Analyzing Scope Creep

Because most projects begin with a certain amount of uncertainty in the requirements or specifications, changes to the scope are bound to occur (Laureate Education, Inc, n.d.). Sometimes during development, requests are made for entirely new features or functionality (“Managing Scope Creep”, n.d.; Larson, & Larson, 2009). In either case, if extra effort is required as a result, the project is at risk from “scope creep”. Generally scope creep is when extra effort is added without proper approvals, and appropriate changes to the schedule, budget, and resource plan (“Managing Scope Creep”, n.d.; Larson, & Larson, 2009). Even when changes are approved, dealing with the new requirements can add complexities and challenges to your project.

Several years ago I worked on a project team developing a web based application. The project was run fairly formally, with a kick-off meeting, a budget, and a schedule, but the overall requirements gathering was fairly light. I was involved as a web developer, although I had several informal and vaguely defined roles as a designer, technical writer, and general technology consultant. I was also in charge of Quality Assurance (QA). At a certain point during development I saw that the schedule was in danger, so I developed a very rudimentary (having no formal training in this area) work breakdown structure (WBS) to try to help the project manager revise the schedule to something more realistic. During development a request came in to support additional territories. As a team we had actually learned a lot about change requests, prioritizing, and change management, during the course of this project. This meant the project manager made sure to check that this change was a priority. We held a team meeting to decide our course of action. Options included not making this change, making the change and delaying the product, or trying to add resources so we could make the change while keeping to the schedule.  We also needed budget approval for extra spending if the scope change went ahead. Due to limited critical resources, my time for example, and the critical path of development, it was determined that we would need to add development resources and budget, but also extend the schedule a little in order to accommodate the change request. Because we obtained approval for these changes, this example may not technically be scope creep, but it is a good example of the type of request that a less experienced team might easily have taken on without going through a proper change request process, which would have led to missed deadlines and budget overruns.

            An example that would be considered scope creep, on the same project, was when I took it upon myself to redesign the interface. We had hired a freelancer to design a UI. The freelancer was selected by one of the stakeholders who happened to be a manager with a lot of authority, but little technical or UI experience. The freelancer did a terrible job. Because the schedule was tight, I took it upon myself to tweak the design to something that would actually meet the project needs. This did take up several hours of my time that were not accounted for in the schedule. The schedule was not particularly granular, but there were a ton of other things I also needed to get done. My concern was it would actually take more of my time to go through the approvals and redesign process if we tried to get the original freelancer, or a replacement one, than just doing it myself. The path I chose almost certainly benefited that project, the problem was I was enabling the organization’s bad practices. If I had allowed the UI to fail, they would have had a greater incentive to use a better vendor selection process in the future.

Similar scope changes are a common risk. Developers, and many people in general, like to make things great, even though the schedule only contains enough time to make things “just good enough” (Laureate Education, Inc, n.d.). The changes I made to the UI were fairly critical, but I probably also spent time on other less vital improvements. Project Managers need to be aware of the tendency for people to put the schedule at risk by trying to make things perfect. Have the team focus on delivering something that works, and then if there is time, let them go back and improve things. This can be a real challenge. Programmers will probably whine about it being more efficient to do it right the first time to avoid refactoring and so on. That might be true, but it’s not the point. Whatever the task type, stick to the basic requirements.

References:

Larson, R. & Larson, E. (2009). Top five causes of scope creep ... and what to do about them. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2009—North America, Orlando, FL. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/top-five-causes-scope-creep-6675

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (n.d.). Practitioner voices: Overcoming ‘scope creep’ [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Managing Scope Creep in Project Management (n.d.) Retrieved from https://www.villanovau.com/resources/project-management/project-management-scope-creep/#.WhiVVlWnE-U

Project Management Tools

This week I explore a couple of tools designed to help Project Managers with their planning and scheduling tasks.

Smartsheet - Project Tracking Online

 Smartsheet - https://www.smartsheet.com/

Several years ago while working for Pearson Education Inc., I found I needed some decent project management software to help keep track of tasks and schedules. As I was lucky enough to have a copy of Microsoft Project, I tried that. I soon found a major drawback however, I could not share the data directly with coworkers unless they also had a license for Project, which almost none of them had. Most vendors we were working with at the time also lacked copies of Project. I could export data, but that would mean extra work every time a change was made. It also meant I had to be the one making all the edits. Pearson US had built some custom server solution that we reviewed, but onboarding even internal team members was going to be a political, technical, and logistical nightmare.

