This document summarizes a project to design and implement a quality management framework for online learning environments using a distributed leadership approach. The framework includes six key elements: planning, technologies, organizational structure, evaluation, governance, and resourcing. It was developed and tested over four phases by a team from several Australian universities. The goals were to help conceptualize quality assurance and improvement for online learning and how distributed leadership can support institutional transformation.

1. Building distributed leadership in
designing and implementing a
quality management framework for
Online Learning Environments
Presented by
Associate Professor Michael Sankey
Director, Learning Environments and Media
On behalf of the project team

2. Introduction
Project leads
L to R: Margaret Hicks (USA), Robert Hollenbeck & Garry Allen
(RMIT), Michael Sankey (USQ) Dale Holt, Stuart Palmer (Deakin) Maree
Gosper (Macquarie) & Judy Munro (Deakin). Absent: Ian Solomonides
(Macquarie).
 This project was to design and implement a
framework that uses a distributed leadership (DL)
approach for the quality management of Online
Learning Environments (OLE).

3. Aim of the project
1. To help managers better conceptualise what needs to be
managed well with online learning environments to assure
their quality (QA) and continuous quality improvement (CQI).
This task takes place in relatively stable organisational
environments where most elements are in place, being
managed quite effectively, and where associated leadership
structures are reasonably functioning.
2. To help leaders better conceptualise what needs to be led and
how distributed leadership capacity building might be
developed, in times of major flux and instability where
institutions are undergoing major renewal and transformation.

4. Four key aspects
1. Framing the Quality Management of OLEs in
Australian HE through distributed leadership
2. Institutional profiling using the Quality
Management Framework
3. Actioning the elements of the Quality Management
Framework
4. Developing distributed leadership to enhance the
quality management of OLEs

5. Project website:
http://myqr.co/I6Ld

6. Four phases to the project
 Phase 1: (Nov 2010-Apr 2011) Development of draft OLE quality
management framework and establishment of distributed
leadership teams in partner institutions
 Phase 2: (May 2011-Dec 2011) Trial and further development of
various aspects of draft OLE management framework as
supported by distributed leadership teams
 Phase 3: (Jan 2012-May 2012) Full scale implementation of OLE
quality management framework as supported by distributed
leadership teams
 Phase 4: (Jun 2012- Nov 2012) Finalisation and evaluation of the
OLE quality management framework

7. 6EOLE Quality Management Framework

8. OLE quality management
 QM as it relates to an HE institution:
 Planning
 Technologies
 Organisational structure
 Evaluation
 Governance
 Resourcing

9. What do the six elements mean?
 Planning: external environmental analysis and
trend spotting, strategic intelligence
gathering, external benchmarking, organisational
capacity analysis, institutional
purpose, reputation, vision, principles, objectives
and strategies, accountabilities, timelines, and
resource implications.
 Technologies (for teaching and learning):
type, range, integration, promotion, and innovation
and mainstreaming of emerging technologies.

10. Cont…
 Organisational structure:
nature, range, coordination and delivery of valued
services (underpinned by clarity of understanding
of needed expertise/staffing capabilities) for staff
and students.
 Evaluation: stakeholder’s
needs, methods, reporting, decision making
through governance structures, evaluation
relating to the initial selection of new
technology, and evidence gathering relating to
the on-going assessment of its
performance, value and impact.

11. Cont…
 Governance: institutional, faculty and
school/department committees and forums
(and associated responsibilities and
accountabilities), policies and standards.
 Resourcing: maintenance and enhancement
of technologies, skills recognition and staff
development, media production, evaluation
activities, governance mechanisms, i.e. all
other elements.

12. The overall model
 The Institutional planning
and quality cycle, as
represented in the
framework, is seen to
represent ongoing
planning, implementing, evalu
ating, reviewing and improving
functions encapsulating all of
the organisations core
business activities.

13. 10 Assumptions
1. Various ICTs constitute an institution’s OLEs and
demand a total approach to quality management.
2. Certain ICTs have been designed specifically for
educational uses and are institutionally controlled and
supported for mainstream use.
3. Other ICTs (Web2/social-media/cloud-based) are not
controlled and supported by the institution.
4. Non-corporate ICTs may be locally developed and
supported within the institution, supported centrally
by the organisation for limited selective use or located
outside the institution for open use.
5. The total QM of OLEs requires the broadest
conception of the variety of ICTs their purposes &
strategic approaches to the leadership of their use in
sustainable & responsive ways.

14. 10 Assumptions cont…
6. A QM framework needs to encompass a range of
elements that must be taken into account for deriving the
best possible T&L value (experiences & outcomes) from
all investments in ICTs.
7. Investments cover staff & student time, production of
resources & various budget expenditures on
hardware, software and networks.
8. Staff time covers all relevant academic, non-academic &
professional staff throughout the organisation.
9. Q’s around how QM can best be done given the changing
nature of ICTs & institutional demands placed on
leadership to respond to these pressures & trends in
positioning institutions to be competitive HE marketplace.
10.While common elements of QM are evident & questions of
shared significance identifiable, QM approaches are
contingent on institutional histories & future aspirations.

