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Complex IT Projects in Education: the Challenge

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Complex IT Projects in Education: the Challenge International Journal of Computer Science Research and Application INTERNATIONAL 2012, Vol. 02, Issue. 01 (Special Issue), pp. 115-125 JOURNAL OF ISSN 2012-9564 (Print) COMPUTER SCIENCE ISSN 2012-9572 (Online) RESEARCH AND APPLICATION © Author Names. Authors retain all rights. www.ijcsra.org IJCSRA has been granted the right to publish and share, Creative Commons 3.0 Complex IT Projects in Education: The Challenge Stefan Morcov 1 1 SIVECO Romania SA E-mail: [email protected] 0040 722 458 953 Abstract Complexity is a new concept in project management that becomes more and more important when dealing with today’s projects. The term “complexity” in project management moved from the status of attribute to the status of discipline. IT projects display even more traits of complexity due to the new technologies involved and to the traits of innovation and unpredictability associated with them. A n IT project in education is primarily an education project, and typical project and software models and metrics are not applicable as such, which raises the complexity of IT projects in education to an even higher level. The project management theories have starting to evolve since the late 1990s to incorporate a dimension of complexity. Still, these are not fully integrated. And especially in education, the development o f a framework methodology for the setup and management of complex projects is required in order to tackle with the complexities of combining the intrinsic complexity of IT projects, the education aspects and the risks introduced by the wide range of stakeh olders involved in major education transformations. Keywords : eLearning; Education; Complex projects; Project Management; Education Management 1. Introduction The rapid development within society of the use of information and communication technologies has meant a revolution in the way schools and training institutions work, following the general trend of the whole society. Not only academic institutions apply IT tools in the management of their day-to-day activity, but the eLearning 2.0 paradigm involves the implementation of virtual collaboration and communication learning environments based on web 2.0 tools, including delivery of multimedia-rich simulations and experiments for a personalized curricula. In the same time, education poses a significant amount of issues related to adoption and impact. Because an IT project in education is primarily an education project, and typical project and software models and metrics are not applicable as such. The term “complexity” in project management moved from the status of attribute to the status of discipline. Complexity does not necessarily relate to size, but it relates to interdependencies and interactions between the project’s components, between the project and external factors. A complex project is described by nonlinearity, complex feedback loops and significant impact of small factors (Lorenz's butterfly effect). The project management theories have starting to evolve since the late 1990s to incorporate a dimension of complexity. Still, these are not fully integrated. And especially in education, the development of a framework methodology for the setup and management of complex projects is required in order to tackle with the complexities of combining the intrinsic complexity of IT projects, the education aspects and the risks introduced by the wide range of stakeholders involved in major education transformations. The paper makes a summary of evolutions in the discipline of complex IT project management. It also describes the special issues related to the management of complex IT projects in education, based on practical 116 International Journal of Computer Science Research and Application, 2(1):115-125 project examples. Finally, the paper underlines key areas of research required to formally define complexity in project management, to practically measure complexity and to advance towards a formalisation of project management practices and methodologies required for dealing with such projects. 2. The intrinsic complexity of IT projects Software projects still are, after tens of years of experience and research, difficult to estimate, plan, execute and evaluate, especially with regard to impact. The industry lacks a practical definition of complexity as regards project management (Whitty & Maylor, 2009) (Williams T. , 1999) (Whitty & Maylor, Feb 2007) (Vidal, Marle, & Bocquet, 2011). The existing definitions are vague and non-measurable, which reduces the evaluation to a single method: “expert-judgment”). The execution of a (complex) project remains defined by a combination of personal skills, experience and formal methods – where formal methods remain difficult to adapt to specific organizations and projects, and their usage is still extremely rare in practice, in organizations of all sizes. The project manager continues to search for the right question rather than for the right answer, and to use methodologies for organizing his own ideas rather than follow them. In the same time, a practical but systematic approach should give the project manager a framework in which he/she should be able to construct, organize and manage his project in a more structured fashion. 3. Education of the future – technology enhanced education Education and training are the keys to success in the current global information society. To succeed in today's environment, new skills must be developed that will continue to respond to changes; these skills depend on the ability of employees to think critically, to solve problems and anticipate new opportunities. The rapid development within society of the use of information and communication technologies has meant a revolution in the way schools and training institutions work, following the general trend of the whole European society (Commission of the European Communities, 2001). The key components defined in 2001 were equipping the schools, training of the teachers, networking and resources. The strategic focus demanded creating a theoretical, psychological and pedagogical framework for the integrating of ICT resources in education. In the same time, a strategic approach to their implementation was required. Throughout history, education and training, as engines of development in any society but also mirroring their environment, in all its forms – formal, continuous, vocational, has adopted naturally the technological evolution. Higher education has influenced and even provided leadership for the technological advance of our society. Lower levels of education have always been lagging behind, with technology adoption rates lower than the society itself. This is currently expressed in the slower adoption of Internet connectivity, IT resources for education (such as multimedia educational content or eLearning platforms) and ITC resources in management. More than this, information technology has a higher degree of development than teaching. The basic education model throughout the world is still following industrialist principles and is only recently being influenced and slightly changed by the less recent theories of (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969) - social constructivism, Vîgotski - social constructivism, Bloom-Anderson - taxonomies of learning objectives or (Gardner, 1983) - multiple intelligences; as facilitated by the introduction of new educational resources – the computer, the Internet. We are facing a change comparable to the introduction of paper and printed books in schools (Jugureanu R. , 2010). Introducing IT in the basic education systems of the world is a strategic, political priority on all continents. From strategic formulation, this priority translates into complex technical problems of implementing mass- projects, with wide geographical coverage, and with tight deadlines. The national programs of introducing IT in education were pioneered approx. 10-15 years ago, initially in highly-developed countries (US, Britain, France) and did not reach a significant coverage until recently. As all pioneering projects, the failure rates were incredibly high for the initial projects and their impact on education was irrelevant, but the literature is rarely quoting failures – both for political reasons, as huge amounts were invested, as well as from practical measurement difficulties as described hereafter. One difficulty is time-span: the results of a project implemented on a large scale in an education system can only be measured after years, and the results on the society itself may be fully perceived only after one generation. This is a perfect application of the popular culture principle that “The impact of Technology is often overestimated in the short-term and underestimated in the long-term”. ICT resources in education are changing slowly the way we learn today, but change dramatically the way society will function tomorrow. 117 International Journal of Computer Science Research and Application, 2(1):115-125 Another difficulty is establishing the targets, as the success indicators vary widely from project to project; from mere quantitative metrics related to provided resources (such as number of computers), to more elaborated usage rates of the provided resources and satisfaction-surveys, and very rarely to impact on pedagogical results (ISTRATE, 2009). It is obviously difficult to measure the success of a project when the business concept itself evolved dramatically over the last 10 years. eLearning was described 10 years ago as delivering text on a computer or over the Internet,
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