JISC

This project will provide guidance about risk analysis and management in the area of e-learning in HE and FE. The project was undertaken by a team from the University of Strathclyde and Kilmarnock College between April 2003 and May 2004.

Aims and Objectives

One aim of this project was to develop a framework and tools that would help senior management in further and higher education institutions assess risks and make strategic decisions on appropriate levels of investment in e-learning (and to evaluate potential imbalances in investment across inter-related areas).  A second aim was to identify further research and advanced toolkits that might be developed to improve the effectiveness of strategic investment planning in e-learning and that would inform the work of JISC, the Funding Councils and other FE and HE agencies.

Project Overview

The project team investigated risk issues and developed a framework for analysing and managing risk in the following way:

• Development of risk model.  An early issue for the project team was the development of a model that would facilitate the identification of both general and specific e-learning investment issues and the analysis of the relationship between those issues. The model developed was based on work done at MIT in the 1990s to analyse how organisations manage technological change.
• Literature/resources search. In order to identify a broad spectrum of risk issues and build up a database of relevant resources, information on risk assessment and management was assembled from a wide range of reports, case studies and papers.  These are referenced within the worksheets associated with this project.
• Semi-structured interviews.  Interviews were conducted with individuals from across the HE and FE sector using a semi-structured format. The risk model was used as a basis for the structure of the interview questions.
• Risk Framework. The information gathering and the semi-structured interview data were synthesised into a framework (detailed in this document) organised around the MIT 90s model.
• The framework and resources were piloted in a number of UK FE colleges and HE institutions. This process involved working with institutions to produce workshop materials and resources that they could apply in the context of their own e-learning strategy. From this some generic outputs were designed (e.g. workshop plans) that could be adapted to any FE or HE institution.  Also all the materials were modularised to allow any institutions to ‘pick and mix’ what was relevant to its own context and to its own stage of development or implementation of e-learning.

Risk Framework

The Risk Framework developed by the team aims to facilitate self-assessment within an institutional context.  The framework provides a range of materials, processes and workshops which an institution can work through while adding context to the core material. Consequently the workshop materials and worksheets provided within this framework are modular in nature to allow institutions to define their own ‘navigation route’ – addressing the issues and accessing the information most relevant to their own situation.