I wondered if a better solution existed somewhere. Surely I was not the first person to have this issue? Sure enough, when I looked online there were a few other options. The one I found that best met team needs was Smartsheet. At the time they had a free account option where one person could create several sheets and share them with multiple people. That seemed perfect to try out on my current project list. While Smartsheet did not replicate all the functions of Project, it was certainly good enough, and far cheaper. It was so good I suggested to management, on several occasions over the next few years, that the company invest in an enterprise license for Pearson Canada. Nobody listened to me, but thankfully some team in the US also discovered Smartsheet, and did a better job convincing their managers, because about three years ago Pearson purchased a global Smartsheet license.

So, what is the good, the bad, and the ugly about Smartsheet? The first draw for me was the lack of any software to install. Most Pearson Canada employees at the time needed to get approval from a manager to install new software, and then book someone from IT to come and install it, a major barrier to getting buy-in for a new workflow process. With Smartsheet’s web interface, I could just send co-workers a link and say “check your tasks and due dates here”. The interface was also simple enough it was easy to get collaborators to update their progress or change due dates without a big learning curve. The third main selling point was that it was easy to import and export from Microsoft Excel and Project. This meant easier integration into existing workflows, or migration from old workflows into a new Smartsheet workflow.

The main drawback was that Smartsheet is not as powerful a spreadsheet program as dedicated spreadsheet software like Excel, nor as powerful and deep as Project when producing reports or charts. But for the project managers I worked with, the ability to easily share and collaborate with other project team members was well worth the trade-off. This might not be true for many PM’s with large complex projects, but it was for us.

That was my background on Smartsheet, based on experiences several years ago. I have been off work sick for a few years now, so I was not up-to-date with the current state of Smartsheet. Checking up on it for this assignment I discovered a few interesting things, but first, I will describe Smartsheet a little more.

As mentioned earlier, Smartsheet is mainly accessed via web browser. Customers can either use the main cloud instance, or an on-site license. You can also now use either an iOS or Android App to access your projects and many features (Titterington, 2016). The free version is now gone, replaced by tiers of monthly subscription, and an enterprise license (Titterington, 201). Smartsheet has four main “views”, Grid, Card, Gantt, and Calendar. The grid view is similar to a basic spreadsheet, and you can start with a general, or custom template, depending on your project type. You can set up basic dependencies, and use drop-downs for prepopulated content. The Gard view can be used for Agile style project views where tasks are arranged in columns based on progress, from “Not Started” to “Complete”. The Gantt view is a fairly typical Gantt display of tasks over time, including any set dependencies. Calendar view can be used to display tasks based just on start date, or with the full duration.

In addition to project scheduling, Smartsheet also supports Resource management (“Resource Management & Allocation”, n.d), but I was not able to review this with the free trial version. Including this feature helps Smartsheet provide better one-stop support for project management tasks. Other features that make Smartsheet better than a regular spreadsheet program, are the ability to attach files, add comments to task lines, track changes, set up notification emails (when a task is overdue for example), and generate a variety of reports.

Smartsheet helps you track project tasks including who they are assigned to, when they are due, and overall progress. It provides several views and reports to help surface data. You can share viewing, or editing rights with various other team members, or anyone with internet access and a web browser.

Float - Project Resource Management

 Float - https://www.float.com

The second resource I found is Float. This tool is primarily aimed at resource management, specifically employee task and time management. Float provides a calendar view of team activities, or, as they say on the Float web site at www.float.com  “Float gives you a bird’s-eye view of who’s working on what and when”. If you use a non-enterprise version of Smartsheet, or some other tool that lacks resources management features, Float may come in handy.

                Beyond the basic overview, Float has several other important features. You can tag workers with skills, and then search for those skills when forming a project team, and then assign teams to projects with just a few clicks (Noorani, 2016; Perez, 2012). The Reports view is a dashboard that displays a lot of useful information including available hours, scheduled hours, and overtime hours. This data can be filtered for all staff on all projects, or by specific projects and specific people. Being able to clearly visualize this data is very helpful when trying to maximize efficiency and keeping resources at 100% capacity, which is an important goal for project managers (“Project Management and Resource Planning”, n.d.; Watt, 2014).

