured. So in the end this was not a good discriminator, because there was insufficient information or evidence from the cases.

There are several other criteria that we considered, such as whether there are clear strategies or plans for technology integration, whether there is a shared view of the importance of technology integration in the institution’s executive team, and whether this is well communicated to all staff, students and faculty. The most important one, are students learning better, was not included, because only one of the 11 case-study institutions had attempted to measure it. However, although I think the question of better learning may eventually have to be added, these are more complex issues that will be discussed more fully later in the book. Lastly, these criteria are in no particular order of priority; we believe that each one is equally important as a measure of technology integration.

This list is considerably shorter than the 17 critical success factors in the ReVica publication reviewed yesterday, because we are looking primarily at institutional use of technology, rather than consortia. However, at this stage, I am looking for feedback, particularly on the following questions:

1. Is this a useful set of questions for assessing the extent to which an institution has integrated technology into its core activities?

2. How would you measure better learning (and better services, although I think that is easier)?

3. Have we missed anything really critical?

4. How well does your institution do on these questions? Does the institution have the data to answer them?

5. Do you have any other suggestions as to what we should be considering regarding the integration of technology within a post-secondary educational institution?

(If you are reading this through an RSS feed, tweet or the home page, please click on the title to go to the full entry, which has a comment box.)

© Wikipedia

Summary of my priorities

1. A requirement for all newly appointed full-time instructors in public Canadian post-secondary educational institutions to have a formal certification in teaching in post-secondary education, to be in place by September 2012. This would include both pedagogical and technological content. Probability: <1%

2. Establishment of at least one hybrid [...]]]>

© Wikipedia

Summary of my priorities

1. A requirement for all newly appointed full-time instructors in public Canadian post-secondary educational institutions to have a formal certification in teaching in post-secondary education, to be in place by September 2012. This would include both pedagogical and technological content. Probability: <1%

2. Establishment of at least one hybrid digital university. Probability: 20-30%

3. Establishment of a Canadian open content consortium. Probability: 60-70%

4. Development of educational apps for mobile learning. Probability: 50%

5. Establish a national centre for digital learning, with responsibility for policy development, research, and industry-university liaison. Probability: 20-30%

6. Shared provincial software and services for administration and teaching: Probability (in at least one province): 70%

Introduction

I was going to do a simple post about trends for 2010, but then found myself (thanks to an idea prompted by a discussion with Maxim Jean-Louis, President of Contact North/Nord Contact, Ontario) drifting into priorities as well as trends. So here is the first, focused on priorities for Canadian e-learning, to be followed by a second posting on international trends in e-learning, for 2010.

For readers outside Canada, please be aware that there is no national educational policy, framework or department – all educational activities except university research and some forms of student financial aid are the sole responsibility of the provinces.

My priorities are driven by my belief that the post-secondary education system as a whole (internationally) is failing to provide the high quality undergraduate or college education that will fully meet the learning requirements of the 21st century. Each of these priorities is meant to address this situation in some way.

1. Certification for post-secondary teaching.

This would be a priority targeted at the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada. The argument for the training of faculty in teaching in universities is now so strong that it probably doesn’t need to be repeated. Just let me point out though that there will be no significant change in universities in Canada (or anywhere else) until instructors and eventually senior management have an understanding of modern educational teaching methods and an understanding of the strengths, weaknesses and potential of technology for teaching. Because of the pressure to be excellent in research, any voluntary scheme for training in teaching is doomed to failure or to be insufficent.

Second this is a systemic problem. No one institution or even province can change on its own, because this will make it impossible to hire top quality graduates who will go to those institutions and jurisdictions that allow them to focus on research. (It will be argued that this will still not work, because top graduates will go the the USA instead. However, maybe we should be looking for allies in individual US states and the federal Department of Education, which is about to start pouring millions of dollars into educational technology as part of the stimulus package).

My plan would be to get CMEC to agree that funding for public post-secondary institutions will be dependent on each institution having adopted a provincially recognised 15 credit program of training for all intending new faculty by September 2012. Most of the programs (there would be several to choose from) would be provided online and would run in parallel for instance with research activities for a Ph.D. The programs would be open on a voluntary basis to all existing tenured and and adjunct faculty as well. Some provinces already have professional development programs for two year college instructors. These will need to be reviewed and in some cases re-designed to take account of developments in digital learning.

