Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

An agile approach to managing open educational resources

An agile approach to managing open educational resources Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that pointing to patterns of change in the adoption and institutionalization of educational resources, the appropriateness of traditional heavy and front‐loaded planning and management regimes is challenged in favor of alternative Agile Methods. Design/methodology/approach – Starting from the simple observation that the original introduction of Course Management Systems to support online learning was ad hoc and evolutionary, rather than planned at an enterprise level, the paper points to the conflict between, and offers a solution for, open and decentralized resources and traditional teaching, learning, support, and management. By developing a logic to decentralization, a number of managerial strategies to improve agility are provided that address the changing nature of the university from one fundamentally designed to control, to one positioned to influence and adapt under the assumptions of change. Findings – It is found that many components of the university including teaching, learning content, learning design, content development and management, and core infrastructure are shifting from centralized to decentralized models, while current management and governance practices remain centralized resulting in lagging development and increased risk. Originality/value – The connections made here open a dialog for challenging and changing traditional management and decision‐making approaches within the organization, to better account for the environment that decentralized systems create. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png On the Horizon Emerald Publishing

An agile approach to managing open educational resources

Patrick Masson; Ken Udas
On the Horizon , Volume 17 (3): 11 – Aug 14, 2009
Download PDF
11 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/an-agile-approach-to-managing-open-educational-resources-ktrK8u3upK

References (2)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1074-8121
DOI
10.1108/10748120910993286
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that pointing to patterns of change in the adoption and institutionalization of educational resources, the appropriateness of traditional heavy and front‐loaded planning and management regimes is challenged in favor of alternative Agile Methods. Design/methodology/approach – Starting from the simple observation that the original introduction of Course Management Systems to support online learning was ad hoc and evolutionary, rather than planned at an enterprise level, the paper points to the conflict between, and offers a solution for, open and decentralized resources and traditional teaching, learning, support, and management. By developing a logic to decentralization, a number of managerial strategies to improve agility are provided that address the changing nature of the university from one fundamentally designed to control, to one positioned to influence and adapt under the assumptions of change. Findings – It is found that many components of the university including teaching, learning content, learning design, content development and management, and core infrastructure are shifting from centralized to decentralized models, while current management and governance practices remain centralized resulting in lagging development and increased risk. Originality/value – The connections made here open a dialog for challenging and changing traditional management and decision‐making approaches within the organization, to better account for the environment that decentralized systems create.

Journal

On the Horizon – Emerald Publishing

Published: Aug 14, 2009

Keywords: Decentralized control; Decision making; Software tools; Governance; Open learning

There are no references for this article.