Review by: Haberer, Monika (2008-05-21)

This article describes the organisational aspects of the working process in large-scale e-learning projects carried out in several French universities in the context of the French Ministry’s of Education funding scheme “campus numérique” (2000-2002). The main purpose of this paper is to illustrate that the pedagogical innovation intended by the establishing of technologically enhanced study offers goes along with a traditional division of labour.

In a first step the author summarises the outline of the “campus numérique” funding programme which basically was set on creating an openly available and distant education offer – including the development of online-based learning materials, the providing of services (like tutoring) and the consideration of logistic aspects – within the frame of consortia composed of a crucial number of partner universities. Considering the element of pedagogical innovation claimed in the layout of the funding scheme and pointing out the professional requirements of the programme call (e. g. the establishing of consortia, the emphasis on quality and project management criteria), the author assumes that a “campus numérique” also might serve as a means to trigger innovative processes with respect to the organisational aspect. The network character of the projects challenges traditional university structures as well as it requires the introduction of new players providing the missing competencies for the development of e-learning products in an academic surrounding.

Miladi’s findings focus on six of more than sixty “campus numériques” projects which cover different disciplines (medicine, management, natural sciences). They are mainly based on more than one hundred semi-directive interviews carried out with a cross-section of actors from different universities taking part in the development of e-learning offers.

The paper highlights two general lines characterising the division of labour within the university networks that were analysed: First, a horizontal specialisation of labour among all those actors involved in the production process of e-learning offers; second, a vertical specialisation dividing the management level and the executive level is made out.

The article is based on the consideration that a sociological analysis of the actors engaged in innovative developments is central in order to understand the processes themselves. Consequently, the author develops a thorough categorisation of different types of actors and roles, which are relevant in the particular organisation of work presented.

With respect to the horizontal specialisation , the findings of the study generally reveal the tendency that the more the integration of information and communication technology plays a role in the study offer (e. g. in online-programmes leading to a diploma), the more specialised the tasks attributed to each actor in the development process are. On a more detailed level of observation, the author comes to the following conclusions

• The general design of a course – following the logic of academic working habits – mostly remains an autonomous process conducted by a single university teacher. Cooperation in a pedagogical team is rare in this stateat this stage of development. As for the task of tutoring, similar observations are reported.
• The process of digitalisation and online publication requires new actors in the educational field (e. g. multimedia developers, platform administrators etc.). Those “new professions” have not always strictly defined working fields and still lack acknowledgment in the academic sector.
• The design of digital learning resources demands the close cooperation of university teachers and multimedia designers, which creates a new form of dependency of the two working areas and represents certain challenges for both sides (adequate preparation of material, redesigning of courses, lack of recognition for university teachers etc.)

The vertical devision of labour described in the article concerns the project’s steering committees and the actors executing the production process. The steering committees are characterised as follows:

• Three different categories of members can be established: „innovative university teachers“ with pedagogical visions who are also in charge of central university institutions (e. g. distance education, multimedia production etc); politically motivated members holding a key position within the university hierarchy (deans, directors of central institutions) and university teachers which are generally not involved in the first set-up of the project
• The focus of interest within the steering committees varies regarding to the motivation predominant in each of the categories. The third category is generally not as involved in the decision making progress as the first and the second (due to level of knowledge in NTIC matters, university culture, career line etc.)

Miladi states that ”campus numérique“ projects reveal a comparatively high level of rationalisation, formalisation and regulation (e. g. closing of contracts, restrictions in the course creating by the intervention of media experts etc.) as well as strategic planning contributing to an educational “engineering process”. Therefore, innovation goes along with the establishing of bureaucratic structures and role allocations, which seem to inhibit cooperation and to contradict the intended innovative impulses. The author considers this kind of rationalisation and division of tasks observed in the projects as a means to reduce insecurity on a management level while creating new insecurities among the actors involved in the creation process of learning materials. In spite of evoking a “détaylorisation” (p. 57) as a possible result of insecurity, the opposite effect is produced in those projects. Whether this is only an intermediate stage before reaching a more integrative concept of work organisation remains an open question.

The analysis and interpretation of the collected interview data in this article give a comprehensive and very insightful overview of the working processes, actors, motivations and interactions on different levels within the chosen e-learning projects in the higher education sector. Furthermore, the impulses claimed by the Ministry’s project calls are very convincingly integrated in the initial setup of the article. The chosen theoretical framework, however, considering innovation processes in the particular setting of higher education as well as the insecurity factor in connection to organisational change processes introduced only at the end of the article, could have been applied and referred to more consistently throughout the paper. The paradoxical aspect of traditional division of labour vs. claimed pedagogical innovation certainly could be even more developed by considering findings on the actual degree of pedagogical innovation (in comparison to traditional ways of teaching and learning) established in the “campus numérique”. That was clearly not the focus of this study, but would be an interesting field for further research.