e-learning Benchmarking
From May 2007 through to early January 2008 I led an e-learning Benchmarking project for the University of Sheffield. This project was part of a national programme run by the Higher Education Academy and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) – see http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/elearning/benchmarking
The term ‘benchmarking’ in this context was in reality something of a misnomer. The exercise would have been better described as a ‘self audit’, although institutions who were prepared to do so could compare end results for mutual benefit. Data fed into the national programme was anonymised and used as a gauge of the overall development of e-learning within the UK higher education sector.
Our involvement fell into Phase 2 of the national programme, and it was largely through my recognition of the potential benefits of participating that I convinced the University to become involved in the programme. Consequently I led the bid and encouraged two of our partner universities in the Worldwide Universities Network to follow suit, so establishing a small WUN benchmarking consortium. As a group we worked with a small team of consultants appointed by the Higher Education Academy.
Of the various benchmarking methodologies available within the programme, we chose the e-learning Maturity Model (eMM), due mainly to its growing global currency and rigorous approach. (See http://www.utdc.vuw.ac.nz/research/emm/). With a small benchmarking executive team, Sheffield was able to design an approach to the way we would apply eMM to the institution to use the limited resource available to maximise its strategic value to the university.
By this time the Learning Development & Media Unit, of which I was Director, was merging with its sister unit and a new Director was appointed to be in overall control. This gave me the opportunity to become far more involved in the benchmarking project than would otherwise have been possible. I took on a very ‘hands-on’ role, being directly involved in evidence gathering, its assessment within the eMM methodology, and producing the final analysis, with an extensive report aimed at internal stakeholders and a further report for the national programme.