D5.1.1

=Technology performance, reliability and support issues explicitly addressed when implementing the physical e-learning infrastructure. =

Evidence
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. As noted by Chizmar and Williams (2001, p. 22) ‘Faculty desire a network and technical infrastructure that never calls attention to itself, one that doesn’t create barriers to entry for wary teaching staff and students because of its complexity. The infrastructure should be transparent, much as the utility infrastructure that powers our lights and our computers.’ The ultimate goal of technology should be that it supports the activities of learning while not dominating the process, becoming essentially ‘invisible’ (Norman, 1999). In this context ‘physical’ includes the hardware, software and other facilities needed to deploy e-learning such as teaching rooms, cameras, servers etc.

If institutions want all students to graduate with the information technology skills required for their area of specialty then every program should have a clear statement about the need for a computer, or other relevant technologies, the benefits it will provide, how the technologies will be supplied, and technical specifications (Bates 2007).

Resources
Evidence of capability in this practice 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.

Establishing a service level agreement: http://www.nkarten.com/sla.html#key

Example service level agreement: http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/cals-it/upload/SLA-with-Integrated-Sec-v11.pdf