Coeducate Project

Higher Education Context

For English HEI the next few years will see a decreasing Hefce contribution with increasing student fees as the intended means of making up the shortfall (Lord Brown Review).  This will impact on Universities in different ways with some being able to command a premium for courses and some struggling to recruit as the cost to students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds makes HEI study less attractive.  In either case, there will be a significant squeeze on Universities budgets that are also responding to a learner agenda that is demanding more contact hours for the increasing fees being paid.  The option of increasing the number of high paying international students will also prove more difficult as new Universities across the world compete for increasingly mobile and distance learners.

Out Of Adversity Comes Opportunity

It is likely that a gap will grow between what many can afford and the prices being charged, as many UK HEI are unable to constrain their costs pass them on by way of increased fees to students.  It is in this dynamic that there is the potential to develop new ‘products’ that ‘fill-the-gap’ vacated by institutions who are unable to respond through new curriculum models that require different ways of working.  It seems likely that there will be a growth in part-time students who seek to continue to work whilst learning and institutions that seek to develop and build on existing transnational partnerships, but deliver these courses in more cost effective ways.

An Open Learning Business Model

The diagram below attempts to illustrate an open learning business model by contrasting it with other approaches.  It is a relatively straight-forward concept that moves beyond Open Educational Resources by also making freely available full programmes of learning including, learning activities, automated self-assessments, ways of interacting online with other learners, and significantly a mechanism for summative assessment leading to accreditation and awards based on the self-directed learning undertaken.

The underlying proposition is that by allowing learners to choose the level of support they need or can afford, it will make access to higher education a possibility for people who would otherwise be disenfranchised by student fees.  In response, capacity and capability need investing in to transform appropriate courses for open learning and develop and resource the processes that enable a ‘pay-as-you-go’ approach to support and assessment.

In the diagram we have identified two dimensions that are central to the model. First the extent to which there is formal recognition of learning (summative assessment, accreditation, awards) or self-evaluation by the individual concerned.  Second, a continuum of institutional resource implications that has at one extreme the campus attendance supported (lectures, tutorials, seminars, etc.) through to no ongoing resource implication beyond making the open learning materials available.  Between these two dimensions there are many possibilities and an individual learner would, in the open learning approach, select the appropriate option for them at a given time.

The Open Universities OpenLearn initiative is moving somewhat in this direction, although it is problematic in that it potentially undermines the current OU business model where learners are largely paying for high quality resources.

The Open Learning business model described requires awards frameworks that allow the combining of credit gained via different routes including the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) procedures that enable learning to be accredited through many different types of learner experience – most UK HEI already have these in place although making them more cost effective through the use of technology is an area where more work is required.

In addition, different approaches to teaching and learning including work-focussed learning, which we are piloting at the UoB, also offer ways in which we can reach out to new groups of learners.

Some Possible Open Learning Scenarios

Learner A: a well qualified a self-organised learner who has identified the need to learn about a specific business process access and uses resources independently, joining in online conversations both hosted by the university and in special interest groups when they feel the need to so do.

The University earns no money from this learner but other learner’s benefit from their contributions to online activities.

Learner B: is working full-time and has 120 L4 credit from a first year studying at a University some years ago.  Confident in their ability to learn, unable to afford to pay for study, they work through open learning modules undertaking formative assessments and evaluations as they progress.  When they feel confident in themselves that they are capable of passing an assessment they apply to be examined on that module paying a relatively modest fee for a portfolio of evidence to go through the APEL process or for a written examination to be sat.

The University earns income for assessment from this learner, this is significantly less than would be fees for traditional approaches but resources required is relatively low and the pricing reflects the cost to the institution and what the market will bear.

Learner C: is working full-time but in relatively low paid work.  In an ideal world, they would chose to study full-time on campus but this is not a possibility.  Instead they opt for a mixture of self-directed study and on topics of particular interest as, attend lecturers as their work allows.

The University earns income for assessment and for some support for this learner, this is somewhat less than would be fees for traditional approaches but resources required are determined and paid for by the student and they reflect the cost to the institution and what the market will bear.

Why this is significant?

The ideas explained above are not original, others are thinking and taking action along similar lines (George Siemens and his module on Connectivism).  However, what is significant is that this is that Open Learning is a vibrant topic of conversation at the University of Bolton as we seek to position ourselves in the years ahead to face what will undoubtedly be challenging times.  This is not proposed as a way of replacing existing courses, but for staff are seeking new ways of generating income this might be one possible route to explore.

A talis workshop in Manchester offered some very interesting food for thought about how institutions might manage their data in the future.  From a not very technical perspective, it works something like this…

RDF (Resource Description Framework) is a way of describing resources, that is making a statement about something in a structured way.  A critical part of this statement is the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that  identifies a resource by way of a unique string of characters.   This shouldn’t be confused with a URL which refers to a location where we can retrieve something – the URI simply identifies the ‘thing’ but doesn’t tell us where it is or how to get it.

Now imagine a world where online objects all have an RDF description attached.  This would enable us to start cross referencing by making assertions that the thing we have described is in some way like something else and we do this by including its URI in our RDF.   The BBC have started to use this approach on parts of their website.  For example, on this page about a Tiger, if you scroll to the bottom of the page you will see that it links to Wikipedia and uses extracted text through DBedia where the structured data of Wikipedia is made available.   This nicely illustrates how a web of interconnecting resources based on rich descriptions using URI can facilitate the transfer and combining of information from different sources around a common concept with machines processing the information – a practical implementation of the concept of the semantic web.