                Float is designed to be simple, and work alongside other project management tools (Perez, 2012). It is probably best used by large agencies, that need to keep track of many workers that move constantly from project to project (Perez, 2012), making it much more about “people” scheduling than “project” scheduling.

                It did find the interface fairly clean and light, but had some trouble with the view/filter system. I kept looking for navigation tools to get me to the view I wanted, only to finally realize I needed to reset the filters. After drilling down to an individual team member view to see their hours allocated for example, there is no button or link to go back to the full team view, you have to deselect the team member name from the search field instead. I’m sure I would get used to this in time, but it would increase the learning curve.

Robin

References:

Noorani, M. (2016, February 14). Float software review: overview – features – pricing. Project-Management.com [Web site]. Retrieved from https://project-management.com/float-software-review/

Perez. S. (2012, February 28). Float does simple scheduling for teams (and simple is hard!). TechCrunch [Web site]. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2012/02/28/float-does-simple-scheduling-for-teams-and-simple-is-hard/

Project Management and Resource Planning. (n.d.) Project Insight [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.projectinsight.net/project-management-basics/project-management-resource-plan

Titterington, J. (2016, December 1). Smartsheet review. merchantmaverick [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/smartsheet-review/

Resource Management & Allocation (n.d.). Smartsheet [Web site]. Retrieved from https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/1346969-resource-management-allocation-team-enterprise-only-

Watt, A. (2014). Project management. Retrieved from http://open.bccampus.ca

Project Management - Communicating Effectively

This week we examined a sample communication resource in which the message was delivered via three different media formats; email, voice mail, and face-to-face. The medium used for communication can have a significant impact on how it is received by the recipient (Rajkumar, 2010). Communication effectiveness is also influenced by the attitude of the sender, the tone, body language, timing, and the personality of the recipient (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.). Some media are better at conveying the non-verbal aspects of a message than others, with face-to-face being best for conveying non-verbal information (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.; Nolan, 2017).

I found the tone of the email fairly friendly and warm. It was also quick to read, and pretty clear what the requested deliverables were, with clear reasons why they were needed, and clear options for a response. I would have happily responded to this email.

The voicemail, while technically polite, sounds a little cold and nasty in some way. I found it harder to remember the details of the deliverable request, as the tone is what makes the strongest impression. These emotional variables are often referred to as “noise” (Gillard, & Johansen, 2004; Nolan, 2017; Rajkumar, 2010). I felt distracted with wondering if she was really mad at me, and I had done something wrong, or it was just her phone voice. As a receiver of the message, my past experiences and expectations affect the meaning of the message (Gillard, & Johansen, 2004).

With the face-to-face communication the tone certainly came across as nicer than the voicemail, the sender seemed fairly warm and just asking for help. I still found it harder to pick out what the deliverables were though. It takes longer to listen to, and I feel like there would be even more time spent on follow-up conversation.

When communicating face-to-face there is less room for misunderstanding of tone and intent than with an email or voicemail (Nolan, 2017), although the recipient still applies their own understanding based on past experiences (Gillard, & Johansen, 2004). I found that I personally preferred the email, as it seemed friendly, clear, and was time efficient. I can see that other people may read it in a negative tone however, especially if they had previous negative experiences with the sender.

I think you have to take your past interactions, or lack of interactions with the recipient, into account when choosing a communication mode. You also have to consider the content of the message, and any political, cultural, or linguistic factors that may affect understanding or emotional response (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.; Rajkumar, 2010). You may also have to consider if there are any requirements laid out in a project communications plan (Nolan, 2017), and even if not, you may want to have a record of the communication (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.).

Robin

References:

Gillard, S., & Johansen, J. (2004). Project Management Communication: a Systems Approach. Journal of Information Science, 30(1), 23–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551504041675

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (n.d.). Communicating with stakeholders [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Nolan, P. (2017, March 17). Effective and efficient project management communication. Linkedin [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/effective-efficient-project-management-communication-nolan-pmp--1

Rajkumar, S. (2010). Art of communication in project management. Project Management institute [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/effective-communication-better-project-management-6480

Thoughts on PM and ID Roles

I think we have to be careful to think about the role of the PM and the ID separately, even though one person often takes on both roles. The role, and primary responsibility of the ID, is the instructional solution. The usual role, and primary responsibility of the PM, is to get the project done on time and on budget. Meeting acceptance criteria is also important for both roles.

