D-+Analysis-+Final+Page

Initial Analysis
** Group A ** ** (Ahlam, Gilbert, Nicola & Scarlet) **

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ABC University Administration is the driving authority that works on ensuring the university’s educational competitive value compared to national and international standards. The Admin’s latest initiative is full ICT-integration into all academic courses as a step forward into creating an innovative and effective learning environment. This is done by using Moodle as the university’s primary LMS. The university administration is hoping to improve educational outcomes by the new initiative. ===== **__ Analysis One: The intervention itself __** ** (1) **** Client= who has caused the intervention to happen, without whom there would not be an investigation ** The client is the university administration who is seeking to improve the quality of learning by integrating ICT into its educational system, which is expected to lead to international accreditation. Uni Admin consists of the vice-chancellor, deputy VC for academic affairs, deputy VC for financial affairs, and staff in its major administrative units such as Staff Affairs Department and Quality Assurance Office. ** (2) **** Practitioners = person (people) conducting the investigation ** Team A is conducting the investigation following SSM approach. Team’s script is designed in a way that would facilitate the team’s epistemological and social collaborative work. This refers to SSM (p). Team’s script can accessed here: http://edpc5024-groupa.wikispaces.com/A-+Team%27s+script ** (3) **** Problem owner(s)= who are affected by the intervention and its outcomes ** Teacher, students, other administrative staff, technical staff (list can be expanded) **__ Carrying out Analysis Two: Social __** ** Roles: Formal Roles: ** the main formal roles are University Admin who is in direct connection with Deans of Colleges through meetings, emails, etc. The latter inform Heads of Department’s with the Admin’s decisions and plans and are directed to do what it takes to follow these decisions and implement plans. Heads of departments meet with Faculty and discuss Admin’s proposed plans. Faculty and Head of Departments (HOD) discuss ways of implementing these plans in a way that aligns with the department’s educational goals, pedagogical practices and available expertise. They also report difficulties faced during implementation with Students and propose improvements to be made in the system for better implementations of Admin’s plans. This is reported by HOD to the Dean who then reports to the University Admin who would revisit their plans for necessary modifications or reinforce certain goals to be met. (And the communication cycle continues.  ** Informal: “Role models”: ** Teachers as they are in direct contact with students are considered as role models. If they provide students with good role-models of change, students are more likely to respond positively.   ** Norms + Values **  ** University: ** is a reputable educational institute that is a pioneer in establishing a strong educational system in the country in the last 20 years. As other educational institutions in the higher education sector emerged over the last years, competition emerged.   ** University Admin (Top management) : ** VC, VC Deputies, directors of administrative units and Deans of colleges are people with high expectations, task designators and performers, work in tight timelines and expect others to do so. They are believed not to be very sensitive to “real” practice as they are alienated from the hectic day-to-day routine academic and administrative staff undergo. In the last few years, they have been working on enhancing the communication channel between them and staff and students through online opinion polls of university’s practices and services quality. Friendliness and openness between the top admin and staff and students is gradually being established. ** Heads of Departments: ** They are mediators between university admin and staff. They have the most difficult and demanding role in that they should ensure meeting university admin’s standards and requirements while maintaining staff’s satisfaction. They do not have direct authorial role and the same time are not directly or hugely impacted by change in practice. ** Faculty: ** They are the real implementers of change. They work hard to please their authorities and expect to be rewarded for their dedication to work. Dissatisfaction leads them to disapprove change especially when it is highly demanding. They are in direct connection with students and are in direct access to evidence of good or bad educational practice. ** Administrative staff (ICT & Educational Technology Centers, staff affairs, professional development, etc) ** : the first 3 statements describing faculty apply here. In addition, they are the facilitators of change and failure in managing elements of change would lead to serious dysfunction in the flow of change. ** Students: ** are the targets of the change process. Improvements in their academic behavior are indicators of success in change. Their attitude toward change affects the flow of implementing change policies, so their involvement in the process is critical. **__ Carrying out Analysis three (Political) __** ** “Intellectual and experiential authority”: ** VC, VC deputies and Deans of Colleges are normally assigned in their positions due to their intellectual excellence evident in their educational achievements, all are PhD holders, and their long service for the university. Thus, they are regarded as knowledgeable of what should work best for the welfare of the university and its staff and students. ** “Reputation”: ** the university’s high reputation is a product of the continuous hard work and efforts from the university’s administration and employees. However, reputation is mostly linked to the higher authorities quite overlooking the individual efforts that stand behind it. The reputation of the institution is hugely linked and interdependent with the reputation of its people. ** “Policy Making”: ** High authorities are the ones who have the power to initiate a new policy, change it or even cancel it. This is due to first commodity discussed above. Other employees are sometimes given a say in the effectiveness of a policy, but they do not always have a noticeable impact on policy making. ** “Access to powerful role-holders”: ** This applies to Heads of Departments who have direct contact with Deans of Colleges who in turn have direct contact with University Admin. Access to powerful role-holders who are policy makers gives HODs and Deans higher impact on change practices.

