Background and History
In 2008 the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) initiated a project to upgrade the University's primary Learning Management System (LMS) from Blackboard Vista 3 to Blackboard 9. The decision was based on an urgent requirement to upgrade a system that was nearing end of supported life and posed unacceptable risk to the viability of UNSW's Learning & Teaching.
In 2009 approval was granted through the IT Investment Planning (ITIP) process to initiate additional projects to improve UNSW's service and adoption of Technology Enabled Learning and Teaching (TELT). Three major projects and initiatives approved to be conducted during 2009/10 include:
- Development of a TELT Platform to establish a framework for innovation, trial
- The Faculties of Excellence Initiative
- An LMS Upgrade
These three projects comprise the TELT Development Program.
Rationale
Teaching staff in most university’s fall into three groups when it comes to using or exploring the use of technology in learning and teaching: Enthusiasts – regular users (30%); Could-be-Enthusiasts – if they had adequate support to assist them to do so (40%); and those who are Not Interested (30%). Currently only 25% of staff at UNSW would be classified as regular users (Enthusiasts) according to this taxonomy; in comparison approximately 90% would be so classified at Deakin University and 65% at Monash University. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the remaining 45% of UNSW staff who we might expect to use or be interested in using technologies to support L&T have chosen not to do so due to dissatisfaction with the:
a) range of L&T systems/technologies/applications support by UNSW and available to staff (e.g., UNSW supports only one LMS when at least three different LMSs are currently used across the campus);
b) level of educational design, media and web development support available to support staff to create on-line learning environments and resources (UNSW has 2 educational designers, 4 media developers, and one web developer in L&T@UNSW; and
c) the availability and expertise of just-in-time support for staff and students when they are having difficulties using on-line courses/systems/technologies/applications (Unlike other organisational units with responsibilities for enterprise level systems at UNSW, L&T@UNSW and IT@UNSW have no FTE Subject Matter Experts(SME’s) to provide this expert support to staff and students – L&T@UNSW’s educational designers, media developers and web developers undertake this work at the expense of their true responsibilities – thus leading to further dissatisfaction amongst UNSW staff with the level of support available to assist them to design, develop and use learning and teaching content/media).
A number of underlying organisational issues lie at the heart of these problems:
a) the lack of a strategic policy framework for the development of TELT at UNSW;
b) a history of ad-hoc trial, development and adoption of technology to support L&T (this has resulted in UNSW maintaining a multitude of legacy systems/technologies/applications when a more strategic approach might have eliminated much of the redundancy associated with these systems);
c) poor integration of learning and teaching systems/technologies/ applications into UNSW IT and administrative systems (this has led to poor functionality of UNSW’s enterprise level systems and academic staff and units having to shoulder an increasingly heavy burden and costs associated with the administration of on-line courses);
d) inadequate investment and infrastructure to support sustained development or use of the systems/technologies/ applications/ content/media associated with on-line units (the lack of a rolling strategic budgetary framework to support the ongoing development and maintenance of UNSW L&T technologies and educational design and development services has meant an enormous amount of time and resources being wasted to maintain increasingly inefficient and ineffective systems (e.g., Vista 3 must be urgently replaced; the technology platform upon which Lectopia operates is patched to a point where it cannot be patched any further and must be replaced) and inadequate support to enable the effective use of those systems/technologies/applications which are available)
The TELT Development Program will address these issues, and in doing so will eliminate barriers to the adoption of TELT tools and applications at UNSW.
Objectives and Benefits
The TELT Platform will comprise a suite of strategically chosen technologies and applications to support L&T that can be available to all faculties, schools, staff and students. The systems and applications on the TELT Platform will include two LMSs (Blackboard 9 the replacement for Vista 3 and Moodle the alternative LMS most frequently adopted by UNSW faculties/schools/staff who have chosen not to use Vista 3) and a range of other L&T technologies already in use at UNSW including Omnium; Lectopia; Maple TA; a Wiki; a Blog. All systems/technologies/applications included on the TELT platform will benefit from full integration into UNSWs IT and Administrative systems. The TELT Platform and all associated systems/technologies/applications will be funded, developed and maintained by central University services within L&T@UNSW, IT@UNSW and Academic and Student Administration. Users of the TELT platform and its associated systems/technologies/applications will be supported in their use of same via expert just-in-time service providers in L&T@UNSW and IT@UNSW and integrated web-based resources.