Various versions of the ADDIE method and ADDIE process help guide the ID in developing the instructional solution, and by extension, the “project management” of developing the solution. However, this is a very different focus than the role of the PM. The PM role does not deal with ADDIE, or any similar ISD model, directly. This is why you find references to stakeholder information already being gathered before the ADDIE analysis phase. The PM deals with the overall project acceptance criteria, project resources, and project evaluation. Thus, it is the PM role that deals with the Project Charter and getting sign-off from the sponsor and other management approvals. The PM role deals with hiring and firing SMEs. The PM roles sets up meetings with outside vendors and stays on top of them regarding turn-around times and deliverables and payments. The ID role just reviews the deliverables and confirms they are up to standard.

Often a PM will not have much choice in their stakeholders. The project sponsor brings the PM the project. Upper management is upper management. You may get to hire a development team, but often you just use what your business unit has in place. You may get to choose outside vendors, often this will be from a company approved list. You may get to choose SMEs, but often there are political implications that make that tricky. With instructional solutions you probably want some sample learners, but these should probably be selected at random. You could replace representatives that fail to provide feedback, or cause other issues, but you can’t really cherry pick the initial crop.

Mostly you just need to learn how to manage the stakeholders you get, as best you can.

Robin

6145 Week 2 - Project Postmortem

Completing a project postmortem can help teams avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. In this post I will review a project I was part of in the role of developer, and a sort of co-project manager.

For more than 50 years project manager and project success has typically been defined by the common image of the Iron Triangle. The three corners of the triangle include budget, schedule and quality. Yet these are not the only way to measure project success (Atkinson, 1999). I project that I worked on a few years ago was a success by these three common criteria. However, it was widely viewed as a failure by upper management. The main reason is that even though we met the schedule, kept within approved budget limits, and produced a product the customers loved; it did not result in the long-term revenue that management was looking for.

By including long-term revenue in the success criteria, management stakeholders virtually guaranteed the project would be a failure. An extensive project plan included the assessment that these revenue goals would not be met. It was clear to most of the team (including the project manager) from the outset, that the stakeholders responsible for the marketing, sales, and business plan of the project, were not sufficiently motivated, or adequately skilled for the task. These specific risks were not included in the project plan for political reasons.

This type of organizational culture is a frequent cause of project management problems and projects being viewed as failures (Atkinson, 1999). This project was actually Phase 2 of a longer-term strategy. Because of problems during Phase 1, the project management team was far more proactive and on top of things during Phase 2. The problem however, was that overall corporate and management culture did not change. The project management team lacked the authority and the trust of management stakeholders that would enable them to do their jobs properly. In my opinion however, even a perfect project manager could not have made this project a success in the eyes of management stakeholders, as many of those stakeholders simply did not want the project to succeed. There are probably a variety of reasons for this including fear of change, and possibly the self-sabotage of failure avoidance, by setting impossible goals (Ormrod, Schunk, & Gredler, 2009). Of the organizational biases outlined by Barry Shore (2008), I feel that conservatism and groupthink were the main factors at play, although sunk costs certainly were a factor in some decisions.

Sometimes all a PM can do in those circumstances is try to document everything well enough that they are saddled with as little blame as possible. Perhaps a knowledgeable enough project manager could have found a senior manager willing to fight to make the long-term sales the primary measure of success. If this had been done, it might have been possible to force the rest of the stakeholders to include having a business plan, customer support team, and marketing plan, as part of the overall Project Plan and Charter (Brownlee, 2009). As it was, the Charter only covered development aspects. Lacking these other elements, the project was dead on delivery.

References:

Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, it’s time to accept other success criteria. International Journal of Project Management, 17(6), 337–342.

Brownlee, D. (2009, Dec 23). The project manager's guide to dealing with difficult sponsors. ProjectSmart [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-project-managers-guide-to-dealing-with-difficult-sponsors.php

Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M. (2009). Learning theories and instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York: Pearson.

