Bradley C. Wheeler, College of Business and Management, University of Maryland at College Park
Joseph S. Valacich, School of Business, Indiana University
Maryam Alavi, College of Business and Management, University of Maryland at College Park
Doug Vogel, College of Business, University of Arizona
This essay presents a framework for developing technology-mediated inter-institutional relationships for collaborative telelearning. This framework highlights the issues and implications of developing and maintaining partnering relationships among universities. The development of this framework is an outgrowth of two inter-institutional relationships among three large state universities: between the University of Maryland at College Park and Indiana University, and between the University of Maryland at College Park and the University of Arizona. The essay provides a description of both inter-institutional relationships, focusing specifically on inception, execution, and ongoing evaluation experiences. These experiences are subsequently used to illustrate how a framework for developing inter-institutional relationships can be used to both guide the design of new and the assessment of existing relationships. The essay concludes by discussing costs and benefits of inter-institutional relationships at the individual champion and the institutional levels.
In this brief essay we premise our writing on three key assumptions: 1) Collaborative learning is a powerful and desirable way to improve the quality of education (Alavi, 1994; Johnson, Johnson, and Smith, 1991). 2) Collaborative learning is enhanced when the learning partners bring different perspectives to a problem or topic (e.g., heterogeneous task-relevant knowledge from different student populations within a field of study) (Alavi, Wheeler, & Valacich, 1994). 3) Cooperation between institutions is required to enable collaborative, inter-institutional telelearning. We believe that the new educational forms for collaborative universities add value for the students, faculty and for the institutions which form them, yet creating or enabling such inter-institutional relationships is very challenging. We draw our insights from two recent inter-institutional experiences between the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP) with Indiana University (IU) and UMCP with the University of Arizona (UA). From these experiences we set forth a framework for developing inter-institutional collaborative telelearning programs.
Here we describe two recent inter-institutional experiences with a focus on the process issues of managing the relationships rather than the content of each project. Details of the first project can be found in Alavi et al., (1994).
Inception: In the fall of 1993 faculty from UMCP approached a faculty member at IU regarding the possibility of using desktop videoconferencing (DVC) systems to enable distributed student teamwork. Commercial release of the DVC technology (AT&T's Vistium Personal Video System) envisioned for the project was about four to six months away at that time, but the faculty saw this as a strategic opportunity to change the MBA program topic of "technology-enabled distributed teamwork" from a conceptual teaching experience for the students to a hands-on learning experience through the use of an emerging technology. Additionally, such a project could provide early research insight into the viability of new technology-enabled collaborative learning environments. Faculty at both schools taught the Management Information Systems class in the MBA core curriculum. That initial meeting surfaced more questions than answers about launching such a project and how to articulate the anticipated value of the project to the respective colleges, students, and faculty. During the next four months a flurry of e-mail and telephone conversations ultimately produced a ten page concept paper outlining the following objectives:
This document was used to internally gain buy-in for the project from the resource providers at each university. The plan was to have a pilot project in operation for the spring 1994 semester and then, conditional upon success and funding, expand the project in later semesters.
Students Using Desktop Videoconferencing for Collaborative Telelearning
Execution: Differences in curricula, students, scheduling, and infrastructure between the two universities greatly complicated the process of orchestrating a synchronous class project. For example, at Maryland, the faculty member had complete control in selecting class topics and projects while Indiana used a highly integrated curriculum among the core classes which did not permit changes to accommodate the project. Thus, student participation in the project had to be done on an out-of-class volunteer basis. Also, the Indiana students were full-time MBA students who lived near campus and were on campus four days a week. Maryland had part-time students who commuted to campus only one or two evenings per week for a fixed-period evening class. These differences between class content and student availability placed tremendous constraints on the design of the project. Additionally, infrastructure differences necessitated that the DVC systems at one university could be housed in the College of Business but they had to be setup and stored between each session. The other university could permanently set up the equipment, but it was housed in a building across campus and only available in the evenings. These constraints, however, did not render the project infeasible. The students at both universities were highly motivated and were willing to spend the extra effort (e.g., walking to a different building to access the DVC units or making extra trips to the campus) to work on the project.