At Bolton we have many different databases each holding related information about courses and programmes.   At the moment, we are expending a lot of effort in trying to get these systems to interoperate with each other.  It doesn’t take much imagination to see that if our databases used RDF it would in principle allow this to happen.

However, the real potential of  RDF is that it allows us to combine data in ways that we haven’t yet dreamt of, and this point was well made by presenters at the workshop.   As more and more data is made available in this way, more people will make the links and connections and combine information that they find valuable.   Personally I would like my postcode connected to local information such as; library opening times; the blue, green, and black bin collection dates;  and other services both private and public.

Anyone who is interested in the technical side of this needs to start thinking of databases not in terms of a collection of interlinked tables, but in terms of ‘graphs’ that describe things in terms of triplets ( subject [e.g., car], predicate [e.g., colour] & objects [e.g., blue]).  By creating a query (much the same way as for SQL) it is possible to identify matching patterns on the graph to pull out the data that is of interest.

As usual, the Camel event provides an effective forum for projects to update each other, exchange ideas, and consider opportunities. On reflection, the main point that came out of the day was the unprecedented state of flux that the sector is in. Financial pressures are resulting in curriculum reviews, reorganisations, pressure for quick solutions to very complex challenges, but also opportunities as institutions seek to develop new business models and strategies for growth outside of Hefce funding.

We spent some time discussing XCRI and possibilities for its extension to richer descriptions of units of learning. This is a complex area as for one thing there is little agreement over the landscape – features, names, characteristics, etc. However two conclusions were arrived at. The first is that currently it would be too much to expect XCRI to be the vehicle for these richer descriptions, this would overcomplicate the specification and become mired in politics. Secondly, it would be very useful if CETIS were to pull together an online resource to ‘map the landscape’ as a first step to getting to grips with current ideas, projects and initiatives across the UK, Europe and wider.

Lastly, despite the lack of interest in developing the XCRI specification for competencies, as an adjunct to the Coeducate project Bolton is undertaking an XCRI mini project to look at exposing common module information such as learning outcomes, level, and quantity of credit.

Moving into the tool development phase of the project we are now consulting with staff using Idealised Design methodology (Russell Ackoff) to generate a specification. This approach supports an agile software design development process – developers working closely with users to iteratively build software.

We are aiming to meet two overarching needs identified from our initial inquiry:
1. tools to support creative design;
2. and tools to replace unproductive labour (validation documentation).

To achieve the above we anticipate tying in the current module database with Moodle where the design and authoring environment will be accessed by course developers.

We think that some of this will be achieved using widgets served from a Wookie server. On the plus side this will allow us to develop interoperable widgets (relatively easy) that can be used in other platforms and by other people, although this will present a challenge with the transfer of data into other University systems (the module databases, etc.) from the Wookie server which is well suited to allowing collaboration by different users, but not necessarily to transfer data out to other systems in an integrated way.

Employer Based Training Accreditation (EBTA), is a process sponsored by fdf to enable employers to get accreditation for in-house training that they provide. The proposition behind the initiative has three elements:

An event run by FDF designed to look at how shell awards and frameworks could support this process provided some interesting examples of practice from HEI including Derby, York St Johns and The Open University, that latter being a very different model.

An overall impression was that in our desire to offer different routes in higher education we run the risk of creating unsustainable business models that are trying to bring together a complex set of regulations (quality assurance, funding, semesters & modularity), policy initiatives and working practices without addressing fundamental issues and questions. A change of policy brought about by the current economic climate or a change in government would alter the environment significantly.

In designing our evaluation strategy we have thought long and hard about the approach we wish to take.  The Jisc ‘corporate’ overview on evaluation is described on their website as:

Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of data to assess whether an activity has been effective, achieved its objectives, or had an impact. It is an important part of any project or programme because it can assess the feasibility or development of a programme of work (formative), the overall success or value of completed work (summative) and to capture the learning that has taken place during the activity.

As many people who have been involved in evaluative research would agree, the assessment of whether an activity has been effective or achieved its objectives is problematic, and in particular, when disseminating work that is useful for a wider community.  Some of our thinking around this problem is influenced by the work of Bassey who in conceptualising educational cases studies identifies one approach as being “theory-seeking and theory-testing” and the work of Pawsen and Tilley on ‘Realistic Evaluation’ who seek to answer the question “What works for whom in what circumstances?”

In both examples there is an explicit recognition that actions taken in one set of circumstances will work differently in another context, but that there is a need to generate theories that can help policy makers and practitioners beyond the case in study.  In both approaches, the systematic collection of data is an essential component but where they, arguably, differ from other approaches to evaluation is in their objective to generate theoretical understanding that has wider value and not to develop a template that can be applied again and again with predictable outcomes.

I would argue that an illustrative example of the difference between approaches and attempts to bridge the divide can be seen in the school effectiveness / improvement debate  (here & here) where targets and league tables are used to judge the effectiveness of institutions.  This argument rests on the emphasis placed on ‘achievement oriented school effectiveness’ (think Chris Woodhead)’ verses ‘process oriented school improvement’.  Interestingly, although the school sector is rowing back somewhat from target setting with the dismantling of measures such as SATs in England and in the NHS the debate about targets is hotting up, higher education is rushing headlong into league tables for just about anything that can be measured in the belief that it will provide a stimulus for improvement in standards – HEI effectiveness approach.