Shore, B. (2008). Systematic biases and culture in project failures. Project Management Journal, 39(4), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.20082

Reflection on Distance Learning

Introduction

Distance learning has gone through three generations technologically linked pedagogy, from print and post, to mass media telecommunications such as television, radio and film, and a third generation, driven by more interactive network supported technologies, as exemplified by the world wide web (Anderson & Dron, n.d.). The first two generations were typified by a “one-to-many” delivery system, where information flowed out in a largely one way direction from instructor to student (Simonson, Smaldino, & Zvacek, 2015). The third generation saw a great increase in “many-to-many” learning, where student-student interactions were far more common. It has been argued that this evolution has been driven by, and contains many similarities to, industrialization in the manufacturing sector. Otto Peters’ theory of industrialization of teaching (Simonson et al., 2015) drew comparisons between the specialization of roles in developing and delivering learning content, and the mass production of books and educational resources, to the production of commercial goods. Now some argue, we are entering a fourth generation, one of more “intelligent flexible learning”, driven by algorithms and other technology enhancements, along with associated changes in teaching theory and practice (Anderson, & Dron, 2012).

Pros and Cons

A great many studies suggest that distance learning (and increasingly this means online learning), produces equivalent outcomes to that which takes place in face-to-face on-site institutional learning (Fonolahi, Jokhan, & others., 2014; Kuo, Walker, Belland & Schroder, 2013; Naidu, 2014; Simonson et al., 2015). While there have been some who question the validity of this research (Miron, Horvitz, Gulosino, Huerta, Rice, Shafer, & Cuban, 2013; Xu, & Jaggars, 2013), it appears that market demands will ensure that online learning is here to stay for the foreseeable future. The MIT-Harvard led, free online course and certification program, edX had over 10 million students in 2016, while Coursera enrolled over 23 million (Shah, 2016). Overall, 1 in 4 higher education students in America are enrolled in an online course (“Report: One in four students”, 2016). Demand for access to low cost education is growing globally. At edX they hope to one day serve over a billion students at a time (Regalado, 2012).

Perceptions

Whatever the perceptions of distance learning are now, they will almost certainly improve over the next few years. As people come to accept technology as part of life, and use it for daily communication and personal interactions, they will increasingly see it as a viable option for learning as well (“The future of education”, n.d.). In addition, the lessons of the past are used to improve the products of tomorrow. Competition will also drive the adoption of best practices, as technology allows for institutes to compete internationally for students. The expectations of quality from the enormous number of potential students looking to enroll each year will create pressure for these online programs to match the rigor of on-campus programs (Agarwal & Paucek, 2015). Of course perception is unlikely to ever surpass reality in any long term or meaningful way. The proof is in the pudding so to speak. That means the best way to improve perception is to improve the quality of online learning.

My job as an instructional designer includes acting as an ambassador for effective learning systems. This includes technology, theory and processes. As such it is important that I am able to speak with knowledge and authority on the relative strengths and weaknesses of online programs and supporting technology. To do this I must stay up to date of current trends and research findings, and take opportunities to share this information with policy makers and the public when possible. I do feel however, that the most important thing I can do, is ensure the products I work on are developed using sound instructional systems design practices, and follow appropriate learning theory.

The Future

At some point, probably in the not too distance future, a technology development of some type will produce another paradigm shift in learning. It was only 28 years ago that the World Wide Web, followed by the release of the Netscape Browser in 1994, changed the face of online course delivery. By enabling easy to create hyperconnected media, digital learning content could be instantly delivered to millions of students. The first iPhone was introduced to the U.S. in 2007 (“8 Years of the iPhone”, 2014), and sparked a revolution in the use of social media and on-the-go access to the Web. At some point soon, a new technology will almost certainly create new opportunities for online learning. Quite possibly this will be the aforementioned flexible and individualized learning.

Tools of the past enabled mass production of course content and delivery, providing greater access to more people (Simonson et al., 2015), but it was one size fits all. New tools are being developed to allow custom fit courses and content in a variety of ways. Badge systems and focused accreditation programs such as edX’s MicroMasters (Shah, 2016) provide increased options for students. Algorithms that can read your emotional state and adjust the presentation of material offer more personalized study (Kaliouby, 2017; Paul, 2014). During the initial stages, there will likely be mixed feelings about efficiency and efficacy. But if good instructional design practices are adhered to, improved outcomes, followed by positive perceptions, are likely to follow.