The technical and logistical constraints paled in comparison to designing meaningful, curriculum-relevant collaborative learning exercises for the student teams. The faculty met face-to-face in early January for a two day session to develop the learning exercises. After much brainstorming and further explicit recognition of the many constraints at each university, the faculty chose to author two business cases in the context of a management consulting firm. The premise of the case was the consideration of investing in advanced technologies to support intraorganizational communication and distributed teamwork. Assignments were made for writing the cases and seeding them with curriculum-relevant topics. After two weeks of development, the concept of the management consulting firm was abandoned as too abstract for student learning. The case scenario was switched to the more tangible (i.e., product-oriented) grocery industry and two cases were written to represent different firms. To accommodate all the students registered in the courses, it was decided that student teams would have two UMCP and two IU members and that each team would meet for three sessions via the DVC systems to resolve the case. A formal, big screen video conference was held between the student groups at the two universities to kickoff the project. Faculty from both institutions and MBA program administrators spoke to both groups of students via the videoconferencing link. The ceremonial kickoff meeting was used to help create excitement and lend credibility to the new and unproven project.
Evaluation: The student team linkages between universities were very popular with the students due to the novelty and uniqueness of the project and use of the advance information technology (DVC units). As one student wrote on his evaluation form, "A particular strength of the project worth noting was the participation of the Indiana University MBA students. Our colleagues at IU brought different perspectives to the sessions and added value to this experience of learning a new technology." The faculty at both institutions were pleased with the learning outcomes of the project and the visibility it had generated in the business schools and at the campus level. The faculty realized, however, the enormous opportunity costs (in terms of faculty time) in coordinating an inter-institutional project. The faculty met for a second face-to-face work session to review the student assessments of the project and to analyze some objective measures.
Inception: The collaborative relationship between the University of Maryland and the University of Arizona emerged from an opportunistic realization of symmetrical teaching and technology resources. During the previous year faculty members from each university had visited the other university on unrelated matters. During one of these visits, the two faculty members that championed this partnership met and discussed the possibility of linking each university's high-technology teaching theater and holding joint class sessions. The primary goals of the linkage would be to demonstrate the viability of technology-mediated collaborative learning environments and enable distributed student learning activities. After a more informal discussions about the potential for linking the two theaters, the two faculty met in the spring to plan a joint syllabus for a fall graduate MBA elective class.
Execution: The course established two levels of technology-enabled collaboration. The first was synchronous (same time / different place) teaching between the two theaters via videoconferencing and linked learning support software. The videoconferencing link involved the Picturetel videoconferencing unit at UMCP and the CLI videoconferencing unit at the University of Arizona. The two sites were connected via an ISDN B+d video link operating at 112K transmission rate using the H.320 standards. The learning support software provided the students electronic access to the instructors' lecture notes. Each student could then augment the notes in real-time during the class. The software also provided for quick polling on discussion issues. Software provided joint idea generation and commenting facilities to all students. Additional software provided an electronic seating chart with a queuing mechanism for proposing questions from either site. One of the faculty members taught each class (or subsession of a class) to both groups. The second level of the project was for asynchronous (different time / different place) collaboration for analyzing a Harvard Business School case between distributed student teams. Each team used Lotus Notes to analyze and formally write a case analysis for the project.
Evaluation: At the time of this writing the UMCP - UA project is in operation. Although data is still being gathered to evaluate the effectiveness and implications of this linked environment, some insights are beginning to emerge. Both the faculty and students have observed the value in terms of heterogeneous perspectives brought by having two faculty members teach the class at the same time. Similarly, the student projects benefited from the heterogeneous perspectives contributed by each university's students . From the faculty's perspective, the coordination costs have greatly escalated the time required to plan and deliver the courses. However, the total number of hours spent on lecturing by the individual faculty member were reduced. The faculty plan on continuing the collaboration in teaching their courses in the future. The courses will be offered in the collaborative form for the second time in the fall semester of 1995.