The challenge for Coeducate is to move from a philosophical standpoint to a plan for a realistic evaluation!

A good event throughout that progressed two important avenues of inquiry.

1.  The ‘new business models’ that are required for new approaches to teaching and learning which in turn demand new working practices with all this implies for middle managers seeking to coordinate staff .  Encouragingly there is a lot of experience in the group, in particular work that Tony Toole (critical friend) has undertaken around activity-based costing will feed well into future events that the support project will host.

2. A concrete understanding of how the practice of ‘coaching’ is another role that HE teachers (not necessarily lecturer) might take.  The particular question of interest for Coeducate is how this can be combined with the concept of facilitation and consultancy that are at the heart of the project IDIBL framework.

Attached is a workshop (resources and Online activity design of keynote attached) I put together for Bolton.  It tries to get staff to think about activity design for online learning.  There are two activities.

One based around the Edinburgh Scenarios developed by Cross and Star in 2005.  The second was based on the idea that staff need to think in three dimensions when planning online learning; roles, activities & resources/tools (IMS LD would call this last one environments).

I think the session went well, and I will be refining and running it again in a few months time.

This Guardian  Article might provide an interesting portent of things to come.  I think that this example is the most interesting “London College of Communications (LCC) is closing 16 of the 19 courses offered in a single school” as it points to a re-structuring of the curriculum as a response to straightened times.

Many institutional managers would complain that there is massive duplication in courses and modules.   Arguably,  there is the opportunity for  rationalisation of bulging portfolios with some creative thought about how variety can be achieved through an outcomes based approach (less prescriptive modules that enable different outcomes for individual students) rather than creating more and more courses to try and match the demands of the market place and desires of lecturers to teach to their passion!

A very interesting day, but not necessarily in the way I expected it to be.  My motivation for attending was to bring my knowledge up-to-date in the area of e-Assessment now covered by the newly established association.

I think it fair to say that I was shocked that e-Assessment in its various forms discussed hadn’t matured much beyond the quizzes and tests I remember as a school teacher at the end of the 1990s.  Clearly the technology is different including the web based nature of e-assessment, but apart from that I was struggling to see where pedagogical sophistication was being applied.  If e-Assessment is to become accepted and trusted as a mainstream assessment approach, there needs to be significant developments that will give lecturers confidence in the validity and reliability of the tests within the context of ‘higher education’ outcomes.

An interesting Report presentation on the state of Summative E-Assessment Quality in UK HEI was presented by Lester Gilbert commissioned on the basis of the Jisc definition of e-assessment, but which I think exemplifies part of the problem:

“E-assessment is the end-to-end electronic assessment process where ICT is used for the presentation of assessment activity, and the recording of responses…” (Jisc 2008)

My impression gained from the presentation was that practice across the sector was at best patchy with little attention being given to the quality of e-assessment.  However, the project teams interpretation of the Jisc definition excluded approaches such as e-portfolio which have proven to be successful in numerous institutions.  I wonder if this marks a line in the sand between a ‘computer scientists’ view of the world where there is still a belief that machine ‘interpreted’ tests can be developed in such a way as to be sophisticated enough to replace other forms of assessment that require human interpretation and a sceptic position that sees tests such as this having at best a small part to play in higher education assessment.

Technical point

Some developments that sounded promising included the progress of an IMS V 2.0 Question and Test Interoperability (QTI) standard tha offers the prospect of increased interoperability in transporting assessments although its use will be restricted by the legacy platforms that are used by Universities and the functionality offered by the Common Cartridge 1.1 (hopefully version Common Cartridge 1.2 will be a close map onto QTI 2.1).

A useful conference that highlights a set of activities around work-based learning that offer real opportunities for institutions like Bolton.  The highlights for me were:

1. discussions around the EBTA process whose models are many and varied, but all include substantial employer and employee engagement
2. employer engagement through Chambers of Commerce as anything from a broker to delivery of courses, this diagram, based on one presented, illustrates the approach
3. SME spend money on training in a 2:1 ratio of private to public delivered training and 30% care about the qualification their staff receive from that training
4. A panel discussion between three employers (Acenture, Jewsons, NHS) left me with these general impressions:
   • HEI are hopelessly unresponsive (speed to market) and difficult to deal with by comparison with private trainers
   • needs to be a change to a market driven approach understanding client issues not just selling what they have
   • often employers want to buy a solution that is collaborative, that is would include several HEI and other partners
   • in community provision will be increasingly important for health service
   • credibility for HEI is in short supply with employers, so this needs gaining first and HEI vocabulary is unhelpful in all of this
   • higher education qualifications are valued by employers and their workforce but there is an important element of training in what they want that has a ready impact on ROI

Dr Christopher Jones presenting at the At the Jisc Learning & Teaching meeting, reported on an ESRC funded project investigating the ‘Net Generation‘.  Essentially, a project looking at the generation who have grown up with technology when they first encounter higher education.  The slides will be availabale later, these are a few of the interesting points that stood out for me:

• the extent to which students do NOT appear to be demanding changes in the use of technology by HEI;
• the extent to which technology use and adoption is a result of users need and life circumstances rather than being explained by Prensky like notions of Digital Natives and Immigrants, there was no evidence of a strong schism between cohorts of learners (already a damaged idea but with increasing evidence based research now debunking many of the ideas;
• the extent to which the types of Universities students studied at (post 92, community, Russell Group, etc.) didn’t appear to correlate to the way in which students use technology.

