Enabling innovation and change – Part 2

In the previous post I suggested we can think of technology-driven change as progressing through a number of distinct stages as described  for example by the MIT90s model. From the Rogers curve we can also think of each stage addressing the needs of quite distinct core groups and we should address our message and support approach accordingly.

This is of course a far from original observation; McKenzie (1999) demanded a “mammoth campaign”  to reach these not-early-adopters who are more pragmatic and risk-adverse than pioneers. They want proof of results, he said, (often termed ‘evidence’) before they invest their effort. To cross the ‘chasm’ institutions must therefore develop “a complete package, a total solution that is user friendly, complete and well supported”.

It could be argued that to at least some extent the ‘chasm’ has now been crossed at UCL, for example nearly all taught modules have Moodle courses and there is widespread use of technologies such as Turnitin and LectureCast. And of course this is the result of exactly the “mammoth campaign” McKenzie envisaged which has established UCL Moodle as a well-supported low-risk environment.

Part of that campaign has been to work not only with UCL’s academic community but also our teaching administrators who we find often support the Moodle environment often quite extensively at a departmental level. This UCL-specific approach of ‘supporting the supporters’ has helped our late adopters ‘cross the chasm’ by providing them support at the local as well as central level.

Nevertheless this approach may have its limitations. The campaign was indeed ‘mammoth’ and the UCL baseline level of Moodle use is actually quite modest in its aim – it uses a tiny fraction of the capacity of the system to enhance teaching and learning. We seem to have crossed the chasm only to now face a steep uphill climb to get technology-enabled teaching and learning innovation embedded into mainstream processes.

This has led to a re-think of how we can use the MIT90s model to provide another way to ‘cross the chasm’ . I’ll start with an anecdote I only re-analysed last week!

A few years ago I was working in another institution trying to provide a focus for distance learning. This was a traditional research-focused university but there were a handful of localised distance learning programmes. As a first step to coordination I organised the enthusiasts as a ‘community of practice’, essentially holding a series of meetings where we identified and exchanged good practice.  From this emerged a short guidance document to help newcomers in the area.  At this stage the activity could be considered co-ordinated. To move it into the transformative stage, though, this document had to become part of the institutional processes, and ownership had to move from the community to the university. Through discussions with registry and their teaching and learning committee it eventually became part of the mainstream quality process. The practice we had identified months previously as a community had become embedded in the workflow.

One of the key aspects of this process is that the innovators and perhaps early adopters consolidate and streamline their practice so it can be re-presented for the early and late majority. Risky innovation is thus transformed into a low(er) risk, institutionally endorsed ‘package’.

To some extent we are following the same co-ordination process with our teaching administrators in The Digital Department. Pioneers are discussing and documenting their digital practices (through ‘case studies’, portfolios and a wiki, see right) to help later adopters. We are now even taking about ‘transformation’ of these into standard operating procedures, checklists and templates.

We are also considering this community-led approach for REC:all, a UCL Erasmus project on lecture capture and it might work too for ’emerging’ approaches such as social media and mobile learning, areas which are quite difficult for universities to respond to. It might even help us to move Moodle ‘beyond the baseline’.

There are a number of potential problems with this approach, though. Transformation and embedding of community-supported practices in mainstream institutional processes can be difficult and time-consuming unless all stakeholders are involved from the outset. Perhaps more concerning is that once embedded innovation may become ‘frozen’ and less adaptable if not reviewed periodically.

Credit: the Chasm