For both of these projects, numerous ongoing questions must be answered. Those questions relate to balancing the positive aspects of the project for students, faculty, and institutions against the increased costs of delivering inter-institutional collaborative activities. In the next section we provide a framework that can be used to guide faculty and institutions in gathering information needed to design and assess the value of these relationships.
As the potential for technology-mediated collaboration between universities continues to expand, institutions and especially faculty need a conceptual framework for assessing the implications of and guidance for forming institutional collaborations. The organizing framework for this discussion will be an adaptation of the "characteristics of successful partnerships" as put forth by Cash, McFarlan, McKenney and Applegate (1992) to guide the design of inter-organizational business relationships. While there are obvious differences in the operational environments between businesses and universities, aspects of their framework provide a useful organization for understanding collaborative university relationships. We have used the two projects described here to illustrate the application of the framework.
A key to successful inter-institutional relationships is dedicated champions at all collaborating institutions. These champions must define shared goals and objectives. Also, these goals and objectives must consider the diversity of each institution and thus have meaning and importance to local constituents.
Since faculty members (or groups of faculty) usually have very broad control of the content and conduct of their courses, change in this area must necessarily be championed by faculty members. Shared vision by deans or other top level administrators who are resource gatekeepers will be required for institutionalization (see discussion below), but may not be required for startup projects. The shared goals and objectives of the project must point towards some viable payoff for each faculty member. The value of these may be mediated by the career stage the faculty member and may take the form of intrinsic rewards (e.g., enabling a "better" learning environment for students) or extrinsic rewards (e.g., research toward promotion, improved teaching evaluations, etc.). Since the reward structures and allocation processes vary greatly by institution, it is important that the early vision for the project explicitly address desirable payoffs for each champion. Once goals are defined, local champions can "sell" the concept to those in control of local resources such as courses, curriculum, and technology. As with projects within most organizations, without champions and clearly defined goals, little success can be realized.
In the case of the two projects described, the shared vision was initiated and enacted by the faculty champions. The institutions provided no additional release time or graduate assistants for the projects. Much of the work was done at great personal cost (e.g., many extra hours on evenings and weekends, foregone opportunities for other research projects, direct financial costs, etc.), but the champions were willing to "gamble" on the opportunity based on their shared vision and belief that anticipated payoffs (e.g., research publication, favorable teaching evaluations, institutional visibility, etc.) would ensue from the collaborative project.
There are numerous obvious questions that must be answered when developing a shared vision for any relationship. Table 1 presents several representative questions that emerged during the establishment of our relationships. There were, of course, different questions for the project champions to consider from those of administrators at each institution.
Representative questions when developing a shared vision at the top
Questions for champions to consider:
Questions for institutions to consider:
In the case of the two projects described in this essay, the primary benefit was to enhance students' learning experience while increasing institutional visibility. The projects lasted from several weeks (the UMCP-IU project) to a full semester (the UMCP-UA project). The faculty involved in the projects spent considerable time (about twice as much as it would take to teach the courses in the traditional way) in planning, coordinating, and delivering the courses.
A second characteristic of successful partnerships is the need for complementary skills and resources. Within this context, complementary skills primarily relate to the abilities and motivations of the individuals at each institution. Similarly, complementary resources refer to the technological infrastructures at each institution. In sum, all participants must "need each other" in order to motivate individuals to expend the required effort to make the project successful. However, the need for each other is a necessary but insufficient requirement. Organizations must also have the technological infrastructures to successfully support the project.
