EMM v2.3 D5

'''D5. All elements of the physical e-learning infrastructure are reliable, robust and sufficient'''

Background
The physical infrastructure used to provide and sustain e-learning delivery must be as reliable and robust as the personnel infrastructure that depends on it. Technology that is unreliable will rapidly destroy the confidence of students, will disrupt the process of building effective engagement and act as a significant barrier to the use of technology by staff (Butler and Sellborn, 2002). Students also want easy to use, fast, and reliable IT services: ‘they express frustration when networks or servers are down, technical support is unavailable, or the technology gets in the way of completing their required coursework’ (Kvavik and Caruso, 2005, p. 106).

In this context ‘physical’ includes the hardware, software and other facilities needed to deploy e-learning such as teaching spaces, cameras, servers etc. The highly interdependent complexity of elements in the e-learning infrastructure implies the consequent need for policies and agreements to establish and maintain reliability. The effective implementation and maintenance of an e-learning infrastructure needs collaborative agreements between stakeholders that address strategic objectives and define how they will be reliably and robustly met (Porter, 2005, p. 26).

Evidence of capability in this process is seen through the creation and use of an integrated infrastructure with hardware, software and teaching facilities able to be easily accessed by staff and student, design processes that include explicit consideration of reliability aspects when choosing technology and the basing of this decision on evidence of reliability collected in the institutional context whenever possible. Course designs include consideration of alternatives to be used by teaching staff when technology fails and ensuring there are support procedures in place to deal with potential failures. Standards and guidelines are used to communicate which technologies have been proven reliable and regular monitoring and reporting is used to prove and sustain reliability. The selection of new technologies is done with reference to formal standards and the ability for them to be integrated within the existing infrastructure.

Related Guidelines and Standards
This process is informed by: Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever (Chickering and Ehrmann, 1996); Quality On the Line: Benchmarks for success in internet-based distance education (Merisotis, J. P., & Phipps, R. A., 2000) course development benchmark set; Queensland University of Technology teaching capabilities framework (2004/2005); Canadian Recommended E-learning Guidelines (Barker, K., 2002); Australian National Training Authority, quality assurance information kit: Training package support materials (2002); Balancing quality and access: Principles of good practice for electronically offered academic degree and certificate programs (Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, 2003) and; ADEC guiding principles for distance learning (American Distance Education Consortium, 2002).