References:

Jones, Chris and Cross, Simon (2009). Is there a Net generation coming to university? In: ALT-C 2009 “In dreams begins responsibility”: Choice, evidence and change, 8-10 September 2009, Manchester, UK.

Jones, Chris and Ramanau, Ruslan (2009). Collaboration and the Net generation: The changing characteristics of first year university students. In: Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Practices, 8-13 June 2009, Rhodes, Greece.

Jones, Chris and Ramanau, Ruslan (2009). The Net Generation enters university: What are the implications for Technology Enhanced Learning? In: M-2009: Proceedings of the 23rd ICDE World Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education including the 2009 EADTU Annual Conference, 7-10 June 2009, Maastricht, NL.

Jones, Chris; Ramanau, Ruslan; Cross, Simon and Healing , Graham (2009). Net generation or Digital Natives: Is there a distinct new generation entering university? Computers and Education (In Press).

Back in the 1970′s the CSE was developed with the aim of addressing the problem of the large numbers of school leavers who had no formal qualifications.  As a part of the CSE model, Mode III delivery allowed teachers to determine both the syllabus and assessment of a course with quality assurance provided through a system of external evaluation by teachers from other schools.  Supporters of this approach cited the increase in achievement made possible by the ability to develop a programme of learning that was relevant to a particular group of students.  Detractors claimed that assessments lacked both validity and reliability as teachers simply taught to the assessment and in the end the new GCSE combined CSE and O Levels into one qualification.

Most universities develop courses in a way that has parallels to Mode III; lecturers determine the syllabus and its assessments with reference to external markers such as subject benchmark statements and professional body requirements.  Quality assurance is achieved through internal processes with an overview by external examiners.  In this ‘bespoke’ model of higher education, an individual lecturer ‘embroiders’ the syllabus including the assessment.  One result of this, as Mark Johnson would say, is that it becomes as much the ‘teacher’ that the students are studying and their interpretation of the curriculum rather than any notion of an impartial body of knowledge.  Similar arguments can be made as were put forward on both sides of the Mode III debate, but for us the major challenge that arises out of this approach is that of scalability.

The Coeducate project is trying to develop modes of delivery that aren’t based upon face-to-face campus activities, owned by an individual lecturer, nor necessarily organised at departmental level.  Rather we are trying to develop work-based courses that use flexible, process-based frameworks in conjunction with re-usable content-based modules that can be delivered at a distance and by different people.  In doing this, however, we don’t want to lose what we believe is one of the essential qualities of studying in higher education which is about added value of the relationships between teachers and learners.

By contrast, The Open University approach to course development has a very well elaborated syllabus supported by high quality resources, centrally developed assessments that are delivered by contract lecturers.  Other examples that differ from the norm are Foundation Degrees that are often delivered by partner colleges in the work-place.  In this example, a high degree of collaborative working is required between the different teachers and all of this is underpinned by tight contractual agreements.  Another strategy is to change the instrument of assessment from examination to portfolios where broader based assessment criteria can be applied, rather than a ‘mark sheet’.  This approach allows for a wide interpretation of the syllabus by the teacher without impacting on equitability of opportunity for the learner to pass the assessment.

In the schools system a GCSE can be sat without any teaching (no attendance requirements) by simply paying a fee and turning up at the assessment centre.  In higher education we generally maintain a strong link between notional study hours (volume of learning expressed as credit), level of study (NQF 4-8), and the individual teacher/lecturer who delivers a particular unit of learning.  If in higher education are to develop new business models that might eventually be based around the loosely defined open education, then we will need to find ways to decouple the assessment from the teacher and at the same time maintain the valuable aspects of studying in higher education that are often more about the people than the syllabus.

In mid July I attended a one-day workshop run by FDF.  The approach taken was formulaic as one might expect from a ‘tool kit’, but still worthwhile and as it is being rolled out nationally colleagues at other institutions may get the opportunity to attend.

The big issue raised for me was how do HEI in a significant way muscle into the already very crowded landscape of employer funded training?

Crowded landscape

We were told that, as a generalisation, Universities lack credibility with employers in their ability to develop programmes of learning that ‘add value’ to the employers business.  (employers felt lecturers needed more experience of the ‘real world’ of business to make their knowledge and expertise suitable for training today, – Report to Foundation Degree Forward on the impact of foundation degrees on students and the workplace). In addition, a raft of private organisations already have very strong links and a track record of providing valued training and this single ‘point of contact’ is a tremendous advantage from the employers perspective;  why would employers want to put effort into managing multiple relationships?  Even worse still, when it comes to universities it is often several individuals in the same institution they have to deal with as effective customer relationship management is a pipe dream rater than a reality.

Strategy

If the above analysis is to be believed, then it demands a strategy be developed that looks seriously at the problem and has some ways of addressing it.  The strtaegy should provides a framework for decisions based on guiding principles, objectives, goals and structures to inform the operational plan that details activities and targets including periodic reviews.