In terms of the UMCP-IU project, a distant institutional partner engaged in MBA-relevant education was an absolute necessity for creating distributed teamwork via DVC. While artificial distance could have been simulated via physical separation into different rooms, a key objective of the project was to enable collaborative learning by linking heterogeneous student teams (heterogeneity in terms of differences in MBA curriculum between the two schools due to IU's relatively more structured and integrated core MBA curriculum). Thus, collaboration with another university was essential. Symmetrical technological infrastructures were also essential for both projects. The UMCP-IU project necessitated that both institutions buy newly emerging DVC technology. With no institutional budget available for the project, each faculty champion pursued opportunities in his or her own environment for obtaining the necessary infrastructure. Faculty at each university were successful in finding small one-time funding sources to get a small number of the DVC systems. The UMCP-UA project had a jump start in that both institutions already had high technology teaching theaters, but some software development, reconfiguration of the computer networks, and establishment of communication links between the two local area networks (LANs) was required. Fortunately, both of the departments had the in-house expertise for orchestrating the required infrastructure changes. Both projects required a high tolerance from everyone involved when the inevitable technology failures were encountered. Sometimes work-arounds were possible, but in other cases, a small failure of one component of the technological link caused an on-the-fly revision of the educational content for the class session. Table 2 provides guidance for answering reciprocal skills and infrastructure questions from both the champion and institutional perspective.
Table 2 Representative questions defining reciprocal skills and infrastructures
Questions for champions to consider:
Questions for institutions to consider:
In the cases described here, the primary responsibility for project definition, design and development of materials resided with the faculty. Faculty at the three universities were assisted by graduate students and support staff for technical implementation and trouble shooting. The project involved 178 students on the three campuses (120 students in the UMCP-IU project, and 58 students in the UMCP-UA project). Both projects required development and utilization of advanced information technology infrastructure as described before.
Cash and colleagues state that "partnerships grow from strength to strength" (1992, p. 226). This means that projects must have early success to quickly demonstrate their value to internal and external agents. Without early success, the desire to support larger, more encompassing projects will be unlikely. For example, the initial UMCP-IU project was constrained to a relatively small scope in order to learn the necessary requirements for a larger project and to also have an early success. The initial project was run on a "shoe string" budget with very little formal organizational support. Achieving an initial success with the first phase of the project resulted in gaining a significant infusion of resources from both internal and outside sources for a second project phase. Without initial successes to build on, the acquisition of the substantial resources for later project phases would not have occurred.
Table 3 Representative questions defining concrete plans for early success
Questions for champions to consider:
Questions for institutions to consider:
The phased approach to execution of the UMCP-IU project was highly effective in establishing the feasibility of the concept and securing the needed resources for the full-scale implementation in a subsequent semester. In the UMCP-UA project, a relatively simple technical configuration for data sharing between the two videoconferenced classes proved to be highly effective in provision of interactivity between the video linked classrooms. In both cases, the simplicity of the project and technical designs and well-defined objectives lead to the ultimate success of the projects.
All faculty sponsors involved in the two example projects view the coordination issues as the most difficult aspect of enacting collaborative telelearning projects. At least three issues exacerbated this issue for the UMCP-IU project. The synchronous nature of the four, concurrent collaborative student sessions (i.e., four student teams were meeting through eight DVC systems at one time) meant that all of the technology, business case handouts, room scheduling, and student team rotation to use the machines had to be precisely planned and coordinated between the two institutions. A second issue was coordinating documents to support both the pedagogical and research goals of the project. Coordination of the paperwork required for the case analysis and some research measurement of satisfaction etc. was a challenging issue. A final coordination difficulty was working within the asymmetrical curricular environments of the two institutions. For both projects, our experience unequivocally demonstrates that extensive, ongoing, real-time coordination is a prerequisite to success.
