The eLearning Benchmarking project was announced by JISC and the HEA in the second half of 2005. The project was designed in 3 stages – an initial pilot with 12 institutions and then a Phase 1 and Phase 2 with significantly increased numbers of participants. One of the main aims of the pilot was to identify and narrow down the potential benchmarking methodologies. The current Phase 1 institutions are now using one of four methodologies to benchmark their eLearning provision. At the same time they are attempting to define the methodologies in terms of eLearning in HE & FE. In the final Phase 2, institutions will use the results from the two earlier stages to assist in refining the methodologies within these terms through application to their local context.
The University of Bradford submitted an application to participate in the project and was accepted for Phase 1. We attended a Town Hall meeting where an overview of the Phase was given along with details of the available methodologies. Following this, we had a workshop meeting to identify which of the four possible methodolgies would be most appropriate to use in our context. We had further deliberations and discussions with stakeholders and made the decision to use the MIT90 methodology. On the surface, this may be seen as one of the more difficult methodologies to apply. Unlike the other main methodologies available, MIT90 doesn’t come with a set of criteria against which an institution can measure itself. Instead, it offers a framework which is used to provide a structure to the processes, resources and influences of, on, and within the body being examined. Besides being used as a tool to examine existing provisions, MIT90 can in fact be used to design provision. Wills (2006) gives a current account of this type of use in Australia.
A key reason for choosing MIT90 to use at UoBradford was the fit with our balanced scorecard system. We already use a balanced scorecard to measure many functions and major projects at the university. eLearning (in its broadest terms) is a significant component of several major strategies and MIT90 gives us the opportunity to align our benchmark outcomes with existing measurements on the scorecard.
September 2006 saw us attending the HEA ‘kick-off’ meeting in Manchester along with the other Phase 1 institutions. Although many useful things were covered at the day long meeting, most seemed to cover background and context. Along with some other MIT90 users, we felt that we never really got to the meat of the subject during the day. Consequently, the MIT90 cohort arranged to hold a further meeting at the University of Glamorgan.
We met in Glamorgan in October with our three partner institutions and the consultants retained by the HEA for a productive and supportive event. Michael Coen from Strathclyde University also attended to give an account of their use of MIT90 in the initial pilot stage of the project. Since then we have been redrafting, refining and disseminating internally our initial criteria candidates. Later posts here will cover this process and its outcomes.
Great to see this blog now active.
Like yourselves we at Glamorgan think the link between MIT90s and Balanced Scorecard approaches, makes this tool useful both as a Benchmarking tool and as a development tool. I think the advantage of MIT90s over the more measure driven models is that we can use it to reflect on enhancement and direction for the future, not only deliver a one off snapshot measure, which is a temptation with the other approaches.