Development and Implementation
These have been progressively tack-
ol the Distributed Learning System (DLS}
at RMIT University
This case study illustrates the co mplexity of impl eme nting
majo r strategic change in an organizatio n and th e role
played by project management processes in the endeavor.
Background
RMIT University is located in Melbo urn e, Australia. It has
approximately 50,000 students and 5,000 academic and
administrative staff. Reductions in governm ent support for
tertiary educa tion has forced staff cutbacks and drives for
efficie ncy in recent years. These have put great stress o n uni-
versities in Australia to become more com mercial and entre-
preneurial.
Universities LOday have to be more "customer focused ."
They have to cater better for the needs of a more diverse
range o f students. The growth in th e co mmunication capa-
bilities o f the Internet, have led to increased d1oice. With
many institutions offering courses totall y o r partially online,
the choice of where and how students can study has expand-
ed enormo usly.
The RMIT Uni versi ty Teaching and Learni ng Strategy
( 1998-2000) led to the creation of a portfolio of projects
considered critical to th e long-te rm survival of RMIT. This
case study ou tl ines one of these projects, the d evelopment
of a web-based learning syste m, called the Distributed
Learning System (DLS), designed to deliver more fl exible
learning solutions.
The techno logical system of the DLS was designed to use
"state-of-the-art" learning management systems to enable web-
based del ivery of learning for both on-campus and off-campus
students. The project involved two very distinct but related
phases: the development and implementation phases.
Development Phase
In the development phase, a suite of commercial software tools
was chosen after an evaluation of what was available at the
time. Standa rd project management processes were employed
to manage the development of the DLS.
The development was very co mplica ted . Firstly, hard-
ware requirements had to be d etermined, and the equip-
ment had to be purd1ased a nd configured . Secondly, the
suite of tools had to be integrated with each other. Thi rd ly,
a portal and an associated securi ty system had to be d evel-
oped to protect m e intellectual property and administrative
data of the university. Fourthly, the DLS had to be integrat-
ed with the existing o rganizati onal databases and adminis-
trative systems. These organizatio nal systems were not cen-
tralized and so there was considerable variation in process-
es and procedures from department to department. A deci-
s.i on was made to pilot the DLS a nd a smaiJ multi-discipli-
nary project team was assembled . The team co ntai ned a
ra nge of expertise: technical expertise to d evelop the system,
ma nagement expertise to co nsider its organizatio nal impli-
cation s, and educatio nal expertise to co nsider the ed uca-
ti o nal implications. Eve n so, the p ilo t uncovered a number
48 Proiect Management Journa l March 2003
o f unfo reseen problems.
led in later iterati ons as tl1e system was rolled out across the
university.
Implementation Phase
The initial development presented a number of problems
o n a tech nical level. ll owever, the system has gradually
improved from the "Benchmark," to a point w he re it was
running very smoothly by me third iteration . Reliabi li ty tar-
gets for tl1e system of99.7% were being met.
The influence of the system on the quality and flexibi li-
ty of the courses offered by RMIT University was another
questi o n. A review o f courses o n the system was condu cted
in mid 1999. The review fo und that, whi le the quantity of
the courses using the DLS met the performance targets, the
quality of many of the courses was poor. Most of the cours-
es created o n the DLS simply involved the uploading exist-
ing lecture material to the DLS. There had been little educa-
tional rethinking. Executive management responded to this
by calling for implementing more morough QA processes,
establishing tight deadlines for development of the educa-
tional products.
In reality, this approach still did not add ress the issues
around the changes in practice of the teaching staff wh o
were learning to use the DLS. The online lea rning environ-
ment is fundamentally different to a normal face-to-face
learning environment. The assumption of management was
that quality products would result if teache rs could simp ly
transfer existi ng practice to the new envi ronment.
The implementation of the DLS introduced high levels of
uncertainty for teachers and students. Firstly, it required teach-
ers and academics to learn to use the new software, a significant
training issue in itself. Secondly, the new software had impor-
tant change implicatio ns for the professional practice of the
teaching staff. It required them to reassess many of their basic
beliefs about education and it did not address some basic mis-
trust about the underlying purpose o f the strategy as a cost-cut-
ting exercise:
Many staff feared that the move to onli ne education was
designed to cut their numbers.
Many students feared that their face-to-face classes wou ld
b e reduced .
Students were asked to learn in different ways.
Course administrators had to acquire new skills and
processes.
Faculties had to consider the new opportunities and mar-
kets that the DLS opened up.
Q uality assurance a nd copyright became critical for mate-
ria l published o n th e Web, so new orga ni zational proce-
dures had to be developed a nd staff needed to become
aware of them .
Summary
The new strategic direction involved the implementation of
new technology and co nsiderable change. In this case, the
imple mentation of the DLS became a significant change
project in itself.