Table 4 Representative questions defining coordination procedures
Questions for champions to consider:
Questions for institutions to consider:
In the UMCP-IU project, students used DVC units to collaborate and communicate during pre-specified and pre-arranged time periods. Faculty and support staff used e-mail extensively to coordinate their activities during the projects. In the UMCP-UA project, the two faculty used almost identical syllabi and similar pedagogies in teaching their courses. Both faculty members were present during the videoconferenced class-time and took turns in lecturing and leading the class discussions. In both projects, differences in cultural climates and ideosyncristic student body demographics at the institutions enhanced learning by bringing different perspectives into the process. In the UMCP-UA project, students working with remote colleagues used Louts Notes to communicate and coordinate their activities outside the classroom.
The willingness of the faculty and support staff involved in these projects to work cooperatively and be flexible in teaching, scheduling, and delivery of the courses greatly facilitated project coordination and execution.
"Partnering companies must establish structures and guidelines that ensure fairness and profit on both sides" (Cash et al., 1992, p. 227). This means that when defining the partnership agreement, the risks and rewards of the relationship must be structured in a way that all partners only contribute what they are able. In other words, since it is unlikely that all organizations will have the same abilities to allocate resources to a project, these differences must be recognized at the outset of the relationship. Also, it must also be recognized at the outset that different institutions and individuals will have different incentives and objectives. These differences must be recognized so that ongoing and post-project rewards can be defined and allocated most appropriately.
Since the formation of inter-institutional collaborative projects is still a risky process, the choice of a partner is a key issue. While the apriori activities of defining a shared vision and goals can be done before the project begins, each faculty member exposes his or her own local reputation to the ability of the remote faculty champion to deliver whatever the situation requires at the moment. Thus, our experience completely reinforces the need for establishing a partnership with a faculty member who can be trusted to deliver whatever is needed at the moment -- which can often exceed what was envisioned or promised.
Table 5 Representative questions when developing a partnership architecture
Questions for champions to consider:
Questions for institutions to consider:
In this case, the faculty involved in the projects expected well-defined learning and research outcomes from the projects. More specifically, the faculty felt that enriching the students' learning experience was a necessary outcome of the projects. Research outcomes in form of conference presentations and research publications were viewed as desired outcomes from the projects. The faculty involved in the case offered distinctive competencies toward achieving the project outcomes. For example, one of the faculty involved in the UMCP-UA project presented the course content from a macro and organizational perspective while the other faculty member presented the material from a micro and individual perspective. These complementary perspectives lead to synergy, delivering high-value to the students.
The continuing emergence of advanced communication technologies is enabling new opportunities for collaboration among educational institutions. These opportunities are taking many forms with requisite impacts on the processes of research, teaching, and service. For example, the Internet has long enabled collaborating authors at multiple institutions to electronically exchange data, manuscripts and messages via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and e-mail. This has improved research collaboration and improved the turnaround time for authors' revisions. Inter-institutional messaging via electronic mail systems has also become a pervasive form of communication for scholarly activity. Inter-institutional collaboration in the teaching and learning process, however, is less well developed. With the exception of a few consortial arrangements such as the National Teaching University (NTU), most classes continue to invoke the same teaching and learning approaches as those of centuries gone by -- students physically gather at academic institutions for classroom instruction to be delivered at prespecified times.
Emerging communication technologies such as computer conferencing, videoconferencing, distributed document databases (e.g., Lotus Notes), and others are enabling new forms of learning opportunities which extend beyond the walls of the university. As technology creates new possibilities, administrators, students, and especially faculty must carefully question the value and payoff of these new educational forms, yet, must also be willing to reassess longheld assumptions of the current educational paradigm. One such longheld assumption that significantly influences the establishment of inter-institutional relationships is how the competition for students and resources has changed. Universities have found themselves under greater scrutiny by legislatures, parents, alumni, and students. This shift for universities is similar to how nonacademic institutions go from operating in a near monopolistic environment to a market environment.
The intensity of competition among universities for bright students and resources has escalated in recent years. As an explicit example, competition among professional business schools has become especially keen with the popular business press publishing regular rankings of the various schools (see Business Week, October 24, 1994 -- The Best Business Schools). One clear implication of these ranking is that the rich schools get richer and the poor get poorer. Universities that have historically well-respected business schools continue to fair well in the rankings while historically less-well recognized schools find it difficult to improve their position. While the validity of the various ranking schemes is beyond the scope of this essay, the clear implication is that students and employers are aware of the rankings and are willing to pay economic premiums to these institutions.
