Critical Success Factor No.2: Align your LMS strategy with your Business Strategy

It is important to know that Information Technology is not a charm that automatically turns misfortunes of an organisation to better business results. Information Technolgy has no inherent value (Peppard and Ward, 2004).  Information Technology is only a component of a wider conglomeration of entities called Information System. A good start point for understaning the second csf being discussed in this article should be knowing the difference between IT and IS. I should emphasize here that knowing this difference should not be for mere academic recall; appreciating the difference is crucial for managers to begin seeing results out of an LMS investment!

Understanding the difference between IT and IS

Information Technology refers to "all the hardware and software that a firm needs to use in order to achieve its business objectives" (Laudon and Laudon, 2014). Thus Moodle, Blackboard or Astria, together with the keyboard, monitor and mouse used to interact with them belong to the category of Information Technology. They are simply equipment or tools for processing and managing information. The information could be lecture notes, student details, courses, etcetera.

Information Systems, notes Laudon and Laudon (2014), are more complex. Here is a good description of what an Information System is: "An information system consists of people (actors), information (contents), and technology (means), linked together by a process directed towards a purpose" (Luukkonen et al., 2013). An information system consists of components - people, procedures, equipment and business processes - that are carefully planned to work together inorder to achieve a purpose. "Purpose", therefore, comes first before a need for Information Technology or an Information System. Purpose is what should create the need for components of an IS. The desire to achieve "purpose" in an efficient way is what should inspire a carefully planned set of relatonships or interconnections between various components that make up an Information System. This was not the case in the early 2000s when there was a 'dot com' explosion - every company wanted to have a website because every other company was going online! The result - many companies invested in owning websites but most of which were inactive! That is still the case in Zambia. Many companies have inactive websites displaying oudated information and listing email addresses or phone numbers which will never respond to a query of a visitor. Often website visitors have to end up visiting the physical premise of a company to get feedback to a query that should have been  attended to online  via email or a phone conversation. Such a situation is a  symptom of an IS (a website in this case) having been implemented without being inspired by, or being aligned to, the purpose or business goals of a firm. How about a Learning Management System of a college, what would be the sympotms of non-alignment with training objectives of a college?

Symptoms of non-alignment

Are you at a college or university which has a Learning Management System (such as Moodle, Blackboard, or Astria) but yet are experiencing a lot of challenges in using the Learning Management System? Are these some of the challenges being experienced:

• The e-learning system rarely has up-to-date learning materials.

• The system is rarely used to send announcements to students or members of satff.

• You are not aware of any user-policy which you were supposed to sign-up before being given access to the system.

• There is rarely a person available to assist you with technical challenges you may face whilst using the system.

• There is no policy that compels all lectures and students to always use the system: some lecturers prefer to use it and others do not use it at all (those who do not use the LMS  distribute printed notes.

All the above are indications that an LMS was implemented without understanding the business need it was supposed to respond to. That amounts to a huge loss for the organisation that implemented the system.

What follows is a simple guide for ensuring that your LMS is aligned to the training objectives of your college.

Aligning a Learning Management System with Business Objectives

If you are a college offering Distance Learning and would like to implement an e-learning (Learning Management) system, the following list should help you ensure that your LMS will be aligned to your objectives and hence enjoy the benefits of having an LMS:

1. Understand that your core business objective as a Distance Learning provider should be to offer value for money that a student pays. Your purpose should never end with receiving the hard-eaned cash of a student. The student pays that money not because they love your college or want to assist you; that money is being exchanged for the value you promise them.

2. Clearly state the value that you wish to promise your prospective student. Here is an example:

At ABC college our distance learner should be able to:

a) Access learning materials from whereever they may be.

b) Attempt tests, assignments, and other forms of assessments from wherever they may be.

c) Ask and receive prompt reply to any question on notes they are reading.

d) Enjoy their distance learning through visual illustrations of topics covered in notes.

e) Submit an academic or administrative querry and be promptly responded to.

f) Believe in a system that ensures or gurantees that lecturers will perform their duties of attending to them.

