2.4. Who should be involved?
Scenario: It has been agreed that a committee or working group should be formed to tackle the issue of the institution's MLE. You have been asked to outline who should be invited to attend these meetings.
In this section we will look at the people who might be involved in the group. We term these people 'stakeholders'. The stakeholders involved in the group should also:
have something to contribute to the topic
be most affected by the implementation of an MLE
have the time and focus to concentrate on the MLE issue. As De Montford University noted 'There should be a dedicated team of people having the MLE development as their main (only) function. This should include the following skills: Project Management and Promotion; User Requirements and Evaluation; Technical Development; Design; Educational' (DMU Project 'Management Issues' Briefing paper)
The issue of stakeholders is one which runs throughout this infoKit, as a common theme of involving the key people (decision makers and users) in the formation of the MLE. Readers then should also consult sections 'Understanding your organisation', 'Gathering Requirements', 'Technology Options', and 'Implementation'. For more information follow this link to Stakeholders.
The goal of E. Mumford's ETHICS system nicely summarises this in that you are trying to establish 'a value position in which the future users of computer systems at all organisational levels play a major part in the design of these systems' (Mumford, 1983). The key is to choose people who are representative of their units, constituents, etc, and at the same time overcome the key difficulty of identifying and addressing the needs of an enormous range of stakeholders in a complex organisation (Jefferies and Waterhouse 2002).
In later section of this infoKit (Gathering Requirements) there is a more thorough analysis of how these stakeholders might be identified.
You should also note that although the roles and responsibilities outlined below may be fairly common across FE and HE, the structures of your institution will also influence the membership of the group. For example, your institution may be split over several sites, have several awarding bodies, be associated with other affiliated institutions and regional projects and initiatives. These views will have to be represented somehow, as well as the technical/administrative/academic input outlined below.
It is crucial that the people with the power to take initiatives forward are also brought in.
There are different approaches that you could use to assemble the stakeholders. The MARTINI project began by dividing stakeholders into data providers and data users and then selected from each group (on average their committees were between 13 and 25 members in size (p. 44)). Jefferies and Waterhouse (2002) differentiated between 'internal' stakeholders (managers, lecturers, students, etc) and 'external' ones (society, business, government, standards agencies, vendors, academic theorists, and other institutions). They then analysed each of these with relation to their source of power based on Pfeffer's 1981 study, and drew conclusions as to how this may assist in listing stakeholders. We must also recall that some projects elected for more than one group and thus different stakeholders were required for different purposes. A good example of this is De Montfort University's Managed Learning Environment Project which set up three groups 'one for Strategic Direction, one for Implementation, and the other for Management of Progress, defining the communication network between all three' (see the MLE Corporate Implementation Group paper for item 1, meeting 11 Feb 2003).
It is worthwhile summarising who you should be looking to include, or more importantly, what communities should be represented. The following list is a collation of all of the stakeholders identified by other projects. It is worth reading through these to get a feel for how many different types of people might be affected by an MLE. Many of the titles or positions may not be appropriate to your institution but you should consider if anyone else fulfils a similar role. It may well be the case that several of the roles are performed by one person, or in the case of split sites, a single role may be performed by several people across the different geographical locations.
The Stakeholders are divided into four categories. You are trying to get representation from all the people who will have input into the MLE, or will be affected by it, and especially all of the data owners who will be providing the 'content' for the system(s). Above all senior management with power to progress the initiative must be included. These could be drawn from any of the four categories or may include a senior member for each. The importance of this cannot be overstated, and if these senior representatives are unable to attend it must be made clear that they are supporting the initiative.
Satisfying all their aims in order to facilitate collaboration can be extremely problematic and a considerable amount of time can be spent in simply reaching shared understandings (Mistry et al 2002, pp. 18-19). Holyfield (2003) noted the issues associated with bringing so many different experts together 'different perspectives, different vocabularies and tools, different roles and authorities, and so on. This problem can be exacerbated if the members are dispersed across various physical locations.'
There are also issues of personalities. If your stakeholder group is not selected well they may focus too narrowly on the technology rather than the wider issues. Moreover many of the people who will be expected to use the MLE might be inherently resistant to change, or even worse staff may feel that the MLE might lead to job losses or downgrading. Addressing the problem of participation is clearly an expensive process and costly in time but if it's done well it leads to maximum levels of success.
| Stakeholder Type | Function | Represented by |
| Academic - teaching staff whose views and input will need to be taken into account. | Their activities will need to be part of the overall planning into how the system operates and interacts with the end user. | Faculty or Division Heads/Deans, Heads of Departments, and Heads/Deans of Research. |
| Administration - these form some of the main data owners and data users as the types of systems typically described as marking up an MLE underlie many of the core administrative functions of an institution. | Administrative representatives will be able to advise and outline existing core practices and a policy level view. Further more Jenkins et al (2001) noted that generally such central services have often taken decisions on choice, funding, and installation of VLEs in the past, so there may be an existing pool of expertise to draw on. | Finance Division, the Registrar, Human Resources, and Accomodation. |
| Support | These are the key services that will be charged with making sure the various components of the MLE continue to work, as well as providing the ancillary support which will arise (i.e. training, facilities, etc.), or can lend specific expertise related to other services within the instition. | IT support and/or MIS which manages the infrastructure, Library staff, Directory of Audio-Visual Services, and the Disability Unit. |
| Other | There are also various other representatives that may be viewed as potential stakeholders and included in the group. Projects studied have included the following: Students via Union representatives (e.g. Boys (March 2002, p. 3)) notes that the lack of student involvement is one reason why many implementation projects in HE fail); an expert in Intellectual Property Rights; and a representative of any commercial vendor. | Projects studied have included the following: Students via Union representatives (e.g. Boys (March 2002, p. 3)) notes that the lack of student involvement is one reason why many implementation projects in HE fail); an expert in IPR; and a representative of any commercial vendor. |
Summary
In approaching the question of whether you need an MLE we recommended that some form of group or committee is established and we have now considered who might be invited to join. Look again at the categories above and think of who from your institution would fall under each heading. Who should be brought in? If you are a multi-site institution how will you tackle this?
The next section identifies some of the preliminary discussions the group might have.
Follow this link for key resources for this section (these open in a new window)