One obvious approach would seem to be for HEI to build strong relationships with private providers and work through them to both sell products and gain market knowledge.  In addition, the development of a dedicated team that handles employer relationships (sales, development, marketing) and is able to speak authoritatively on behalf of the University and its departments about the current course offerings, pricing, etc., but also develop new products quickly to meet their needs.  Not to mention slick Accreditation of Prior learning to reduce the time and effort required to achieve a named award – the overall list is long…

A few moments reflection highlights the enormity of this task.  Semester patterns that determine delivery opportunities, inflexible staffing models, high levels of autonomy at subject/discipline/department/& individual lecturer level, etc.  And as always there is the bigger question of where a ‘higher education’ simply becomes ‘technical training’ and whether universities should be in the business of delivering the latter.

By way of a revision lesson, I attended the XCRI project support day at Manchester Metropolitan University last Monday.  For those who don’t know, the XCRI project has developed specification (XCRI-CAP v1.0 Schema) for the exchange of descriptions of courses that is both ‘light weight’, but also extensible and so flexible to individual institutions needs using XML.  The primary aims are twofold, firstly to reduce the duplication of effort and errors that arise out of re-keying data which is common place in institution marketing activities.  Secondly, to make information about courses readily available so that third parties can use it for other purposes, obvious examples being  UCAS (although not signed up yet) and other organisations that provide a service to match students to courses.

Several interest points came out of the session:
1.  the pragmatic and wise choice to focus on the marketing function when developing the project and subsequent CAP specifications.  With a curriculum design hat on it is easy to grasp the relevance for other University processes, but including Quality Assurance and curriculum design activities would have meant that the project would, in my opinion, have made little progress;
2. the potential of the specification for the HEAR reforms (however they play out) in helping institutions through the minefield of managing rich descriptions of instances of programmes (version control of validated course information as well as marketing and tutor interpretations) and combining that with personal and other extra curricula information.

The big news story is that the close working relationship between this project and the European standards development processes has resulted in a very close mapping between the two.  If your institution isn’t considering how XCRI could help their business development, then they should certainly take a look and talk to either Scott Wilson, Mark Stubbs or Alan Paull.

As part of the activities for our second work-package (Understanding the challenge and identifying the changes)  we are attempting to incorporate SODA methodology (now extended to the concept of Journey-making) with our underpinning Soft System Methodology (SSM).

The SODA process uses the techniques of  interviews/focus groups and cognitive mapping to help participants collectively understand complex and ‘messy’ problems and negotiate a plan of action.  Like SSM, there is a strong emphasis on group ownership of a problem and collaborative action to address it.  Developed initially from Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory it utilises the key ideas of:

• Individuality – experiences that change us;
• Commonality – the idea that similar experiences people have results in them making similar interpretations;
• Sociality – the extent to which we communicate;
• Hierachy – the natural way we think and prioritise issues.

Based on a workshop I attended at Banxia Software (closely connected to Ackerman & Eden who developed SODA) some key points to bear in mind if you are considering using this approach and in particular the Decision Explorer tool desined for cognitive mapping:

• it is a qualitative in nature;
• cognitive maps imply causal links between different concepts that are usually expressed as opposing poles, e.g. Putting lecture material online increases flexibility of access rather than reduces attendance at lectures;
• cognitive maps are not concept maps nor mind maps which simply show ideas / concepts / actions, etc. around a key word;
• using this approach reduces the ‘volume’ of options to a manageable level;
• bespoke software enables analysis of maps to identify most potention options, that is those that impact positively on multiple strategic/key issues  and high level goals;
• the strength of the approach is in the structuring of group discussions and exploration of concepts and their poles not the identification of a particular answer through the use of the software and;
• like other modeling methodologies, the individual can gain most by using it as a way of structuring their own thinking about problems.

A well pitched workshop that enabled Curriculum Design projects present to evaluate the benefits of different modelling approaches and in particular using ArchiMate.

It is a coherent whole of principles, methods and models that are used in the design and realization of the enterprise’s organizational structure, business processes, information systems, and IT infrastructure.

One key message was that ArchimaMate’s strength is its ability to support conversations and aid understanding between groups with different levels of technical familiarity.  This helps to keep conversations focussed on the business processes avoinding unecessary confusion with particular technological solutions.

Like all modeling approaches, it important to be to draw boundaries in terms of the depth and breadth of the modeling activity – to answer this users need to be acutely aware of the purpose in terms of their project.  This is an important point as the working involved in creating models in bespoke software that allows for multiple views of linked objects can be time consuming and expensive.  It may be that simple drawing packages that capture the essence of a model are sufficient for supporting conversations around a given implementation or change.

Options for modeling languages include:

• Unified Modeling Language (UML) – strength for software modeling
• BPMN – strength for business process modeling
• Archimate – accessible but not so good for software or pure business process modeling

The Curriculum Design Programme Meeting (Birmingham, 13th May) had as one of its aims raising awareness amongst the projects of the overarching evaluation that is being undertaken.

The interplay between project and programme goals pose an interesting set of questions around to what extent the latter will or should influence the former.  Key stakeholder groups are different as is the political landscape in which they operate.  In addition, a wide diversity of methodologies are being deployed both in terms of management of activities and their evaluation.

Conversation briefly touched upon the term transformation and in particular the ‘quality’ or precise (measurable) nature of the transformations – an important issue for JISC, particularly in the context of upcoming straitened times for public funding.  I would imagine that this powerful word had many project teams contemplating what the institutional wide ‘dramatic’ change would be as a direct result of their project and how realistic a prospect this is.