__ CATWOE __
C: Departments, Program Coordinators, Teachers, students, technicians, etc. (List can be expanded) A: department, Program Coordinators, Teachers T 1: unaccredited university à transformed by process of implementation of LMS into à accredited University T 2: « Current quality of learning » à « current quality of learning improved » W: Implementation of LMS enhances the quality of learning and thus leads to international accreditation O: University Administration E: Computer access, budget, Moodle efficiency as an educational tool, technical capabilities, technical support, blended learning system, learning strategies/styles, previous traditional teaching and learning practices, developers competencies and time, etc. **__ EEE __** //Efficacy//: The LMS installed has contributed to the enhanced quality of learning. //Efficiency//: The LMS enables quality learning and quality organizing and assessment of that learning with a minimum amount of resources. // Effectiveness: // The transformation of the quality of learning is such that the University qualifies for International Accreditation. **__ CCC Anlysis __** // Congruence: // changes which build on what is already in place have a much greater chance of adoption than those which imply a complete and unfamiliar shift in routine practices. // Complexity: // Changes which are presented in a relatively straight-forward way and are accessible or ‘recognizable’ are more likely to be successfully adopted. (Complex thinking may underlie simple presentations and handy tools, though.) // Clarity: // Changes which are explicit about who is to do what and when are more likely to be adopted, especially if change sponsors provide useful change tools. // Congruence // : Macro issues: I’m assuming the culture in Oman is like most Asian cultures, that of being on the conservative side and preferring to stick to traditions. Furthermore, it has been often stated that teachers as a profession are not so eager to change. And there is justified skepticism of any new technological intervention because of the previous presence of fads that came and went quickly (seek citation). From the above mentioned context, the congruence level of our LMS introduction is low. ** Micro examples ** : From the rich picture we can see statements like: 1) eLearning is not effective and a waste of time   2) Technical expertise level of staff is low. Hence the fear of technical issues. (For the digital native generation, i.e. our current and future students technical issues are solved by intuition) 3) The initiative is a top-down thing with the main purpose being the instrumental one of getting accreditation rather than a bottom up initiative driven by the teacher’s recognition of the benefit eLearning might bring to students.   4) Knee-jerk resistance reaction, as expressed in the excuse “no time for eLearning”. These statements are evidence of low congruency. (Department culture/context could also be the unit of analysis for congruency but I don’t have enough information. According to the readings, the department should be a change agent viewed with high importance.) Complexity: Assuming a low technology comfort level and low technical expertise, Moodle might seem like a very complex system for the staff to adopt. Clarity: Only evident in the implemenation stage **__ Implications of above analysis: __** During the implementation phase, we should take more time to tease out the formal and informal practices/roles of people of the organisation/department and modify our action plan to be as __congruent__ as possible. The high __complexity__ of moodle requires a well-managed scaffolded training program with accessible technical expertise. (This might increase costs but we could justify by saying without this, the introduction of moodle would fail and the costs would be higher) We should make clear the admin issues like the implementation timeline, procedure to report technical difficulties, procedure for course design etc. These can be in the form of multiple media sources, including handbooks, online sources, email reminders, newsletters seminars/refresher seminars, peer groups etc.