I have given this priority a probability of less than 1%, because the universities – particularly the large, prestigious research universities – and the faculty unions will mount an unstoppable campaign against this proposal (interference with academic freedom, government control, and ‘managerialism’), and because we have only one or two provincial premiers at the moment with the guts to take this on. Nevertheless, this is by far and away my first priority in terms of importance for improving undergraduate teaching in universities.

2. Establishment of (at least one) hybrid digital university.

We need more experimentation, more new organizational models, to find the right balances between digital and face-to-face learning. My proposal then to provincial governments anticipating increased post-secondary education enrolments (and most Canadian provinces with reduced budgets face this challenge over the next few years) is to ask for proposals from existing institutions to take on extra enrolments with extra funding, but using hybrid delivery methods (i.e. at least 50% of the program will be delivered online).

From the government perspective this would mean using funding that otherwise would have gone into extra buildings and facilities to support increased digital learning activities. To ensure applications, a government could limit all increases in institutional funding in a particular financial year to such a project. (There is a precedence for this – over 1993 and 1994, the BC government withheld  a total of 2.5% of universities’ operating budgets for an innovation fund. Institutions got their ’share’ by developing innovation project plans.)

The most likely candidates are second-tier suburban or regional universities looking to enhance their status through being innovative and leading edge. It may also enable them to widen their ‘natural’ catchment area.

I give this a slightly higher probability – 20-30% – because the scope for expansion of the post-secondary system will be limited due to the tight finances of provinces over the next few years, and this proposal would enable a province to push for innovation within existing budgets, without directly interfering with the autonomy of universities. (‘If you want more money, you have to do something different. You decide.’)

3. Establishment of a Canadian open content consortium

This would have two main purposes. One would be to help increase the development of shareable high quality digital resources. The second would be to develop design strategies for open educational resources. This would include how best to create open content so that it is more likely to be re-used; and models for how best to apply existing open content in teaching. This consortium would cover the whole range of education, from k-12 to lifelong learning. It would address the problem of poor uptake and poor quality (in terms of re-usability) of existing open educational resources. It might also focus on innovative assessment strategies, such as the use of e-portfolios based on at least partial use of open educational resources.

The consortium’s activities would be partly research, partly developmental (most open content would be developed as part of the partner institutions’ normal activities, but working to agreed or emerging design standards.) The consortium would seek some research funding from national research agencies and the Hewlett Foundation, but would be mainly self-financing though institutional membership fees.

Athabasca University would be a natural partner, as would other members of the Canadian Virtual University, but membership would be widened through a co-operative association model to bring in conventional universities, colleges and school systems. The consortium would have close links with other open educational resources agencies in other countries.

I give this a higher probability rating (60-70%), because there is already a potential core base in place, and already there have been contacts between various Canadian institutions at conferences regarding collaboration on open educational resources. The new part of this proposal would be greater focus on the design and application of OERs, and some earmarked funding for this activity.

4. The development of educational apps for mobile learning

Canada is a leader in mobile technology (Research in Motion, Nortel’s merger with Avaya, etc.), the Canadian mobile networks have just been opened up with a new carrier (and possibly more to come) and there is a massive market in mobile communications in countries such as China, Brazil, India and South Africa that also have huge unmet demands for education. This represents a great opportunity for Canada to become a leader in mobile learning. The proposal then is to develop a partnership between industry and education for the development of educational applications of mobile learning.

I have also given this a fairly high probability ranking (50%), mainly because it is not dependent on (but would be facilitated by) government spending, and the market is there. My probability ranking would have been even higher if I had confidence that the right educational partner could be found in Canada. Without the right partner I fear that the initiative would be largely technologically rather than pedagogically driven.

5. A national centre for digital learning.

The USA has the educational technology division in the Federal Department of Education, the United Kingdom has JISC, the European Commission has the DG Education and Culture, Lifelong Learning, Australia has the Flexible Learning Network – and what does Canada have in the way of national strategies, research or evaluation of e-learning? Nada, nothing, zilch. The Canadian Council on Learning has already disqualified itself from this possible role as a result of its shameful report on e-learning. So we need a new initiative, but one that builds on existing centres of excellence in e-learning.

I am picking up on an idea first proposed by David Ticoll. The proposed centre would focus on policy development, leadership training, educational software development, building relationships between industry and education, innovation, and evaluation of e-learning. It would be a virtual centre, linking e-learning experts, government agencies and industry across the country. It might take leadership responsibility for some of the other priorities already listed.

