From eLearning to ulearning a blended learning framework for effective organisational change

Stakeholders

1. The role of the student:

The student is expected to drive the project. The Industrial Mentor and the Academic Supervisor are there to lend support to the initiative but the onus is on the student to maintain good communications. Students are expected to develop the project through several stages:

1. 
   Identification of the broad objectives of the project, often from a set of problem symptoms.
   
2. 
   Analysis and formulation of the problem: break down the problem into its key elements. Then decide specific major phases of work to leave you with a solid contribution at the end. Identify the objectives of each and how they will be executed, such as by experimental programme or design process. It is normal to make changes to the plan as the project progresses.
   
3. 
   Acquisition and review of relevant literature about current thinking and practice on appropriate concepts and techniques. Identify (through Library databases etc.) several relevant refereed journal articles and review them. Also, find relevant chapters of books. Generally, the introduction sections give good insights into important concepts and ways of analysing the world in terms of the problem at hand. Supervisors are most useful at this level for discussion (“sounding-board”) and giving some pointers as to what authors/subjects to look up and so on.
   
4. 
   Execution of the work: If a phase is design or developmental, then at least two alternative solutions or scenarios should be generated, compared and contrasted to inform the selection decision in an objective manner. In dealing with an improvement phase, it is crucial to map the original configuration (“as-is” map) before any changes are made so incremental benefits can be measured objectively.
   
5. 
   Evaluation: evaluate the proposed solutions both in terms of cost efficiency and operational effectiveness
   
6. 
   Resulting plan: Make a recommendation on what the company should do as a result of this work.
   
7. 
   Future work: Outline future work you think would be desirable to develop the project’s theme further.
   

Students are expected to satisfy two masters: The University in terms of the prime objectives, ultimate direction and academic grading, and the Company in terms of a reasonable moral expectation to receive a tangible result, reflecting the support given and the execution of the objectives. Where there is a conflict between these objectives, then it is reasonable that academic criteria over-ride other considerations.

2. The role of the industrial mentor:

3. The role of the Academic Supervisor

The role of the academic supervisor is multi-faceted. The academic supervisor is there initially to assist the student in developing the objectives and program plan for the year. The academic supervisor will facilitate the student in their enquiries and design/experimentation programme, and act as a sounding-board for ideas. The academic supervisor must maintain some reasonable basis for being available to students for regular discussions. Finally it is the primary role to formally assess and grade the project.

4. Methodology

Two separate requirements analysis surveys were initially conducted. The first was conducted with the Irish divisions of 12 Multinational corporations and a second one was aimed specifically at SMEs. The latter was conducted with in excess of 100 SMEs across five European Countries – Ireland, UK, Sweden, Spain and Poland. Results from this part of the methodology are outside of the scope of this paper but can be found in a number of the referenced articles (Brown, Wade et al. 2006; Brown 2008).

The next stage of the methodology consisted of framework and programme design, development and testing. An iterative approach was used where 3 distinct iterations of the programme have been developed and tested over the last four years. The first was a suite of standalone interactive courseware and the second two were iterations of a University accredited Diploma. The final framework and programme are described in subsequent sections.

The third stage of the methodology was a comprehensive evaluation which included Interviews with the programme management team though attempting to understand what worked and what did not work and where there was scope for improvement; four separate Case Studies, two with Large Organisations and two with SMEs – which included both students and their immediate supervisors. A series of evaluations was conducted using the first 4 cohorts, which was in excess of 130 students.

5. The Framework

1. Situated Learning – The underlying pedagogy

2. Assignments

3. Discussion Board

Participation in online discussions is essential to the framework and is assigned 20% of the module grade. The discussion board allows students to interact with the course material by extending their thinking, synthesising new concepts and theories, and collaborating with other students. The instructor will begin each discussion by posting a question. A total of 5 questions will be posted for each module during the semester. The discussion will close 2 weeks from when the question was posted. Each student is expected to post at least 2 messages per week:

1. 
   1 substantive message in reply to the discussion question and
   
2. 
   1 substantive message in reply to another student’s response
   

4. Online Resources

As well as the discussion board, a number of other online resources have been incorporated into the framework. The first of these is a suite of interactive flash based multimedia resources based on the lean content. Self-tests and quizzes using multiple choice questions help the participants to gauge their understanding of specific concepts. The examples that have been included here are primarily based on everyday examples which aids in the transfer of learning. The on-line material use high quality graphics and has gone though a rigorous instructional design process. Access to e-journals and the e-library is also provided through the link on the system. There is an optional chat room available to students and a facility is available to students to enable communication using blogs and wikis. However, as these are non-mandatory aspects of the programme, take up and participation by participants here has been quite low compared to the discussion board. There is an online link to both the tutors for the module in question and to administrative and technical support. This facility is primarily used by the students when they are new to the programme and are unsure about the functionality and features available to them. Finally, all on-line material is deployed on Moodle, an open source Learning Content Management system. This has a very intuitive user interface and feedback from the students has been hugely positive in that regard.

5. Face to Face Sessions

6. Hardcopy material

6. Evaluation and Results

The first four cohorts of students were made up of 46 companies with a total student population of 135. The programme has gone from strength to strength, and has a student intake every autumn and spring semester depending on demand. The February 2009 intake was in excess of 50 students. The real acid test of how well a programme is received by industry based students is the number of repeat students from individual companies. There are multiple instances of this occurrence on the programme. In fact demand has been so high that in two organisations, Intel and the Johnson and Johnson group, dedicated company specific programmes have been run on-site. Of the 46 companies that make up the first four cohorts, what is interesting is that the majority of companies have lass than 250 employees and as such can be classified as Small and Medium sized Enterprises. This is outlined in figure 3 below.

The programmes have had a significant impact on participants in terms of skills, knowledge and attitude. Feedback was gathered from students after they completed their course to assess the level of change in their behaviour within the workplace. Table 1 outlines this feedback.

The perceived improvement in participants skills, attitudes and knowledge combined with the extremely positive feedback from both the participants and supervisors in relation to the impact on the organisation has been very encouraging.

7. Conclusion

8. References