hopper, 1993 [5, abstract, overview, toc, switchboard, references]

5.3 The Impact of the Organizational Contexts

The success of courseware projects depended upon provisions for continued resources of all types. The prerequisite conditions for courseware creation were the availability of content materials free from copyright restrictions, and the presence of a faculty member with a well developed vision of education based upon strong discipline and learner oriented goals. It was helpful that the faculty member also had a grasp of the limitations of the technology and the wish to express their vision through computer courseware. The two most important resources for the initial creation of courseware appeared to be human and technical resources. At the beginning of courseware creation, equipment was needed to develop the courseware, and staff were required to begin the project.
 
The continuation and expansion of courseware beyond its initial funding from an outside source depended upon its evolving a structure to support the continuation of resources of all types, while overcoming the limitations inherent in the organizational structures surrounding the project. This way of viewing the establishment of courseware that continued to be offered over a period of time produced a reinterpretation of courseware creation as a process of establishing an ongoing system for obtaining and managing informational, technical, human and financial resources while maintaining a balance among the educational and technical aspects of the project. Three organizational models developed to support these processes, and their nature was highly dependent upon the type of organizational structure that existed during the software's initial creation.
 
An implication of the models that evolved was the need for people who served on courseware teams to be defined in terms of their relationship to the organizations associated with the project. Some tasks originated in the academic context of the project, and those tended to be performed by people closely associated with the academic organization. Other tasks originated in the technical context of the project, and those tended to be done by people who held the closest relationship to the computing organization. Three major project structures developed around the ways these roles were filled.
 
When a faculty member took the majority of the responsibility for the creation of courseware, he or she was called an author or a creator. When a person like a graduate student, who was neither faculty or a member of the computing organization, took on major responsibility for watching over and organizing the creation of software after the initiation, conceptualization and acquisition of resources have taken place during the first part of the project, the role was described as an integrator. Finally, there were cases where an independent organization emerged which was neither an academic department, nor a part of the main computing organization, and a one or people in that organization take on major responsibility for more than one courseware creation. This role was referred to as orchestration. This is most likely to emerge when the organization is also engaged in the creation of the software tools as well as courseware support. However these do not replace the lower level structures as courseware creation mechanisms, but instead serve as more specialized support. An overview of the types of organizational structures and the relationships among them are shown in the table below. The continuing analysis will explore the ways in which each of these organizational structures develop out of distinct patterns of time and motivation constraints. The following discussion will provide more in depth explorations of these less traditional approaches to describing team roles.
 

Table Types of Organizational Structures and Their Relationships
 
© Mary E. Hopper | MEHopper@TheWorld.com [posted 12/04/93 | revised 04/12/13]