Our first cluster meeting or Camel (think along the lines of learning set) hosted by Manchester Met illustrated two commonalities between projects.  First was the challenges faced by the different institutions present and the relative similarity of our responses. Second was how many of the ideas being discussed included ‘negotiated’ approaches to learning & the development of personalised programmes of study; an inherently more complex and complicated design.

As might be expected, all of the projects depend to a greater or lesser extent on the argument that ICT offers a significant new opportunity to do things differently; to overcome challenges such as administrative complexity & higher ‘teaching’ costs.

Discussions included:

• size of chunks of learning; options such as accumulate teaching of credits (bite sized) with assessment when sufficient amount is built up to make it worthwhile
• client delivered teaching with university quality assured assessment
• development of frameworks & templates to help with pricing for clients & confident ‘sales’ discussions
• development of frameworks & templates to aid rapid validation or other less onerous procedures for bringing courses to market
• development of common approaches; assessment patterns, size of modules, generic learning outcomes
• degree to which validated modules/units can be adapted without re-validation; name changes for marketing purposes, different assessments
• shifting QA to faculty/school level; validation modules, award titles within frameworks

Overall the focus of the discussion was on the adaptation of what we currently do to meet perceived changing demands through the spreading of existing good practice within our institutions in the domain of work-based learning.

Although touched upon, we had little critical discussion about the implications of HE institutions developing programmes of learning and modules that match employers and professional bodies requirements and what this means for the identity of higher education institutions.  Oleg used the Viable System Model to illustrate this point and in particular Stafford Beer’s approach to measuring performance illustraed by the diagram below taken from Wikipedia.

Actuality (what is actually being achieved)

Capability (what could be achieved if problems were identified and removed)

Potentiality (what could be achieved if the process was completely redesigned to maximise effectiveness)

Oleg went on to explain that  Actuality/Capability gives us Productivity, and Capability/Potentiality as Latency.  Whether or not we chose to actually derrive a measure, this is a useful way of fraeming our considerations and proposals for action.

PDF of coEducate presentation. In the discussion that followed, one suggestion made was that we develop the IDIBL framework (one of our pilot initiatives) so that it can be used for CPD around curriculum development issues. This is something that we might pursue as an online tool.

After numerous focus group sessions and interviews the picture of curriculum design at UoB is becoming clearer, although as one might expect, also complex.  In starting to apply the Viable System Model (VSM) to analyse the situation, we are lead to think about what are the ‘real’ boundaries that delineate viable entities within the university (ones with a distinct identity) in contrast to the boundaries resulting from the organisational structure put in place for management purposes of the current curriculum.

This might be significant in terms of curriculum development is if those with management responsibilities (e.g. quality assurance, teaching & learning to name but two) understand different epistemological traditions, or practices regarding assessment from those proposing new courses.

A second question raised is what will it mean to be a viable member of teaching staff as the curriculum changes? How will staff respond and can we build the workflows and regulations that support the changed practices that will be required of them around activities such as marking, getting external examiners to assessment boards, giving student feedback module by module etc.

Seldon calls for exam revolution in UK schools ‘In the name of fairness, we have embraced dullness,’ professor of education to tell College of Teachers – Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 March 2009 15.36 GMT

Although primarily aimed at schools, this article does touch on higher education towards the bottom.  Arguably a quick find and replace of the word school/s with university/ies, teacher/s with lecturer/s, heads with vice chancellor/s and it pretty much makes sense in the UK, HE context!

We need to educate people to be flexible, with human skills and a deep sense of value.

Once children start to believe schools are places where things are being done for them, rather than done to them, their interest [in education] will revive,” Seldon argues. Schools will then become “places of delight, of excitement, and of harmony.

Testing and examinations have spread in Britain and elsewhere in the world, because of a lack of trust – of schools, heads and teachers,” the speech says. “Government officials have sought, through exams and testing, to make education ‘teacher proof’ around the world.

“This squeezes out originality, imagination, individuality and flair, he argues.

In the name of fairness, we have embraced dullness – and so close are we to it that we do not even see what has happened,” Seldon will say. “School districts, individual schools, principals, faculties and departments, and teachers, have become valued according to one measure alone: their success at passing these exams.

We pump ‘useless facts’ into students – a technique employed in the Victorian era and parodied by Charles Dickens in Hard Times with the character of rigid teacher Thomas Gradgrind.

Whether in Brighton or Burnley, Beijing or Bogotá, Bracknell or Bangalore, schools are dancing to Gradgrind’s drum beat of facts, facts, facts more than ever.

Facts have a place, but only a limited place, in education. The facts children learn today will become superseded. We need to educate minds as well as teach facts. The 21st century will be very different: we need to educate people to be flexible, with human skills and a deep sense of value.

“It is not just the school system that has its faults. Seldon accuses universities of ignoring academic breadth and personal achievement.”

Despite their protestations to the contrary, most universities do not value academic breadth or co-curriculum and personal achievement,” he will say. “By failing to do more to acknowledge and reward breadth, universities are not encouraging school pupils to stretch themselves beyond their A-levels.

Increasingly, higher education institutions are becoming training or instruction grounds for professions – law, accountancy, business – courses which sit uneasily with purer subjects like English, history and natural sciences.

Reading through this report over the past few days has been a valuable activity.  Although largely based on only a handful of HE institutions it is a good overview of higher level learning in the workplace and is worth dipping into if not reading cover to cover.