15. Expectations re. quality of OLEs
 A whole-of-institution approach.
 OLEs are strategically situated in the organisation’s positioning
in the HE marketplace.
 Strategic positioning to deal with all aspects of the institution’s
curriculum, i.e. design, delivery and staffing.
 Through a broad range of teaching & support staff, students will
derive the best possible value from the use of OLEs.
 That OLEs are sustainable & responsive to changing
circumstances within and external to the organisation.
 Future ICT trend forecasting and the capacity to foster
innovation & the measured integration of ICTs
 The development of capacities (skills & resources) to best
address each of the six elements in the framework.
 Given the complexity of the task and the range & types of both
formal & informal leadership expertise involved, an enhanced
form of distributed leadership is present.

16. Building Distributed Leadership
 “Distributed leadership essentially involves both
the vertical and lateral dimensions of leadership
practice. Distributed leadership encompasses both
formal and the informal forms of leadership
practice within its framing, analysis and
interpretation. It is primarily concerned with the
co-performance of leadership and the reciprocal
interdependencies that shape that leadership
practice” (Harris, 2009, p.5).
Harris, A. (2009) (Ed.). Distributed leadership: different perspectives.
Dordrecht: Springer.

17. Prominent alignments for HE
 Vertically amongst faculty formal leaders in hierarchy
 Vertically amongst Senior Executive leaders and faculty
formal leaders
 Horizontally amongst Senior Executive leaders
 Horizontally amongst faculty formal leaders across
hierarchies
 Horizontally amongst Senior Executive leaders and
across faculty leadership
 Informal academic and professional support leadership
horizontally amongst staff at discipline, school, faculty
and interfaculty levels/domains
 Informal leadership at particular locations in multi-
campus environments.

18. Capacity building
 “Capacity building involves the use of strategies
that increase the collective effectiveness of all
levels of the system in developing and mobilizing
knowledge, resources and motivation, all of which
are needed to raise the bar and close the gap of
student learning across the system” (Fullan, Hill &
Crevola, 2006, p.88).
Fullan, M., Hill, P. & Crevola, C. (2006) Breakthrough, CA: Corwin
Press.

19. But why DL for OLEs?
The leadership of quality online learning environments
is becoming more complex and demanding as we see the:
 growing size & reach of uni (some with offshore campus
operations, many involving strategic partnerships),
 growing number of ICTs which constitute such
environments,
 loosening of institutional control over certain
technologies used for effective learning and teaching,
 greater size and more diverse composition of
universities’ workforces and student populations
 a greater multiplicity of curricular & pedagogical models
which underlie an ever-expanding range of occupations
& professions requiring higher level education,
 intensifying of national and global competition in the e-
learning marketplace.

20. So, we see that…
 No one formal leader at the top, no matter how
ambitious and knowledgeable, could possibly
contend with the complexity of issues related to
the quality management of OLEs.
 Leaders must be mobilized down, across and
throughout the organisation to realise the full
benefits of massive institutional investments in
OLEs.

21. Capacity building of DL involves…
1. Enabled individual and collective agency
2. Co-created and shared vision
3. Inclusive of all those who lead
4. Broadest recognition of leadership
5. Communicative and engaging
6. Appropriate responsibilities
7. Meaningful rewards
8. Trusting and respectful
9. Collaborative in development
10. Nurturing of valued professional expertise
11. Valuing professional forums and communities
12. Continuity and sustainability

22. Planning & Budgeting

23. Planning activity

24. Technologies
 The role of Mentors and Champions
should not be underplayed
 Threshold standards level playing field

26. Defined minimum standards
1. An introductory message, posted before the start of
semester, which:
 welcomes students to the course;
 introduces the teaching team for the course;
 describes how the StudyDesk space will be used throughout the semester;
and
 explains how students may obtain support by appropriately directing
academic or technical. enquiries.
2. Checking of discussions and other student access areas on at
least three [3] working days per week in order to:
 monitor and moderate comments and discussion by students;
 manage course operation by responding to student enquiries and learning
activities.
3. Student requests for clarification or assistance should be
responded to as soon as possible, but certainly within 48
hours during the working week.

27. Technologies (for T&L)

28. Organisational
ETC...

29. Organisational structure

30. Governance
Academic strategy and Corporate strategy,
policy funding and policy

31. Governance activity

32. Planning & Budgeting

33. Resourcing

34. Actioning relationships amongst
elements

35. The ACODE Benchmarks

36. Currently 8
1. Institution policy and governance for technology
supported learning and teaching
2. Planning for, and quality improvement of the
integration of technologies for learning and teaching
3. Information technology infrastructure to support
learning and teaching
4. Pedagogical application of information and
communication technology
5. Professional/staff development for the effective use of
technologies for learning and teaching
6. Staff support for the use of technologies for learning
and teaching
7. Student training for the effective use of technologies for
learning
8. Student support for the use of technologies for learning

37. 6EOLE Quality Management Framework

38. Questions...
http://myqr.co/I6Ld