This could be an initiative funded by at least Industry Canada and/or HRDC, although it should have an independent board. If there is no stomach for a national centre, perhaps a province will take leadership on this, as it could get a big bang for little cost (most of the people working on initiatives will be doing so part-time, being employed full-time elsewhere). And I would hope that the Director would be from and located somewhere where e-learning is actually being done in a systematic and consistent manner, which would take it out of Ottawa (with all due respect to the excellent work being done by the University of Ottawa), i.e. somewhere in the west, although this would not be a deal breaker for me.

I put the probability of this happening at 20-30%, based mainly on the likelihood of at least one province taking some kind of initiative on this, and ‘upward’ pressure from those working in Canadian e-learning. It would be higher if the financial context was not so difficult.

6. Sharing of networked services across a province or inter-provincially

Cloud computing – the location of services on servers outside a particular organization – offers major opportunities for cost savings and efficiencies. For instance, small colleges within a province could each have their own Moodle-based courses (which each college would design and manage), but a larger university or college running its own Moodle service would also be paid to maintain and update the centralised software and provide technical training and support for the smaller colleges. The same rationale could be used for commercial administrative software, such as financial systems, student information services, etc. (i.e. a province wide licence and service). An alternative would be for institutions to join Kuali, a consortium of universities providing open source administrative systems.

Why would a provincial government want such sharing of services to be managed by a provincial institution or agency, rather than a cloud computing company such as Google? Quite apart from cost (the money stays in the educational system), one major reason is security and privacy issues. Canada has different privacy laws to the USA, and the U.S. Patriot Act does not provide the privacy guarantees that are covered under Canadian law. (In other words, the US government can demand access to data on servers located in the USA and can access any data on Canadian students held on that server.)

Security and privacy of student information is a growing concern (for more on this see the next blog on trends in 2010). When data is located on servers outside the institution or province, there are concerns over who has access to the data. This will grow as digital information on individual students grows, through identity management, one-password log-ins, etc. It will be difficult for many small or even medium sized post-secondary educational institutions to provide the level of security now being demanded. Providing fewer and more centralised software facilities to higher provincial-wide security standards could save buckets of money while providing a higher technical standard of service, especially for the smaller colleges.

And although this does touch on institutional autonomy, it does not impinge directly on academic issues. Cost pressures on provinces and institutions over the next few years though are likely to win out over ensuring that each institution ‘owns’ its data, which is why I give this a probability ranking of 70% for at least one province moving in this direction in 2010.

Conclusions

Obviously, this is a very personal list of priorities. I am sure you have different priorities. I’d be really interested to know what your priorities would be for e-learning in 2010, and what issues those priorities would address. If you are getting this as a Twitter or e-mail message, please go to the blog post at http://www.tonybates.ca/2009/12/20/six-priorities-for-canadian-e-learning-in-2010/ to comment.

I will post the blog on international trends in e-learning in the next day or so.

Anyone for hybrid learning?

This is an example of how IT can increase cost-effectiveness, this time mainly on the administrative side. Many two year colleges in the same state or province use Banner or a similar common system as their major student information management and [...]]]> Briggs, L. (2009) Massive IT overhaul helps Ivy Tech handle growth Campus Technology, October 29

This is an example of how IT can increase cost-effectiveness, this time mainly on the administrative side. Many two year colleges in the same state or province use Banner or a similar common system as their major student information management and financial system, yet every institution makes its own contract with the vendor and pays for its own installation and adaptation.

Ivy Tech is a collection of two year colleges in Indiana, and has the advantage of a centralised board of governors. This has enabled a complete overhaul of not just the software but more importantly, their business processes. Standardising the way the colleges do their administration has enabled the system to handle a 45 per cent increase in enrollments without having to increase tuition fees.

However, they still needed to spend $35 million on the overhaul. I wonder what the cost would have been if they had used an open source system such as Kuali.

An article on the latest open source administrative software developed by the Kuali consortium. This is an important development, offering the potential for large savings on administrative software, but still likely to be used by less than [...]]]> Parry, M. (2009) Business Software, Built by Colleges for Colleges, Challenges Commercial Giants Chronicle of Higher Education, November 15

An article on the latest open source administrative software developed by the Kuali consortium. This is an important development, offering the potential for large savings on administrative software, but still likely to be used by less than 5% of post-secondary institutions in North America over the next five years, mainly because of the high cost in changing systems.

The software for the administration of research grants is the second system developed by Kuali – the first is a financial management system. A student information management system is the next product in line.