Many projects in the Curriculum Design programme mention frameworks; arguably the most overused term in curriculum development!  However, the table below struck me as a good starting point for a discussion on what a work-based learning framework should aspire to.  One point that I would take issue with is the characterisation of:

“‘template’ or ‘shell’ modules, which are based on the traditional module descriptors model, but outline only generic learning outcomes rather than any specific content.”

There is a danger that in trying to explain the difference between such modules and ones that specify a syllabus of discipline knowledge that we fail to make clear that the “specific content” in the learning outcomes are in fact processes that lead to the development of student capabilities not that the modules are ‘content free’.

On Tuesday 17th February, we ran a focus group with the middle managers (QPL) responsible for ‘Quality Assurance and Enhancement’ within the 5 schools (faculty/departments) at the University of Bolton (UoB).  Their job title clearly explains their area of responsibility, and although working within the different schools they are coordinated by the central unit responsible for Quality Assurance and Enhancement – I imagine that there is a similar setup elsewhere.

What role do QPL play in curriculum design?  Different ‘world views’ emerged about the nature of  work around quality:

• the current system works relatively well with part of the role of the QPL being to interpret a complex set of rules and processes so that others can bring courses to the market.  We can tweak it, use technology to make things easier but there is no need for a radical overhaul;
• bureaucratic requirements have become excessive, and we need to devolve more responsibility back to schools away from the centre;
• bureaucracy can get in the way of of creativity, how do we achieve the right balance between the two?

Another interesting discussion that arose was around the extent to which increasing specialisation in the university workforce has reduced the likelihood of new curriculum initiatives developing from the grass roots.  This opens up an interesting avenue of thought around the ownership of curriculum and who it is, that might take the risks associated with new initiatives; individual academics, subject areas, schools, employers, learners, professional bodies or even the QAA through their benchmark statements?

Over the past few weeks discussions with colleagues at Bolton we have begun to surface factors that impact on curriculum development connected to what might be referred to as Institutional Memory.

The University of Bolton (UoB) has a long history and can trace its roots back to 1824 when the Bolton Mechanics Institute was established.  Over time, in response to national agendas and local demand new schools and colleges were developed that culminated in the formation of  the Bolton Institute of Higher Education in 1982.

At this time, the CNAA (1965-1992) awarded degrees for non-university institutions and it had a strong tradition in requiring extensive documentation as a part of its quality control procedures.  This included the requirement to demonstrate a rationale and coherence to an overall programme as well as evidence that infrastructure and qualified staff were in place to deliver it.  The CNAA was abolished in 1992 and the UoB was awadrd independent powers to award taught degrees in 1990, and research degrees in 1994.  However, it was not until 2004 that full University status was awarded to the then Bolton Institute of Higher Education and in 2005 the name changed to the University of Bolton.

An recurring observation being made is that the requirements of the CNAA not only still strongly influence the formal processes surrounding curriculum development, but that they also still strongly influence the culture; informal activities and ways of thinking about curriculum.  Deal and Kennedy (1985) used the phrase “the way we do things around here” to refer to these informal cultural elements of a business that are vital to its successful operation.

We need to ask questions of both the formal and informal to check that they are operating in a way that is best suited to the development of curriculum at the UoB in 2009.

Last week as a part of the generation of a ‘rich picture’ (SSM) and problem structuring (SODA) we interviewed the George Holmes (VC) and Peter Marsh (DVC) to try and get a better understanding of the significance of curriculum design for the UoB.  Both interviews were interesting and for different reasons.  From Peter who has had a long connection with Bolton it was interesting to get an historical perspective of the progression of Bolton from the old Council for National Academic Awards days through to Bolton’s status now as a quite new University with independent awarding powers.  This perspective helps us to understand the rigorous Quality Assurance process and culture and practice of course development at Bolton.

From George, it was helpful to get an insight into UoB as a ‘business’ including the analysis of how the institution and its staff will have to change the way we do things rather than just adapt our current offereings incrementaly.  Arguably, this will require us to develop new curroculum as well as reinterpret what it is that the higher education experience should offer students.

From our projects perspective the distinction between work-based and work-focused is important as it stems from our pedagogical approach which is one of action-inquiry (or action-research).

The key word is action, and we expect learners who follow this approach to improve some aspect of their work not stopping at

finding out about something as as the word inquiry could imply.  Kurt Lewin is generally credited with coining the phrase action research with its cyclical or iterative process addressing real work-focussed issues or opportunities  following the steps in the diagram  (reproduced from the encyclopaedia of informal education [www.infed.org]).

In choosing the phrase work-focussed we are deliberately marking out our approach as different from other work-based learning approaches that do not require learners to take actions to improve their work-place.

The Coeducate project ran a workshop for the Northern Universities Consortium for Credit Accumulation & Transfer (NUCCAT) focusing on the IDIBL framework and broader implications for institutions who are seeking to innovate around online community supported, work-based learning that uses action-inquiry approaches.  The presentation (pdf) covers some of the history behind Coeducate including the rationale for moving to a model where the module learning outcomes and assessment criteria do not address particular discipline or subject content but are written towards student skills and capabilities that will be developed. Some of the challenges discussed are listed below:
• productivity agreement – 550 hours?  Little understanding of the resource implications of supporting students through online communities, certainly old algorithms will need revising
• assessment – let’s stop marking?  How can we convince teaching staff that alternatives to essays and examinations can be fair, equitable and at least as reliable as current methods
• staff development – how will the new workforce of confident online facilitators be developed
• articulating the argument for action inquiry et al – this is so alien to many potential learners and teachers that it is hard to explain particularly as it requires a quantum shift in perceptions about learning and teaching
• university enterprise systems – technical, pedagogical and administrative aren’t up to the challenge of flexible learning as they were designed for large annual intakes of ‘traditional’ students

This newly published archive by the HEA is well worth a browse if for nothing more that to remind you that very little is truly new.  The archive is a collection of “reports from the field and discussion papers on what at the time were innovative curriculum developments” presented at 40 national conferences that were set up to give academics a forum to “share experience and learn from each other rather than presenting top-down solutions to curriculum challenges”.