Previous generations of technology enhanced pedagogy and andragogy overlapped and merged (Anderson, & Dron, 2012). Books are still used, and are more frequently electronic, video is distributed online more than on CD, and other forms of content and instructional interaction will also continue to find new and effective forms in the digital realm. It is only a matter of time before society as  no longer perceives a distinct line between distance learning and on-campus learning. Chip Paucek predicts that by 2020 “there will no longer be online or on-campus students. Just students” (Agarwal & Paucek, 2015). To me that also means there will no longer be online learning and on-campus learning, there will just be learning. People will instead be arguing the merits of tank VR learning versus transcranial stimulation learning. Or, more likely trying to figure out what to bother teaching at all now that AI and Robots are running everything. The rich will probably just inject their children with RNA knowledge packs. If current trends continue, which seems more than likely, computers twenty years from now will be 1,000 times as powerful as today, and human genome editing will be common (Satell, 2015). These developments suggest the world two decades from now is all but unimaginable.

Robin

  

References

8 Years of the iPhone: An interactive timeline. (2014, July 27). Retrieved from http://time.com/2934526/apple-iphone-timeline/

Agarwal, A. & Paucek, C. (2015, January 11). The future of online learning. Financial Times [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/f8a03bbe-9802-11e4-b4be-00144feabdc0?mhq5j=e5

Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2012). Learning technology through three generations of technology enhanced distance education pedagogy. European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ992485.pdf

Fonolahi, A. V., Jokhan, A., & others. (2014). Are students studying in the online mode faring as well as students studying in the face-to-face mode? Has equivalence in learning been achieved? Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10(4), 598.

Kaliouby, R. (2017). Computers can now read your emotions. Here’s why that’s not as scary as it sounds. World Economic Forum. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/computers-can-now-read-your-emotions-here-s-why-that-s-not-as-scary-as-it-sounds/

Kuo, Y.-C., Walker, A. E., Belland, B. R., & Schroder, K. E. (2013). A predictive study of student satisfaction in online education programs. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 14(1), 16–39.

Naidu, S. (2014). Looking back, looking forward: the invention and reinvention of distance education. Distance Education, 35(3), 263–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2014.961671

Miron, G., Horvitz, B., Gulosino, C., Huerta, L., Rice, J. K., Shafer, S. R., & Cuban, L. (2013). Virtual Schools in the US 2013: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research Evidence. National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED558723

Paul, A.M. (2014). Computer tutors that can read students’ emotions. The Hechinger Report. Retrieved from http://hechingerreport.org/computer-tutors-can-read-students-emotions/

Regalado, A. (2012, November 2). The most important education technology in 200 years. Retrieved from http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506351/the-most-important-education-technology-in-200-years/

Report: One in four students enrolled in online courses. (2016, February 25). Retrieved from https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/news_item/report-one-four-students-enrolled-online-courses/

Satell, G. (2015). 3 Reasons to believe the singularity is near. Forbes [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2016/06/03/3-reasons-to-believe-the-singularity-is-near/#6943f2157b39

Shah, D. (2016, December 13). edX's 2016: Year in review. Retrieved from https://www.class-central.com/report/edx-2016-review/

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., & Zvacek, S. (2015). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (6th ed.) Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Xu, D., & Jaggars, S. S. (2013). The impact of online learning on students’ course outcomes: Evidence from a large community and technical college system. Economics of Education Review, 37, 46–57.

Face-to-Face to Distance Learning Course Conversion Guide: Optimizing Interaction

Introduction

Converting a course designed for face-to-face classroom environments and synchronous communication, to an online asynchronous environment, takes careful planning and preparation. Simply dumping material on a web site or producing video segments of lecture type sessions will not produce optimal learning outcomes (Simonson, Smaldino, & Zvacek, 2015). An in-depth guide is beyond the scope of this document, which serves as an overview, with a focus on the role of the instructor in a blended learning environment. This guide will focus on course conversion specific tasks, and does not include common project management elements. While providing a general introduction to the conversion process, this guide will focus on promoting optimal instructor-student and student-student communication.

