Managing evolution and change in web-based teaching and learning environments

The state of the art in information technology and educational technologies is evolving constantly. Courses taught are subject to constant change from organisational and subject-specific reasons. Evolution and change affect educators and developers of computer-based teaching and learning environments alike – both often being unprepared to respond effectively. A large number of educational systems are designed and developed without change and evolution in mind. We will present our approach to the design and maintenance of these systems in rapidly evolving environments and illustrate the consequences of evolution and change for these systems and for the educators and developers responsible for their implementation and deployment. We discuss various factors of change, illustrated by a Web-based virtual course, with the objective of raising an awareness of this issue of evolution and change in computer-supported teaching and learning environments. This discussion leads towards the establishment of a development and management framework for teaching and learning systems

Managing assessment : student and staff perspectives

‘I never realised assessment was for learning’ Laura Ludman BSc (Hons) Nursing, University of Central England Managing Assessment: Student and Staff Perspectives is a practical tool developed by the Managing Effective Student Assessment (MESA) benchmarking club. It aims to give senior management, staff and educational developers, teachers, and support staff insight into assessment issues along with ideas and tools to enable them to improve student learning and reduce the burden on staff. It is hoped that, as well as enriching the learning experience, the case studies will also encourage students to reflect on their experiences of assessment and promote student and staff dialogue around assessment practices. The underlying principle of the Managing Effective Student Assessment (MESA) benchmarking club was the emphasis and value placed on the student perspective. However, it was recognised that assessment is complex and needs careful management. This includes appropriate strategies, structures and support to ensure effective student learning. The initiative was led by the Higher Education Academy (formerly the Learning and Teaching Support Network Generic Centre) and University of Central England (UCE) with the aim of refocusing staff time into providing better support for students and making student learning more effective. The MESA group comprised of a senior manager at departmental level, a member of the educational/faculty development staff and up to three students from each of eight institutions: the UCE, University of Brighton, Coventry University, De Montfort University, University of Glamorgan, Northumbria University, University of Sussex, and York St John College. The students and staff involved were from a range of different discipline areas and diverse institutions. The aims of the MESA group were to: • Share effective practices and issues in assessment; • Use assessment to enrich the student learning experience and seek to demystify assessment; • Enhance assessment practice to improve student retention and progression; • Manage change effectively and embed within institutions. The active involvement of students was facilitated through a student discussion forum which ran parallel to the inputs made by academic managers. The students were invited to discuss experiences of good assessment practice and identify assessment related issues that impacted on their experiences. The group then worked together to seek effective resolutions to the issues raised, which led to the creation of the case studies presented in this publication. The MESA project encouraged students and staff to learn from one another, as well as learning across subject boundaries and types of institutions. Managing Assessment: Student and Staff Perspectives was created in order to share this learning and to help others develop their understanding of what students need from assessment. It also considers how change can be managed and embedded within institutions

Waterworks: labour, infrastructure and the making of urban water in Mexico City

This dissertation explores the role of human labour in managing, maintaining and repairing infrastructures on the everyday, and how these current practices relate to the interlinked histories of labour and infrastructure. Namely, it focuses on how manual workers within the Mexico City Water System (SACMEX) carry out their daily tasks, and how these are crucial for the networked grid, the public utility and state power over hydraulic resources to endure. I highlight how an array of labour practices entail diverse forms of improvisation, creativity and adaptation, learned through collective, long-standing engagements with infrastructures. I show that these labour practices are necessary for infrastructure to adapt to socio-material changes, for SACMEX as an institution to retain its grasp on these infrastructures and on the water that flows through them, and for state power to be maintained amidst deepening austerity and ongoing material decay. Drawing upon literatures that analyse these entanglements from different perspectives, including critical political ecology, object-oriented approaches and Southern urbanism, I make a distinct contribution by theorising the role that informal, improvisational and adaptive human labour has in formal infrastructural systems. This has far reaching consequences not only for how we understand the endurance of these networks, including their material and institutional workings, but also for how we conceptualise the specificity of human work amidst theorisations of a post-human world. Methodologically, I draw upon participant observation carried out with workers at SACMEX over the course of one year, developing concepts and explanations based both on my analyses after the field and on the ways in which workers themselves described and defined their own labour. Whilst the analysis of these waterworks is firmly rooted on the geographical and historical particularities of Mexico City, it can provide descriptions, concepts, and methodological and analytical strategies useful to explore and theorise how labour and infrastructure shape each other and the cities we inhabit

The propagation of technology management taxonomies for evaluating investments in information systems

To provide managers with a critical insight into the management of new technology, this paper uses a case study research strategy to examine the technology management experiences of a leading UK manufacturing organization during its adoption of a vendor-supplied Manufacturing Resource Planning information system.<br /