Attended a conference/training session on this yesterday run by JISC
The main idea behind the day was that the management of eLearning for an organisation can be treated as a project and so you should use the standard project methodolgies.
Obviously as eLearning is an ongoing thing this is a project that will go through many iterations and a good default length for an interation would be one accademic year.
Using the standard 4 stages of Analysis, Planning, Implementation and review - we started with review as all of the delegates had at least taken some steps in e-learning so we should start at that point.
However as I was not in post when the decision to implement a VLE was made I will need to ask colleages about why we got one and what were the expected benefits.
One area in review that I found useful was the "Training Needs" section - we currently hit most of the groups identified but not Managers and specifically the Senior Management Team. It is a common complaint that those in senior posts often dont understand what you do - however with eLearning it is a wide ranging and swiftly moving field, it is not SMTs job to keep up to speed with the latest developments, it is my job to make them aware of them.
With this in mind I think its time to start thinking about a swift training session called "What your staff could be doing".
The idea behind the training would be not to train SMT to do things but to be aware of what could be done and how.
Also on the day was a bit on the design of learning spaces which should again come in quite useful as we are in the planning stage of building a big new site and as of yet the IT Department hasnt been heavily consulted.
Keywords: Managing E-learning, project plans