Development of blended instruction courses must undergo the same process as any course, while starting with a collection of resources you may wish to reuse, and a list of existing learning outcomes. Because the method of delivery is changing however, these resources and outcomes must be examined, to determine if they will remain appropriate and applicable. Learning objectives may require modification, or removal. You may wish to add new objectives, to take advantage of new capabilities the online environment provides.

Abdous & He (2008) describe seven stages for online course development, including many project management requirements. Most of these stages also apply to course conversion. A modified version of their list is shown in Table 1, with the exact activities for some stages being adapted to accommodate existing resources and objectives.

Table 1: Stages of Course Conversion for Blended Delivery

Stage	Activities
Pre-planning	Assessing capacity (infrastructure, instructors, and students). Understanding the foundational resources, restrictions, and abilities of the new blended learning environment.
Planning & Analysis	Reviewing desired learning outcomes, assessment methods, and optimal delivery modes.
Development	Developing the course environment, design, content, assessment instruments, and support materials.
Testing	Beta testing course and support materials and processes. Revising as needed.
Delivery	Launching course. Providing ongoing support for instructor and students, maintaining hardware and updating software. Evaluating results.

Facilitator Guidelines

Because many instructors may not have skills as facilitators in the online learning realm (and with online discussions in particular), it is important to provide them with training and support (Levy, 2003). Ensure that instructors are familiar and comfortable with their role before classes begin. Due to the partly asynchronous nature of the blended learning environment, instructors should provide clear contact information to students, along with times they can be reached.

Face-to-face instruction frequently takes the form of the instructor delivering content to the learners as a one-way presentation of information. With online instruction there is a shift to a facilitator role, where the instructor guides student-student, and student-content interactions. Rather than lecturing, the instructor acts as a coach and mentor (Perreault, Waldman, Alexander, & Zhao, 2002; Simonson et al., 2015; Siragusa, Dixon, & Dixon, 2007). With a blended learning environment students can gain the benefits of both models. Community can be established quickly face-to-face, while more critical and reflective dialogue can occur in the online space (Mathur & Oliver, 2007; Pillay, & Alexander, 2015).

One of the primary tasks for instructors managing an online course is facilitating online discussions, such as those which take place through Web 2.0 tools like threaded discussion boards. Table 3 provides guidelines that instructors can follow when facilitating these types of online discussions. A summary version of this table can be found in Appendix 1: Quick Guide to Facilitating Online Discussions, and used as a checklist. The overall objective is to maintain a positive social presence, while encouraging constructive student-to-student interactions and reflective exploration of the topic.

Table 3: Do's and Don’ts for Facilitating Online Discussions

Do

Provide clear expectations and guidelines for acceptable behaviour right at the start of the course. (Palloff & Pratt, 2000, October; Simonson et al., 2015).

Make an extra effort to be positive and encouraging with initial discussions, when students are the most anxious (Perreault et al., 2002).

Provide a safe space for discussions (Freeman, n.d.; Gilbert & Dabbagh, 2005; Pillay & Alexander, 2015; Simonson et al., 2015).

Act as a coach, or mentor. Provide motivation and positive responses. Help move the conversion along as needed by asking further open ended questions (Rovai, 2007).

Make students feel they are part of a group (Siragusa, et al., 2007).

Provide prompt feedback (Crews & Wilkinson, 2015; Simonson et al., 2015).

Allow time for student reflection conversation (Freeman, n.d.; Rovai, 2007).

Provide structure and scaffolding (Maor, 2003; Yonders 2014).

Wrap up/summarize the discussion at the end of the scheduled time allotted, or once the conversation has run its course (Rovai, 2007).

Don’t

Dominate discussions. Stay in the background while ensuring conversation moves forward and stays on topic (Freeman, n.d.)

Allow conversations to get off-topic (Maor, 2003). Step in as needed to guide the conversation back on track.

Allow a small number of students dominate the conversation (Freeman, n.d.; Moar, 2003; Rovai, 2007). Encourage quieter students to contribute by contacting them privately if needed (Rovai, 2007).

Put people down. Critique ideas, not the person who has them.

Ask for citations if not required for overall program goals and learning objectives (Crews & Wilkinson, 2015). This has been shown to reduce discussion depth and reduce meaningful learning in some cases.

