Review by: Schönwald, Ingrid (2007-02-06)

"How can a large, predominately campus-based, comprehensive university adopt a sustainable approach to the management of eLearning that allows for some economies of scale while still addressing both basic quality assurance for learning and the individual needs of many diverse faculties?"

This question is the starting point for this article, which aims at identifying and discussing the characteristics of a model to manage eLearning in a large, campus-based university. The authors set the context of managing quality assurance for eLearning by focusing on three questions:

1. What are the key aspects or stages of the course development and teaching process?
2. What strategies are built into the process that allow universities to continually review and improve current practice of integrating eLearning into an historically face-to-face experience?
3. What are some of the strategies used to maintain cohesion in the process so that there is continual review of eLearning in the redevelopment and teaching of courses?

After addressing these questions on a theoretical basis, a cases study is presented, focusing on how key strategic eLearning projects are managed and reviewed for quality improvement in ways that facilitate faculties and their colleges prioritizing how the resources are used. The case study describes the strategic approach of the University of Sydney, a metropolitan university with seventeen faculties and more than 40 000 students.

Three main portfolios are central for the coordination of large eLearning projects at the University of Sydney.

• the Academic Portfolio, which provides the strategic direction for learning and teaching;
• the Resources Portfolio, which provides centrally located technical infrastructure; and
• the College Portfolio, in which 17 faculties are grouped under the three Pro-Vice-Chancellor College offices.

One key characteristic of the management of the strategic eLearning projects at the Univesity of Sydney is a sophisticated resource allocation. The University decided to make available 12,000 hours per annum of support for strategic projects to address key learning and teaching goals, provided by staff with project management and educational design expertise. In a so-called "expression of interest" (EOI) process faculties engage in to access a portion of the 12,000 hours of support. During a decision period at the college level involving submissions from faculties for support, submissions are prioritized according to the perceived strategic benefit to the college. After decisions are made through the EOI process strategic eLearning projects go through design, development and trialling stages before they are introduced as part of the students’ experience in their award courses and then evaluated.

Four types of eLearning-related evaluative data are captured at the University of Sydney:

• Evaluation of integration of eLearning resources into whole course
• Evaluation of course websites
• Evaluation from users
• Evaluation of eLearning support processes

In order to understand and use the outcomes of the project evaluations for further improvement, a reporting cycle has been integrated across the portfolio structures, providing input into the decision-making processes at different levels of the institution. At the university level, issues to do with sustainability, cultural change, and infrastructure implications are emphasised. At the faculty level, the implications for everyday academic activities, workload implications and strategies, and the classifications of teaching positions, such as on-line tutors, are emphasised.

Finally, the authors identify challenges of such a quality improvement process at the level of both course and university, such as the promulgation of the outcomes of the course evaluation at faculty and university level and the tension between central management of resources for reasons of economies of scale and diverse needs of the different faculties.

This paper thus describes an interesting case study which might be of use to other campus-based universities wishing to embed eLearning in their study programmes with a focus on improving quality.