DEHub/Research Themes/Management and organization



= Management and organization =

Research under this topic area will probe those aspects of management and institutional organisation that can impact upon the success of distance education.

= Guiding question =

Research Questions

 * What impact do ICT tools have on the convergence of conventional education and distance education institutions?


 * Is technology-based education popular with external /industry-based learners? (more so than on-campus professional learning) What are the factors that affect distance professional learning?

 Highly Recommended Priority Links

The Horizon Report
Horizon Report, 2009 by The New Media Consortium. Quoting from the Executive summary: The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the NMC’s Horizon Project, a long-running qualitative research project that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, research, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations.

Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA)
Study on indicators on ICT in education. This study is focused on the 27 EU Member States, the 3 candidate countries and the countries from the European Economic Area. The main purposes of this study were:
 * 1) To identify a set of indicators that are relevant for enabling the regular monitoring of the use and impact of ICT in primary and secondary education. For each proposed indicator information will be presented regarding definition (in terms of constituent variables), in which assessment it has been applied, and statistical quality (e.g. reliability, validity). For indicators that have been used since 2000 in international comparative assessments (EU, IEA, OECD) the statistics for these ICT related indicators will be presented in tables and/or figures (derived from international reports or calculated from the available data bases).
 * 2) To describe scenarios for monitoring ICT in Education in the European Union.

Sloan-C
Online Learning as a Strategic Asset Aug 31 2009. This two-volume report contains the results of 231 interviews conducted with administrators, faculty, and students at 45 public institutions across the country and more than 10,700 responses from faculty across the spectrum of teaching positions – tenure/non-tenure track; full- and part-time; and both those who have and those who have not taught online. Volume I is a response for campus leaders and Volume II is the responses from faculty members titled Paradox of Faculty Voices: Views and Experiences with Online Learning.

JISC
Embedding learning technology institutionally: Senior management is a briefing paper that outlines:
 * How this study relates to current agenda and issues
 * Findings relevant to senior managers
 * The emergence of new roles and cross-boundary working
 * Recommendations and actions for institutions

EDUCAUSE
Rethinking Academic Technology Leadership in an Era of Change,Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 1 (January–March 2008), pp. 14–23. The final paragraph to the paper points to the theme amd focus of this paper; The first organized units supporting technology-based learning were established on college campuses early in the 1900s, but the managers of these units struggled without strong national leadership for nearly a century. In EDUCAUSE, we now have the national leadership in place for the profession as a whole. The next steps must come at the campus level—elevating the status of academic technology leaders within educational organizations.

Open Learning
Rethinking the role of open and distance teaching institutions, Volume 23 Issue 2 2008. This is a special issue on the future of future of open and distance learning. Quoting from the Editors introduction: The present issue of Open Learning examines an important subject for the future of open and distance learning: what are the roles and functions of open and distance teaching institutions and how are these exemplified in practice? the Articles provided are:
 * What are open universities for? By Alan Tait.
 * Distance education and the complexity of accessing the Internets. By Ståle Angen Rye and Ida Zubaidah.
 * Students' accounts of the need for continuous support in a distance learning programme. By Hisham Dzakiria.
 * Access to technology and readiness to use it in learning. By S. K. Kabonoki.
 * Open and distance education as a strategy for human capital development in Nigeria. By Felix Kayode Olakulehin.
 * Connecting or dividing? Examining female learners’ information and communication technology access and use in open and distance learning. By Poonam Bhushan.

Consortia - a viable model and medium for distance education in developing countries?, Volume 24, Issue 2 June 2009, by Michael F. Beaudoin. The author describes in the Abstract that: This study examines the viability of this model of distance education in developing areas, which are often resource challenged, where educational systems are tradition-bound, where a culture for the application of technology for instructional purposes may not yet be common, and where institutions remain parochial in their interests and activities. In particular, one consortium is profiled - the Consorcio Clavijero, in Jalapa, Mexico, comprised of 64 public and private institutions in the state of Veracruz, established in 2004. This study analyses the activities and accomplishment of the consortium, to assess its usefulness as a viable model for replication in other developing regions to effectively promote and diffuse distance education.

Eduventures
Managing Change on Campus: Academic Program Development and Assessment November 2009. The paper provides high-level analysis on today’s major national trends, as well as case studies that exemplify how strong NPD processes can help colleges and universities save money and increase the likelihood of a program’s success. Finally, it provides a basic assessment model that you can use to assess programs at your institution. From this link there are other article relevant to management and organisation in higher education. These include:
 * Re-Visioning Career Services for a New Economy
 * Leading in a Recession: A 2009 Higher Education Action Plan
 * Building a Competitive Institutional Identity: Breaking Down the Academic/Professional Dichotomy.