Given the competitive state for students and resources, what are the implications for technology-mediated collaborations given these changing market conditions? Questions arise with respect to competition through cooperation (e.g., institutions competing as alliances at some level), benefits of bridging heterogeneous student populations for collaborative learning, and implications for long term adoption.
In this essay, we have described the evolution of two inter-institutional relationships and have presented a framework for guiding their design and assessment. In this section, we conclude by sharing some insights and conclusions from our experiences.
One conclusion is that the type of activity engaged in between
institutions greatly influences numerous factors about the relationship.
In other words, not all activities are the same, which also implies
that not all relationships are the same. We have described how
numerous factors influence the inter-institutional relationship
(e.g., relative competencies, resource availability, faculty motivation,
etc.). One factor not yet discussed is the type of activity facilitated
by a relationship. Activities can range from passive one-time
events where little integration of curricula and schedules are
needed (e.g., a demonstration video conference between two sites),
to completely integrated curricula. Intermediate levels might
be joint projects where the delivery of some course content and
deliverables must be synchronized, or a fully integrated course
being taught across institutions. In sum, inter-institutional
relationships can have low-levels of activity (i.e., events),
moderate-levels of activity (i.e., projects and courses), and
high-levels of activity (i.e., integrated curricula). As the amount
of "activity" increases, so do the costs of establishing
and maintaining relationships. Figure 1 summarizes this relationship
by mapping a continuum of inter-institutional activities to relative
amounts of costs incurred by an institution. As shown, as activity
rises so do the costs of establishing and maintaining the relationship.
We have represented this as a linear relationship, but such relationships
could be non-linear or step-function, especially for acquiring
needed technology. Nevertheless, it is clear to us that as inter-institutional
coordination increases -- from events to projects, from projects
to courses, and from courses to curriculum -- the costs of this
relationship -- faculty time, infrastructure improvements, opportunity
costs, etc. -- also increase. This factor must be considered before
entering in any relationship.
Figure 1. Activity Level
Influences Costs
Since numerous opportunities vie for the time of individuals poised to be champions of inter-institutional relationships -- teaching, research, service, consulting, writing textbooks, and so on -- costs incurred by individual champions must also be considered. In other words, the structure of institutional incentives must be examined. For more traditional faculty activities, the reward structures are relatively clear. For example, greater research productivity leads to greater rewards. Additionally, formal mechanisms such as summer research grants are provided to individuals to encourage these more traditional behaviors.
Yet, what mechanisms are in place to encourage individuals to engage in non-traditional behaviors such as establishing inter-institutional relationships? Within our own institutions, for example, no formal mechanisms were in place to help individual evaluate the tradeoffs between the risks and rewards of establishing an inter-institutional relationship. Further, no formal support mechanisms were in place to facilitate this behavior. This meant that each individual needed to expend considerable effort to "make things happen" with no promise that this activity would lead to rewards. In a broader context, potential champions might find themselves asking, "How will I be rewarded for this activity relative to publishing another article?"
Such uncertainty in rewards, and the potential risks of failure, may discourage many from engaging in the building of inter-institutional relationships. This concern may be especially true for junior faculty members where engaging in non-traditional behavior may be viewed as being very risky. Thus, we feel that until more formal mechanisms are put into place -- mechanisms to encourage, support, and reward -- that only those individuals with a strong entrepreneurial spirit will engage in establishing relationships. This begs the point that institutions must develop support and reward structures to encourage this partnering behavior if it is indeed desired.
Given the relationship between institutional costs, champion costs, and activity level, a clear next question must be "what is the relationship between benefits and activity level?" In other words, do benefits also increase as activity increases? We address this question next.