Some of the material from this Beyond Competence to Capability and the Learning Society conference looked particularly relevant to some of our work in Bolton today – this paper from the University of Derby being a good example.

One of the strands of inquiry for Coeducate like many other CD projects is mapping and understanding our enterprise systems that support curriculum design.  Recent meetings have moved us to a position whereby we know have a basic map across the institutions IT systems, the diagram in this post being a fragment of that, and we are now elaborating the relationships (data flows, etc.), and starting to think in terms of service oriented architecture.

Undertaking this work has surfaced the high levels of interdependency between central units, as well as the conflicts of interest; one example being moving the student application process entirely online.

It is anticipated that this will yield significant efficiency benefits as well as improve the student experience.  However, there is also the risk that we will lose benefits that  human interventions bring.  One small example being the spotting of repeat bogus applications that admissions staff have become very adept at spotting sometimes simply by recognising handwriting from previous attempt to join the university.

The challenge is to automate but to do so in such a way that reconises and retains the advantages of the current approach by working inclusively with staff involved, drawing their experience and expertise, and not imposing a solution.

The extract below outlines our initial thinking around the evaluation of the Coeduacte project.  A challenge is to identify an approach to evaluation that fits the requirements of Jisc, but that also compliments the overall methodological approach of the project.  An analogy could be made between this and the assessment for learning movement: we don’t want to evaluate (assess) for the sake of evaluation  but do wish to evaluate so that it leads to a better understanding of where we are and the actions we can take to move towards our aims (assessment for learning).

The evaluative process is a key component of the Coeducate project. Ultimately, we see the value of the project in being able to say with some certainty to external parties what is likely to happen and in which circumstances if interventions similar to those on the Coeducate project are undertaken. The value of the project is inherent in the added control that this knowledge will give other institutions.

The philosophical grounding for our approach is Realistic Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley, 2002). Its primary role is to identify meaningful distinctions and mechanisms which revolve around the curriculum design process. The evaluation process will involve focus-group activities and other methods (including Soft Systems approaches) of extracting stakeholder views, theories, distinctions and experiences of curriculum design. As each iterative stage progresses, the project will seek to test these mechanisms and distinctions, leading to refinement or rejection. By the end of the project, the intention is that the project will have identified a number of principle mechanisms between its stakeholders with explanatory and predictive powers within the broader Higher Education context.

Back in September when we were beginning to think about the Coeducate project in earnest, one of the activities that I undertook was to create a timeline of the HE policies and significant reports that I could find.  It is very much work in progress but even a casual glance will stir meories in many connected with HE and may just help set the context for the HE system that we find in the UK today.

As a four year project we are fortunate to have enough time to have a real go at our aim  through pursuing the objectives identified.  However, it is work bearing in mind that Universities are analogous to supertankers in their ability to change a course or direction…

Aim
Develop a technologically supported approach to programme development that is efficient, agile and responsive to purchaser and learner needs while protecting the rigour and quality of the existing validation mechanisms.

Objectives:
•    development of collaborative and transparent processes for initial course identification & curriculum design across the UoB & with stakeholders;
•    cross-institutional buy-in to the identification and implementation of the new practices required to develop courses
•    cross-institutional capacity building in the ability to critically examine and develop the UoB work-focussed curricula
•    embedding of inquiry-based learning including negotiated learning in work-focussed programmes offered by the UoB

The text below summarises the Coeducate project methodology.  For anyone interested in pursuing this further the following are worth worth looking at: Soft Systems Methodology in Action by Peter Checkland; Realising Systems Thinking: Knowledge and Action in Management Science (Contemporary Systems Thinking) by John Mingers; and Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis: An Integrated Approach by Valerie Belton and Theodor J. Stewart.

Our approach is to undertake a complete review of the course development process within the university, from identifying curricular need to validation, in order to identify how this process should be streamlined to allow more dynamic and responsive curriculum processes.  The review will necessarily involve modelling academic, departmental and whole university processes, and will provide baseline data to allow comparison with other institutions and the COVARM reference model.  Following the review we will work with staff and schools to develop processes and adapt technologies to facilitate these. These processes will include support for developing new ideas for courses, examining their fit with existing provision, and course planning. Tools will be implemented to support these, based on existing JISC work (Phoebe in particular), but reworked to support the CPD, inquiry-based, work-focussed approaches we are proposing to adopt. All new courses will comply to the XCRI specification.  The project will not directly address activities supporting the delivery of programmes.

A multimethodology systems approach will be applied to the problem identification and interventions including Soft Systems Methodology, Multiple Decision Criteria Analysis and Viable Systems Model and Strategic Options Development Analysis (SODA). This approach seeks to identify divergent views and to accommodate individuals in a collaborative endeavour to problem solve and arrive at consensual solutions.

For anyone who is interested – download the Coeducate project bid.