An eLearning Procurement Model

Global ELearning technology is moving at a faster pace than most universities can absorb. In fact most universities don’t have any kind of methodical structured process to become aware of and make use of technologies as they emerge. This post outlines such a process.

Solutions for enterprise wide problems should initially be sought by leveraging the rapidly evolving educational technology market where vendors can deliver far greater quality than in house through economies of scale. Start with requirements and an opportunities scan, then a solutions scan, and in the odd case there is no Off The Shelf (OTS) solution its usually better to wait and refocus than go bespoke. Going bespoke is not only expensive but slows down your upgrades and usually has to be undone when better OTS solutions are made available.

Use a top down approach to enterprise projects to deploy new broadly applicable capabilities lead by identified broad problems and opportunities. Local Custom Solutions deliver local course, school and faculty level needs.

Under the ELearning Sponsor at your institution have a regular meeting with:

· a standing item to hear and revise top problems and opportunities – and prioritise the list in line with the strategy.

· a standing item to hear status of formal reports on projects to address the above.

Appoint Resources to:

· stay abreast of eLearning capability opportunities internationally (i.e. new technologies) – producing formal reports: e.g. adaptive learning; analytics; competency based learning;

· stay abreast of broad teaching problems at your university – again producing regular formal reports on the key issues: e.g. grades processing errors; lack of feedback; ePortfolios; placements;

· interpret these capabilities and problems through the lens of the institutional strategy to inform and educate sponsor – with a list of the key problems and opportunities;

· give the Elearning Sponsor the responsibility for prioritising new capability development or acquisition and hearing reports on progress;

· conduct new capability development investigations, in collaboration with schools and faculties, using a standard IT procurement model which involves: collecting requirements; scanning for options; evaluating options; shortlisting; piloting options with coordinators; deploying solutions