4. Gathering Requirements

A version of the core material comprising this section is available for download as a printable version in pdf format. (The Adobe Acrobat Reader to allow viewing of pdf files is available for download here).

Who should read this:

The main text is intended to brief senior managers and academics and to provide a route into detailed requirements gathering methodologies for the MLE design and development team.

Outcomes:

If you follow this process you will create a requirements specification based on a systematic identification of stakeholder needs drawn from established good practice in systems design.

Approach:

In the section 'Why might you want an MLE?' you will have established a shared understanding of what an MLE is and a rationale for implementation for your organisation. The section 'Understanding your organisation' will have helped you understand your organisation, how it works and where the MLE will impact. This section will now help you to develop a far more detailed understanding of what you actually want your MLE to be able to do; thus enabling a detailed model to be developed which will form the basis of the design process which will be discussed in a later section.

The design of an effective Managed Learning Environment crucially depends on catering for the needs of all the stakeholders that will interact with it. These needs will be different for different stakeholder groups and there is the potential for conflicting requirements. A key process, therefore, in the design of an MLE, is to understand the needs of all the stakeholders and to create a solution that satisfies the varied requirements.

The intention is to present each aspect of the process in a practical way without using specialist language. However, there are links to resources that will allow you to research each area in more depth should you need or wish to do so. A glossary of terms is included at the end of the section.

There are six topics in this section which deal with different aspects of the requirements gathering activity, but which are also intended to provide you with a pathway through the whole process. The topic titles and their descriptors are as follows:

1. Identifying Stakeholders: this is pre-requisite to determining needs. Typically done through functional groupings, the group definitions and representatives chosen to articulate the group needs will affect the mix and priority of requirements. This topic links with the other sections in this infoKit which also use stakeholder information.

2. Deciding Procedures: it is generally accepted that formal structured requirements gathering procedures are the best way to arrive at a consistent, comprehensive and workable solution. This topic will introduce such procedures and give examples of their use.

3. Constructing Models: the design and functionality of MLEs will not be well understood by many of the stakeholders. In order to facilitate the discussions needed to capture the information necessary to identify requirements, models (or prototypes) of the intended MLE may be used.

4. Trawling for Information: a range of data gathering techniques, such as structured focus group meetings, may be carried out with all the key stakeholders in order to identify their needs. Although this might appear a complex process, educational institutions will have similar stakeholder profiles with similar needs. This will enable rapid prototyping and scenario building activities to be employed.

5. Generating a Requirements Specification: covering the drafting of individual requirement specifications from the needs and viewpoints gathered from the information trawl. It is at this stage that conflict resolution will take place and only achievable requirements allowed to proceed to final draft.

6. Summary and Checklist: the section concludes with a summary of the key activities to be undertaken in drawing up a requirements specification and a checklist of stages the design process needs to go through. The terminology of systems design is used throughout the section and a glossary is provided here for clarification.

As MLE implementation becomes more commonplace, the range of needs of each of the stakeholder groups will become much better understood and the process of specifying requirements much more efficient. This section, as with the infoKit as a whole, will be regularly updated to pick up on good practice.