3.6.2 Lessons Learned - Communication, understanding and awareness raising
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 7/99 JISC-funded projects', a commissioned JISC report.
It is important to address different stakeholder needs and manage expectations.
As awareness and perceived relevance of the importance of VLE/MLE developments were increasing, many of the projects found that the status of the developments increased and became more embedded and linked to relevant institutional decision making bodies and committees.
Be aware of the difficulties in obtaining and maintaining real institutional buy in. Many projects encountered a good deal of resistance and this can lead to a great deal of unproductive time being spent in attempting to deal with these conflicts and political issues and coordination of the project with other initiatives.
Lack of understanding and experience of the nature of elearning and its potential can be problematic. Many staff and students still have little real understanding of the possibilities.
As stakeholders begin to see that building an MLE is possible and within a reasonable timescale, they become more enthusiastic about the possibilities and are more inclined to want to put the effort into making the system well designed and relevant to their needs. There can also be a cascade effect with more academics, administrators and support staff beginning to be interested in the potential.
Stakeholders need to see the relevance to them, preferably being able to see that the benefits will be in the not too distant future.
There is a need to re-educate users in terms of shifting from paper-based to online information.
Managing expectations is critical particular when expectations have been raised in terms of what is possible, coupled with a general lack of understanding of potential technical and organisation issues and limitations.
At institutional level there is less recognition that MLE development is not merely a piecemeal addition to existing academic, information, administrative and technical processes but demands their rethinking and restructuring.
An MLE development can be used as a valuable vehicle for debate on the nature and function of elearning as well as a means of achieving commitment from senior management. Outputs from fact finding exercises - such as data flow diagrams, user surveys, etc can be used as a method of consultation and dissemination.
Issues in the differences in terminology over both existing processes and MLE structure can be used as a key way into debate and consultation about restructuring educational and organisational processes.