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design)
David Logan on tribal leadership a 16 minute video filmed in March 2009. David Logan presents the five stages of tribes and how leaders should move a tribe towards stage five the preferred stage for innovation. David Logan studies how people communicate within a company -- and how to harness our natural gifts to make change within organizations. He looks at emerging patterns of corporate leadership, organizational transformation, generational differences in the workplace, and team building for high-potential managers and executives.

Seth Godin on the tribes we lead a 17 minute video filmed in February 209. Seth Godin is an entrepreneur and blogger who thinks about the marketing of ideas in the digital age. His newest interest: the tribes we lead.

 Other sites to explore

Open Learning
Challenges in the adoption and use of OpenCourseWare: experience of the United Nations University, Volume 24, Issue 1 February 2009 by Brendan F. D. Barrett,  Velma I. Grover, Tomasz Janowski, Hanneke van Lavieren, Adegboyega Ojo and Philipp Schmidt. Quoting from the Abstract: This paper provides insights on the adoption or use of OpenCourseWare (OCW) to support broader research, training and institutional capacity development goals, based on the experience of the United Nations University. Specifically, it explains the strategic context for the use of OCW in the university through its related efforts in the area of Virtual and Open Learning, and how OCW fits these requirements. Finally, the paper presents the current status, and discusses challenges and future directions of the OCW project at the United Nations University.

Re-invigorating openness at The Open University: the role of Open Educational Resources, Volume 24, Issue 1 February 2009 by Brenda Gourley and Andy Lane. Quoting from the Abstract: This paper describes the internal motivations and external drivers that led The Open University UK to enter the field of Open Educational Resources through its institution-wide OpenLearn initiative (www.open.ac.uk/openlearn). It also describes some of the emerging evidence of the impacts inside and outside the university. Through the rapid implementation and operation of the OpenLearn website, The Open University UK has been able to better understand and promote openness through open and distance learning.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)
Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration. Mr. Shirky divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, web services, and wireless networks that provide alternatives to the wired client/server infrastructure that characterizes the Web. Current clients include Nokia, GBN, the Library of Congress, the Highlands Forum, the Markle Foundation, and the BBC.

The Observatory on borderless higher education
[http://www.obhe.ac.uk/documents/view_details?id=791 Rocky roads and broken dreams? Global online schools of non-profit universities continue to face difficulties in realising their ambitions], 2009 by The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. Quoting from the Abstract: In the last two decades, several universities, higher education companies and consortia have created global online graduate schools, with a prime purpose to attract students (and tuition fees) from Asia, particularly China. However, while for-profit online higher education providers such as Kaplan, Inc. and the University of Phoenix are thriving, many global online schools of non-profit universities continue to face difficulties in attracting sufficient student numbers, or have closed altogether. U21 Global, a transnational online graduate school backed by a consortium of international universities, is one such example. An ambitious project from the start, the venture continues to operate on much lower than expected student numbers. Elsewhere, it was announced last May that another online venture, the US-based University of Illinois Global Campus, would close. The closure follows the shutting down of a range of other large-scale online schools originating from public universities in the last decade, including Cardean University, Fathom, the University of Maryland University College’s UMUCOnline, New York University’s NYU Online and the UKeU, each of which had been keen on having a ‘first mover’ advantage in the emerging global online market. What were the principal aims of these online ventures, and why have so many online schools of non-profit universities failed? With a continuing demand for more higher education opportunities, particularly in the Asian region, what does the future look like for large-scale transnational online education ventures created by non-profit institutions?

[http://www.obhe.ac.uk/documents/view_details?id=485 Following suit in the complex stake of reform? Australia’s University of Western Australia announces curriculum change], 2008 by The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. Quoting from the Abstract: The University of Western Australia (UWA), one of Australia’s leading primarily research-based universities, is restructuring its course curriculum as part of an overarching institutional reform package. By dramatically reducing the number of undergraduate courses if offers, and broadening the nature of foundational education, the institution is hoping to better prepare graduates for future employment within an increasingly global job market....How is UWA introducing structural degree reform, and why is it doing so? At which other institutions is such change taking place? How could reformed degree structures affect Australia’s capacity to remain a leader in the international student market? To obtain a copy of this article you will need to subscribe.

= Delicious = More related sites can be found at the DE Hub Delicious Management and Organisation site.