The benefits of the establishment of the TELT Platform include:
- Staff will have increased choice among a range of L&T systems/technologies/applications so that they can match the particular needs of their students, teaching approach and context to the affordances of the technologies available.This will largely eliminate the need for faculties/schools/individuals to fund, develop, and maintain their own instances of alternative systems/technologies/applications.
- Systems, technologies/applications available on the TELT platform will have been strategically chosen after a formal and systematic process of trial and evaluation. They will be maintained as part of the Platform while data from systematic processes of ongoing monitoring and review of the usage and effectiveness of same suggests there is value in doing so.Such a strategic and data driven approach to the development of the TELT platform will ensure appropriate on-going funding to support enterprise level systems and eliminate the need for UNSW to fund the ongoing maintenance and support of ineffective and costly systems/technologies/applications which are no longer widely used.
- Claims are made each year through the ITIP Plan or other funding sources such as Learning and Teaching Performance Fund to support research and development of innovative new systems/technologies/ applications for use in support of learning and teaching.With the creation of the proposed Research and Innovation space as part of the proposed TELT Platform, such claims would no longer be necessary as funding to support such R&D activity is included in the recurrent allocation for the maintenance and further development of the TELT Platform.
- Staff and students will enjoy the benefits of single sign-on, automatic course creation, and automatic population of courses with student/staff data as a result of the full integration of the systems/technologies/ applications associated with the TELT platform with the University’s IT infrastructure and administrative systems.At present staff both centrally and within faculties must (a) manually configure/archive on-line courses at the beginning and end of teaching sessions, and (b) handle exceptions.With the creation of the new TELT platform, while much of this work remains, a large proportion (probably 30%) of the work will be handled automatically leaving academic and support staff free to focus on the pedagogical issues associated with enhancing student learning and experience.
- The creation of the TELT Platform involves the establishment of four Subject Matter Expert positions (2 in L&T@UNSW and 2 in IT@UNSW) who will be experts from both a pedagogical and technological perspective in all of the systems/technologies/applications associated with the TELT platform.
- These individuals will be central to ensuring the University has the capacity necessary to provide the expert just-in-time service support to staff and students in the use of the TELT platform and its applications.
- Their work will fill the current void which has led to the increasing levels of staff and student dissatisfaction with the University’s current enterprise level L&T systems/technologies/applications.They will provide the ongoing expertise and support necessary to maintain:
a) the business rules that should govern the configuration, access and use of the University’s LMSs/technologies/applications;
b) the effective integration of the TELT Platform applications with the University’s IT and administrative systems; and
c) the second and third levels of support required to solve staff and student problems when using the systems/technologies/applications associated with the TELT Platform.
- Currently educational design, media development and web development staff of L&T@UNSW attempt to provide the second and third level of service support for staff and students that the new SME’s would provide, on top of their existing workload.This arrangement is problematic in that the individuals involved are not experts in all these technologies and while they are attempting to provide this service they are not fulfilling the responsibilities of their own positions and supporting staff in the design development, implementation and review of online courses, media and learning resources. Over time this has resulted in increasing levels of staff dissatisfaction with the level of support available from L&T@UNSW to assist them with these essential course and media development tasks.The creation of these SME positions will not only enhance the functionality and reliability of the TELT Platform and its associated applications, it will also ensure that staff have greater access to and improved levels of service from the individuals who can assist them to “get on-line” – to create and use the online courses, media and other resources necessary to enhance learning.It is worth noting that the single most important thing that an institution can do to lift the proportion of its staff who engage in technology enabled learning and teaching is to provide them with the training and development support they need to reconsider their approach to teaching, to redesign their curricula, to design, develop and use on-line learning technologies, media and resources.By freeing up the university’s existing educational designers, media developers and web developers by eliminating their need to do the work of SMEs UNSW will have the capacity to lift its level of Enthusiasts for TELT from 25% to 65% by empowering the current 40% Could-be-Enthusiasts.
As an institution that aspires to be a destination of choice for staff and students alike, it is critical that we provide a learning and teaching environment that enables and supports both learning and teaching with contemporary information and communications technologies and media. Our graduates will be expected to operate in a world where on-line learning is at the heart of professional practice, and so we have an obligation to ensure that they develop the knowledge and skills for same throughout their programs of study at UNSW. The proposed developments will ensure that the university can provide a sustainable and reliable infrastructure for TELT, and the capacity to ensure that all students and staff have access to these critical technologies and the services to support their effective use.
