3.5.3. Lessons learned: alignment and institutional buy-in
These lessons have been drawn from researching project documents, and in particular from Jos Boys' report 'Learning Lessons from MLE Development projects - A review of the Building MLEs in HE JISC-funded projects'
It is important to give consideration of alignment of the MLE development with relevant funding mechanisms and cycles and in particular to have a process for moving from project to institutional embedding.
MLE developments are often labelled as technical, leaving the organisational and pedagogical issues unresolved with lack of clarity about the projects' authority with respect to these. There is often a lack of clarity about the relationship between the project and the institutional context.
The extent to which MLE developments came out of or was integrated with institutional strategies and other policy initiatives varies.
Those involved in MLE developments can have an awkward relationship to their institutions - needing to be both independent outsiders - with authority and credibility, as well as also working across institutional levels.