3. Clealry state how the above value can be delivered to a student, in exchange for his money. Here is an example of how ABC College can accomplish this:

a) Install a Moodle Learning Management System. Moodle is free. A college can engage an IT expert to perform the installation.

b) Ensure that before a residential school starts, a deliberate plan, with enforcable penalties, is in place to ensure lecturers carefully prepare and upload quality-assured:

• Notes (uniform format and structure)

• Assignments

• Online tests

c) Lecturers have two timetables - one to be used during residential school, and another one for online engagements with students during the post-residential periods. There should be scheduled times for online discussions, and day and time for students to consult with their lecturer. All these activities should be monitored by an administrator to ensure that all lecturers are available to students.

d) Within a DL department there should be a role of  a person checking to ensure all lecture notes posted onto the LMS:

• Contain Visual aids (video links, gaming tools, etc).

• Are not merely copied and pasted from other sources on the Internet. A distance learner needs quality-assured notes which have been sufficiently edited to ensure that they are easy to read and understand and meet TEVETA stands of a Distance Learning Module. 

e) Ensure that there is a person assigned the role of responding to all academic queries. Queries may range from asking about exam requirements to when results will be published. A Distance Learner should never be left to search out this information on their own. They should trust that your system is a great repository of information.

f) Develope a policy and operating procedures that will guide every facilitator (lecturers, Moodle administrator, DL Head of Department) in their duties. The policy should stipulate penalties for any abrogations.

Are you able to see how items listed in (3) above align with objectives in (2)? What is important to know in all this is that colleges often decide to invest in implementing an LMS inorder to be able to manage Distance Learning. However, it is important to be aware of the fact that technology can only support business objectives; it can never guarantee success on its own. So, never implement an LMS when you are not exactly sure of what the system will be used for. Without a clear understanding of how a technological solution will support your business processes, loss and failure becomes inevitable. In the words of Peppard and Ward (2004), "The inability of organisations to realise value from IS/IT investments is, in part, due to lack of alignment between business and IS/IT strategies" (p.44). 

References

Laudon, C.K. and Laudon, J.P. (2014). Management Information Systems. Boston: Pearson

Luukkonen, I., Toivanen, M., Mursu, A., Suranto, K., & Korpela, M.(2013). 

Researching an Activity-Driven Approach to Information Systems Development. Handbook of Research on ICTS  and Management Systems for improving Efficiency in Healthcare and Social Care. Retrieved from https://www.igi-global.com/book/handbook-research-icts-management-systems/72374

Ward, J. and Peppard (2002). Strategic Planning for Information Systems. 3rd Ed. USA: Wiley

Ward, J. and Peppard (2004). 'Beyond strategic information systems: Towards an IS capability'. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems. 13, pp.167-194

Critical Success Factors for Distance Learning

Critical Success Factor No.1
DEFINE YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION

Any college contemplating to start offering Distance Learning (DL) must first establish how it intends to manage the "distance" in DL. 

It is important to be aware that "distance" is the number one problem a distance learner hopes to overcome. He or she desires to enjoy the benefits of full-time and on-campus learning but circumstances of commitments to work, family or business are a hinderance. The student has the choice to look at the different colleges promising to deliver the training to where he or she is. When decided the student will exhange money with the value of benefits being promised. 

All forms of business are grounded on this fundamental principle that a customer is exchanging their money for a value promised to them.Trouble begins when the the seller of a product or service doesn't actually possess the value they are proposing to the client. I believe a number of colleges and universities in Zambia are caught up in this trap. I call it  "trap" because many such institutions actually do not accurately know the real underlying cause of various bottlenecks they experience in managing their distance learning departments, and as long as there is ignorance of a critical success factor in a business process, failure is inevitable. There is no recovery without discovery!

