E-learning Strategy

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Introduction

Over 18.3 million people in the UK access the internet and with the intention to provide every community across the UK with access to super-fast broadband by 2015 this number will increase. The Foster (2005) and Leitch (2006) reviews brought change to the post 16 skills sector, with the comprehensive spending review and the (2010) skills paper, ‘Sustainable Growth’ further change is inevitable. To provide an adaptable and agile curriculum learning providers will need an e-learning strategy, which uses technology enhanced learning intelligently to achieve more with less.In the HEFCE report, Collaborate to Compete, The Online Learning Task Force make recommendations which emphasise the importance developing strategies which supported the embedding of technology enhanced learning.

Designing E-Learning Strategy

Since the early 1960’s academic publications and journals have defined and explained strategy as a business planning process, an emergent (learning) process (see Henry Mintzberg) and more recently, as a process of transformation for the organisation. The revised HEFCE e-learning strategy for 2009, seeks to, ‘enhancing learning and teaching through the use of appropriate technology’. However, designing a strategy to do this at the organisational level is not easy. A search of the UK based internet pages revealed around 14000 ‘hits’ for ‘designing ILT strategy’. Google scholar reduced the number down to 8280. However, much of the material mostly referred to documents or sources where the term, ’ILT strategy’ is used in discussion in or about approaches to e-learning

Whilst the above perspectives provide a useful source of reading for the student of strategy; for the e-learning manager searching for a strategic angle to plan an organisational e-learning or ILT strategy, they do not provide a practical model with which e-learning managers can begin to plan a ILT strategy to guide e-learning activity.For this purpose corporate strategy may provide a useful starting point.

Corporate Strategy

Corporate Strategy defines the purpose of the organisation and the actions it will need to take to successfully achieve the stated purpose. Lynch (2006) and French et al (2008) explain corporate strategy as a process whereby the organisation is correctly positioned to develop competitive advantage over time. Johnson and Scholes (2002) add that corporate strategy must achieve three essential elements; firstly understand the strategic position of the organisation, secondly understand the strategic choices the organisation will face in the future and thirdly, be capable of converting strategy into meaningful action.

There are many definitions of corporate strategy however, if the above explanation is accepted, the implication for e-learning managers in designing an effective ILT strategy indicate a sensible starting point is to ensure any ILT strategy is aligned to the core purpose of the organisation, understands the learning needs of the local environment and is unambiguous in how the ILT strategy will be delivered.

Although corporate strategy can provide a useful focus and direction for ILT strategy, corporate strategy still does not provide a useable model which can be use to inform the design of ILT strategy. To do this it may be beneficial to explore and borrow models from other sectors of management and adapt them to guide ILT strategy design.

Strategy Models

1. The 7 S Model Evolved out of studies in the late 1970’s exploring Japanese management culture and analysis of excellence in the top performing 100 US companies. The analysis revealed a common feature of high performance was the ability of an organisation to achieve excellent performance across seven (7) areas. These were categorised as either hard, meaning explicit or soft, meaning implicit. The 7 S’s are;

Shared Values (Core Purpose) (hard and Soft) The shared values define what the organisation stands for and what it believes in. It’s reason for being. These values are often openly stated through published mission or core purposes statements. Although these are initially classed as ‘hard’, as an organisation establishes a brand reputation for excellence or for quality, over a period of time the "values" driving the reputation become implied thus becoming ‘soft’.

Strategy:(hard) A published document detailing how the organisation will deploy and position the available resources to achieve the shared purpose. Strategy is transferred into a meaningful action plan with clear and measurable performance indicators.

Structure(hard) How the organisation will structure people to create lines of responsibility for communication, decision making and accountability.

Systems:(Hard) The organisational and people management policies / procedures which guided teams and people in carrying out their role effectively, so the organisation functions as a whole and is able to achieve the stated core purpose.

Staff:(soft) The number and demographic makeup of the people in the organisation.

Skills:(soft) The capability see People Capability Maturity Model of the people in the organisation to consistently use their knowledge and skill for practical outcomes in achieving the actions plans arising out of the strategy.

Style:(soft) There is a style of leadership which creates a culture conducive in promoting staff to consistently perform at their optimum performance.

A valid criticism of the 7S model is that it was developed before technology and globalisation changed the way organisations and people work. Never-the-less, the idea that a successful strategy must develop, maintain and balance the needs of diverse interests in an organisation still remains current.

2) The MIT 90's Model.

The model was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1990's and was the result of 32 research projects, which analysed the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in a business organisations. Boys and Ford (2008) explain the models two stages of achievement in using ICT Stage 1; The Evolutionary stage has two levels, these being ‘localised’ and ‘co-ordinated. Stage 2, The Revolutionary stage covers business process redesign.

3) European Foundation for Quality Management EFQM Model

The European Foundation for Quality Management aims to bring “together organisations striving for Sustainable Excellence” and to “help organisations to continuously improve and achieve higher levels of performance”. EFQM have two models which can be used to support organisations, the Results, Approach, Deployment, Assessment and Refinement RADA and the EFQM framework. The guiding principle behind the EFQM model is that excellent performance is achieved through leadership driving strategy and the model can be applied in number of ways, e.g. as an assessment tool for benchmarking purposes or as a management process for improving capability and performance.

The EFQM is structured around nine criteria of which 5 are ‘enablers’ and 4 ‘results’. The enablers are focussed on what and how an organisation does things, while the results examine what the organisation has achieved. The five enablers are:

Leadership (1) this is linked to People (2), Strategy (3) and Partnership (4) These three feed into the fifth (5) enabler covering Processes Products and Services.

In turn, the 5 enablers impact on the 4 'results', which are set as People results (1) Customer results (2) Society results (3) and finally Key results (4)

Enablers and results are defined by set criteria which the organisation measurers its performance against to acheive a score.

External links

Useful information and guidance on e-learning and ILT strategy design can be found at:

1) JISC InfoNet Strategy Kit A useful source of information for those with local responsibility for overseeing the completion of strategic objectives within their own faculties, departments or teams.

2) JISC Infonet Tools and Techniques useful planning tools for e-learning managers.

3) LSIS Leadership Tool Kits These tool kits are intended to support Adult & Community Learning, Indpendent Specialist Colleges and Work Based Learning.

4) Excellence Gateway ILT Strategy Checklist Athough the check list is intended for specialist colleges, the list compares well with the 7S model.

5) JISC New study urges colleges to develop e-learning strategies for higher education 14 December 2010

6) JISC Advance Strategic Planning.

7) HEFCE Collaborate to Compete Download a pdf file of this document from this link.