[Jo Richardson]

Hi Sandra,

It’s really interesting to hear such familiar problems and it sounds like a difficult project. Organisations are understandably reluctant to share their failures, so I often think maybe my institution is the only one that has these issues! It’s a shame as I find failures are often far more valuable (although painful!) learning experiences than successes.

Your risk log issues all seem to tie back to the lack of a project manager, without which there’s no one to be aware of the early warning signs or respond to them if necessary. I think without a project manager, there’s also no sense of responsibility or ‘owning’ a project, which means it doesn’t get pushed forward as it should be. From what you’ve said, it was an international project, which must have made the lack of strong leadership and clear communication even more difficult.

Not having the right staff/skills involved in a project is something I encounter frequently in my projects. Recruitment of additional people isn’t normally an option, so we plan in training but then making time for that alongside other work isn’t always easy. I often opt for just-in-time learning but I do find it stressful sometimes. Did you attend/watch Wednesday’s webinar? There were some interesting points made there about the pressures of managing projects alongside everyday jobs but sadly we don’t have the resource to have dedicated project managers. Perhaps that would solve a lot of our issues though.

Jo

[Jo Richardson]

We use Moodle 2.2 at the moment. I agree with Andrew that there is a wide range of tools available and these provide scope for applying a range of different pedagogies, depending on how they’re used. We include different tools for different types of courses and that flexibility is really valuable.
On the downside, the tools provided are quite basic because there are so many of them. For example we switched from PHPBB forums, which were much more specialised because of the single focus, to Moodle forums, resulting in reduced functionality. So it’s a case of using a single technology that does one thing really well, or a platform like Moodle that does lots of things at a more basic level.
However, as Sue has noted, there’s huge value in knowing that all students have access to the same resources and functions in a central place, with no sign-up required. And as Moodle is open, it can be customised relatively easily if you have the skills in-house, which we don’t really at my organisation – but that’s another story!
Confidentiality is also important for students on our courses; they are work-based learners and often share case studies from their own organisations that they couldn’t if a more open platform was used.

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