Here it is, for an institution to succeed in effectively managing its Distance Learning unit it must define its value proposition to the prospective students. A value proposition must not be an academic paper exercise, it should be a result of a  truthful well thought-through strategy. The starting point should be understanding features that characterise on-campus learning and later strategising on how the same features can be incorporated in DL.

On-campus learning is characterised by various benefits which include:

• Direct interaction with trainers and peers. Such a collaborative atmposhere is information-rich and naturally enriches a student's learning experience.

• Interactive feedback. When a student hasn't understood an explanation by a lecturer he or she can pose a question and get immediate feedback. Other follow-up questions can be asked and other students can particpate  in the discussion.

• Readily available guidance in practical subjects. It is a great experience to actually be in a workshop and perform hands-on tasks. Your supervisor or lecturer is readily available to guide you in performing your work.

• Heads of departments. These officers supervise the day-to-day training activities. They ensure lecturers deliver training as scheduled. They ensure lecturers give tests to students on specified dates. Furthermore, they ensure tests are marked and results released on scheduled times. Heads of departments also provide information on exam-registration matters. A student with a question or an exam-related query can easily go to the head of department in person. In all this we see that the office of head of department gives students a sense of certainty regarding their information needs (of course different organisations have different operational structures but the important matter being addressed here is the existence of a role for coordinating various academic activities of a programme or sets of programmes).

Now, no instituion can effectively deliver DL until it has very clear answers on how it intends to enable a distance learner experience the above benefits away from campus! A Learning Management System -  such as Moodle, Blackboard or Astria - is what is needed to manage the distance in DL. Learning Management Systems present an opportunity for a college to propose great value to a prospective student. The Zambian Open University (ZAOU), for example, truly lives upto its motto of being a "university without walls". All a ZAOU student needs is a laptop with an Internet connection and learning materials and interaction with fellow classmates will be a click away. What is most fascinating in all this is that an LMS such as Moodle is all free! It is an open source programme used by many renowned universities and  organisations around the world.

Learning Management Systems virtualise a learning environment so that:

• A distance learner is  able to electronically interact with trainers and peers.  Learning Management Systems have portals for accessing lecture notes and have tools for embedding videos for visual illustrations. 

• Learning Management Systems now have very intuitive interfaces equipped with chat facilities that are very similar to those of social media applications.

• Using virtualisation technologies, video illustrations, gaming applications, and simulations, can now enable a distance learner to follow through and practice a practical lesson.

• A student with a querry can easily message his ot her lecturer or head of department.

If I am work-engaged and do not have time to attend regular school surely I would be willing to pay for the value of enjoying the above benefits. 

But, here is a paradox: there are  institutions with a Learning Management System in place but yet fail to effeciently manage their distance learning business processes. Well, its not a paradox at all. In my next blog post I talk about Critical Success Factor number 2 - Aligning your LMS strategy to your business strategy.

ODFL - A new future for TEVET colleges!

It is encouraging to see a number of technical and vocational training colleges now offering training through distance learning (DL) or what is now commonly referred to as open distance and flexible learning (ODFL). The trend can result into increased accessibility to education. Distance learning can, actually should, also lead to affordable education. The important question to ask regarding the unprecedented participation of different colleges in offering DL is this:

What really is the drive (motive or inspiration) of the many TEVET colleges starting to offer distance learning? Do colleges have a value proposition for  ODFL services they offer? Is the desire to offer quality-training at the heart of the trend or it's only a frenzy of trying out a venture that promises to be a money-spinner?

In the coming weeks I wish to demonstrate that any ODFL strategic plan whose only focus is to increase revenue, without offering any proper value to the customer (the student), will soon or later fail. I also wish to share insights on critical success factors an institution has to be aware of if it intends to start offering Open Distance and Flexible Learning. 

It is my desire for Distance Learning in Zambia's TEVET sector to grow but through adherence to rigorous quality assurance processes. On this blog I propose a model that should be used for monitoring, evaluating, and assuring quality in ODFL service delivery.