In addition to discussion management, course facilitators must communicate deadlines and schedule information, and provide updates on progress every week or two (Simonson et al., 2015). Expectations for submissions and participation should be made clear (Palloff, & Pratt, 2000, October). In addition to a course syllabus, assignment or project requirements should be communicated again when appropriate. Assessment rubrics should be provided if used, as these have been shown to consistently improve depth of discussion and learning outcomes (Gilbert & Dabbagh, 2005). In some cases it may also be beneficial to co-construct rubrics or assessment instruments with learners.

Facilitator Resources

Here are further resources with valuable information regarding the role of the facilitator in an online course, and how to develop courses that promote effective learner interaction and communication.

• Six Factors to Consider when Planning Online Distance Learning Programs in Higher Education
• The 7 Steps of eLearning Course Preparation Process
• Facilitating online discussions effectively
• How to structure online discussions for meaningful discourse: a case study
• Using discussions in online courses:  The importance of interactivity
• Streamlining the online course development process by using project management tools
• Making the transition: Helping teachers to teach online

The full guideline documentis available as a PDF (629KB)

References

Abdous, M, & He, W. (2008). Streamlining the online course development process by using project management tools. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education 9(2), p. 181–188.

Cooper, S. (2016). Choosing a learning management system: 9 things to consider if you’re new to the LMS world. Retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/choosing-a-learning-management-system-9-things-consider-youre-new-lms-world

Clark, D. (1999). Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

Crews, T. B., & Wilkinson, K. (2015). Online quality course design vs. quality teaching: Aligning quality matters standards to principles for good teaching. The Journal of Research in Business Education, 57(1), 47.

Freeman, J. (n.d.) Using discussions in online courses:  The importance of interactivity. Retrieved from https://academics.utep.edu/Portals/844/nofo/Using%20Discussions%20in%20Online%20Courses.pdf

Gilbert, P. K., & Dabbagh, N. (2005). How to structure online discussions for meaningful discourse: A case study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(1), 5–18.

Levy, S. (2003). Six factors to consider when planning online distance learning programs in higher education. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, (6)1. State University of West Georgia, Distance Education Center. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring61/levy61.htm

Maor, D. (2003). The teacher’s role in developing interaction and reflection in an online learning community. Educational Media International, 40(1–2), 127–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/0952398032000092170

Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2013). Designing effective instruction (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Mathur, R., Oliver, L. (2007). Developing an international distance education program: A blended learning approach. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 10(4)
University of West Georgia, Distance Education Center. Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter104/mathur104.html

Palloff, R. M. & Pratt, K. (2000, October). Making the transition: Helping teachers to teach online. Paper presented at EDUCASE, Orlando, FL. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3dd1/bab45517e01cf9a4ad8c924781b23156b792.pdf

Pillay, R., & Alexander, L. (2015). The continuing pedagogical value of discussion forums in open and distance learning and face-to-face contexts. Progressio, 37(1), 33–53.

Rovai, A. P. (2007). Facilitating online discussions effectively. The Internet and Higher Education, 10(1), 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2006.10.001

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., & Zvacek, S. (2015). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (6th ed.) Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Siragusa, L., Dixon, K. C., & Dixon, R. (2007). Designing quality e-learning environments in higher education. Proceedings Ascilite Singapore, 923–935.

Wright, C. R., Lopes, V., Montgomerie, T. C., Reju, S. A., & Schmoller, S. (2014). Selecting a learning management system: Advice from an Academic Perspective. EDUCAUSE Review. Available at: http://er.educause.edu/articles/2014/4/selecting-a-learning-management-system-advice-from-an-academic-perspective

Appendix 1: Quick Guide to Facilitating Online Discussions

Facilitator Checklist for Online Discussions

Do
	Provide clear expectations and guidelines for acceptable behaviour
	Make an extra effort for initial discussions when students are most anxious
	Provide a safe space for discussions
	Act as a coach or mentor- Provide motivation and positive responses
	Make students feel they are part of a group
	Provide prompt feedback
	Allow time for student reflection on the conversation
	Provide structure and scaffolding
	Wrap up/summarize discussion when time is up, or conversation has run its course
Don’t
	Dominate discussions
	Allow a small number of students dominate the conversation
	Allow conversations to get off-topic
	Ask for citations if not required for overall program goals and learning objectives
	Put people down, critique ideas, not people