Content area
Full Text
Syst Pract Action Res (2011) 24:165185 DOI 10.1007/s11213-010-9182-4
ORIGINAL PAPER
Julie Hardman Alberto Paucar-Caceres
Published online: 14 August 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract Managed Learning Environments (MLEs) in higher education institutions (HEIs) are relatively new to the arena of higher education, even though there are over 90% of institutions in the higher and further education sector who are currently engaged in some kind of MLE development activity (University of Brighton 2003). However, when it comes to the task of assessing the performance of an MLE there are no universally recognisable frameworks for evaluating MLEs in HEIs currently discussed within the literature. The paper advances a general systemic framework for evaluating MLEs based on Checklands SSM and reports on the rst stages of our attempt to evaluate the MLE at Manchester Metropolitan University involving the team developing the system and the stakeholders concerned. Two of three iterations of this research have been completed and, whilst outside the scope of this paper, have found that SSM has coped with the criteria demanded of the evaluation framework within its context. After completing a stakeholder analysis, the criteria for evaluating an MLE, based on the stakeholders requirements, emerged. These iterations have tentatively concluded that by contextualising SSM to the evaluation requirements of an MLE in a UK HEI, the measures of performance suggested by SSM need to be adjusted. The nal iteration will check this outcome.
Keywords Managed Learning Environments Evaluation criteria SSM CATWOE
Stakeholders Higher education
Introduction
The practice of Managed Learning Environments (MLEs) to help and manage teaching and learning in higher education is relatively well known amongst academics in the UK; but there have been few reections on evaluating its general benets and effectiveness in the
J. Hardman A. Paucar-Caceres (&)
Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Aytoun St, Manchester M1 3GH, UK e-mail: [email protected]
J. Hardmane-mail: [email protected]
A Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) Based Framework for Evaluating Managed Learning Environments
123
166 Syst Pract Action Res (2011) 24:165185
context of the entire educational system. Dening the concept is beset with difculty. Signicantly different versions of the meaning of an MLE are available with multiple interpretations of what it is, as well as competing visions about what it can be used for (Quinsee and Sumner...