What is the relationship between benefits and activity level? Do benefits increase as activity increases? The answer to this question is not as clear-cut as costs. As with costs, benefits can be divided into two primary categories: benefits to individual champions and benefits to the institution. Benefits to the individual champions will vary by local reward structures and career stages. Therefore, our discussion will focus primarily on institutional benefits, since there will be little incentive for maintaining a relationship without long-term institutional benefits. In this section, we argue that the benefits from inter-institutional relationships will vary and will primarily depend upon distinctive competencies of the partners. More specifically, we believe that the relative competencies -- skills, resources, and specialties -- of a partner will greatly influence benefits. Partnering with an institution with fewer competencies will likely yield fewer benefits than when partnering with an institution with relatively more competencies. This suggests that an institution will likely strive to establish relationships with institutions that possess equal or more competencies.
A second issue is the extent to which benefits increase with activity level. By increasing the activity level of a relationship, do more resources, more visibility, better pedagogy, and so on result from an increased level of activity? We would argue that this too would be contingent upon the competencies of the partner. It is likely that all inter-institutional relationships would yield some benefits to each institution at lower levels of commitment, but that increasing commitment may result in declining, unchanging, or increasing benefits based upon the relative competencies of each organization. Figure 2 shows the three possible scenarios.
Line A on Figure 2 suggests that when partnering with an institution
with high-competencies relative to the needs of the project, increased activity will lead to greater benefits
for the institution with relatively low-competency in the project-required areas. Thus, organizations
of relatively low-competency should strive to escalate the activity
level of their inter-institutional relationship with higher-competency
partners. Lines B and C suggest that when partnering with a relative
peer or lesser-competency institution, the benefits of increasing
activity will likely plateau (or decline) at some point. This
suggests that it may be advantageous to partner on modest events
and projects, but that it is not in the best interest of the institution
to allow commitment to move beyond moderate levels of activity
when a partner is a peer or lower competency institution. Following
this logic, it may be wiser to search out new relationships with
other institutions than to escalate an existing one.
Figure 2. Benefits and
Activities
A third issue relates to the extent to which individual champions have the ability to individually and independently engage in inter-institutional relationships. The essence of this point focuses on at what level of activity does the institution need to take responsibility for a relationship? Figure 3 shows a continuum of institutional commitment in which an individual champion is likely to be able to manage and at what point the institution itself must become active in managing this relationship. From our experience, we believe that individual champions are able to manage commitments at the event and project levels. However, if the level of commitment goes beyond project activities, formal institutional processes beyond those controlled by the individual champion will be needed. For example, to integrate a course across institutions will influence practical issues such as room scheduling and curricula, but also how a course fits within the larger context of degree requirements. Resolving these types of issues will likely go beyond the control of an individual champion. Thus, it is at the point where coordination levels go beyond the realm of an individual champion that coordination costs will significantly increase and have a greater affect on other institutional actors. Given these factors, it will be important for all organizations to gain an understanding of the robustness of the relationship between activity level, costs, and benefits.
Furthermore, we posit that the maturity of a given communication
technology also relates to the responsibility realm and level
of activity. Figure 3 suggests that emerging and unproven technologies
are suitable for events and projects in the realm of individual
champions. In fact, it is the entrepreneurial activities and visions
of champions which can demonstrate the viability of these technologies.
Courses and integrated curricula in the realm of institutions
are better-suited to more mature technologies.
Figure 3. Realms of Responsibility
Alavi, M., Wheeler, B. C., & Valacich, J. S. (under review). Using IT to reengineer business education: An exploratory investigation of collaborative telelearning.
Cash, J.I., Jr., McFarlan, F.W., McKenney, J.L., & Applegate, L.M. (1992). Corporate Information Systems Management, (3rd Edition), Homewood, Il: Irwin.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., and Smith, K. (1991). Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity. ASYE-ERIC Highter Education Report (4), Clearninghouse on Higher Education, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 1991.