Papers Presented at the 2nd National NADEOSA Conference
Held 21-22 August 2000
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Author:
L Coleman (Pentech)

Title:
Collaborative materials development projects: the TELP experience

Abstract:
The TELP Engineering Materials Development Project started in March 1997. It proposed to develop and publish 8 foundation level engineering textbooks for technikon study. A consortium based project, its partners included five local Historically Disadvantaged South African technikon’s and four universities in the United States.

To date 9 textbooks have been published and are currently in use at technikons and technical colleges in South Africa. Most commentators would agree that collective materials development has never been a smooth or easy process. This situation is not improved when almost 90% of the key authors are novice materials developers, most of whom have never published materials before. What then are the factors that have made this project succeed in meeting its core objective of publishing the set amount of textbooks within the time frame described? This paper hopes to explore some of the issues which have contributed towards the project reaching this goal and facilitate a better understanding of collaborative materials development projects which use the type of management and organisational structures this project has. It will focus on the following:

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Introduction

The TELP Engineering Materials Development Project started its work in March 1997 and is currently in its final two months of operation. The main task of this material development project, was to produce 8 foundation level engineering textbooks, aimed at technikon based engineering courses. The purpose of these text was specifically located at bridging the gap between under prepared learners enrolling at engineering courses at Historically Disadvantaged Technikon’s [HDT’s] and the more standard (often American and English) course text books commonly used at engineering faculties across South Africa. Thus rather than "reinventing the wheel" the purpose was to develop relevant and appropriate text for students at these institutions. In July 2000 the project published its 9th and final title. The textbooks published by this project are currently in use at technikon’s and technical colleges across South Africa.

The project which is consortium based includes 5 [HDT’s] viz. Peninsula Technikon, ML Sultan Technikon, Mangosuthu Technikon, Eastern Cape Technikon and Technikon Northern Gauteng and 4 universities in the United States viz. MIT, Howard University, Clark Atlanta University and North Carolina A & T. In a period of just over 3 years this project has been successful in achieving its primary goal of publishing not only 8 but 9 foundational level engineering text books. The task set by the consortium was an ambitious one especially when considering that a) almost 90% of the staff appointed as authors and moderators had never published any materials before their involvement in the project, b) most of the institutions involved in the project had not worked on a materials development project that involved a consortium based approach or so many partners c) that the resource bases (i.e in relation to infrastructural support of e-mail, computers etc...) of the various institutions were very unequal, and finally the vast geographical spread of the various partners in the consortium had to be bridged. Against these challenges the project has been able to "deliver the goods".

The paper will focus its specific attention how the project was able to maximise certain strengths and compensate for certain weaknesses inherent in the project structure and organisation, particularly the organisation of our writing teams. Key to this was the manner in which management and collaborative materials development approaches were used to the benefit of the project. Through this description it hopes to detail the lessons learnt. It will not seek to assess and evaluate the textbooks the project has published.

Project Description

In order to fully appreciate the complex nature of the project, I would like to spend some time describing the organisation structure and modality of the project.

Organisational structure

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Meredith and Mantel (1985) suggest that when new projects are initiated, two key issues usually arise. Firstly how to tie the project into the parent organisation and secondly how to organise and structure the project itself. In relation to the parent organisation, this project has been housed and managed from Peninsula Technikon [Pentech]. Based on the above author’s descriptions, the project was integrated into the existing organisation structure present at Pentech. Using Meredith and Mantels [1985] description of the major organisational forms used to house projects within a parent organisation, it can be argued that firstly the organisation structure which would best describe Pentech is that of a functional / traditional [Kerzner, 1984] organisation. Here all activities are performed within the functional groups and are headed by a departmental head [Kerzner, 1984: 96] (i.e Deputy Vice Chancellor, Dean, Head of Department) having responsibility for the functioning of a particular core task of the organisation. This organisational structure is further characterised by clearly defined levels of authority and responsibility and well-structured communication channels.[Kerzner, 1984]. Secondly the way in which the project itself was organised and structured was by vertu of assigning it to the functional unit that had the most interest in ensuring its success and would be most helpful in implementing it [Meredith and Mantel, 1985]. Thus the project fell under responsibility of the Dean of Engineering at Pentech. In additional the organisational structure of the project itself resembled the organisation structure of the parent organisation and as such was hierarchically based with clear lines of communication, responsibility and authority. [ see the Project organogram, attached]

The project had up to 50 participants involved in its activities and these represented a cross section of technikon staff in both lecturing and administrative functions, staff from the publishing industry and funders. I now turn my attention to a description of the structure and modality of the writing teams.

Writing Teams

The development of the 9 text was accomplished in a staggered approach with the 9 titles divided into 2 phases, with Phase I titles preceding the development and production of Phase II text. The 4 phase I titles were published in Feb 1999 and 4 phase II titles published in Feb 2000 and the 9th and final title in July 2000.

Each textbook title comprised a four member writing team, with one key author, two South African subject or content moderators and one US moderator. A condition of the project was that all moderators had to be staff at a different institution from the author and each other moderator. This procedure was set in place to ensure that the texts produced would reflect the diverse teaching and content practices in place at the technikons in South Africa. It was further hoped that this practice would make the produced text relevant and applicable to the various technikons targeted to use them. Authors and moderators were selected on a ad hoc method which ranged from volunteering to participate in the project to being assigned the responsibility by their institution. All the writing teams comprised lecturing staff who had some experience in teaching the content or subject at their institution and here there was great variation of the amount of teaching experience and educational qualifications held by the various group members. In addition each team was assigned a professional editor who took responsibility for amongst other things the language editing, basic instructional design and all production related functions, (commissioning of illustrators, typesetters, setting print dye lines etc..) before the manuscript was handed over to the printers. All the authors were relieved of their lecturing duties (on full salary) for periods between 12 - 18 months to participate in the project. Moderators received shorter periods of leave to work on the project . There was great variation of the amounts of time off granted to the writing teams with some participants receiving more support in this regard from their institutions than others. All writing teams were set performance schedules to complete their writing and moderating. The writing teams had to attend an initial training workshop on the basic principles of materials writing and decide on the general outline for the textbook.(usually in consultation with the course syllabus for the respective subject). Authors were then required to write the various chapters and submit this to the moderator for review and comment. These comments would then be incorporated into the text by the author. If any disagreement arose, the author and specific moderators were encouraged to discuss and find a suitable solution to the presented problem. Once the author and moderators were in agreement about a particular chapter, the chapter would be forwarded to the editor and dialogue between the author and editor regarding any changes would then take place. This whole process usual took place via e-mail, telephonic and fax communications. The various writing teams got together at least twice during the duration of the development period to evaluate the text. This was usually conducted in the form of an intense 5 day workshop. The general role of the project manager [PM] during this period was to ensure that the writing schedules were being met, resolve any administration problems (communication or institutional (securing time off for participants from their institution) or resolving any interpersonal issues between the writing group members if these arose.

Resource infrastructure

The entire running, development and production cost of the project was covered by a funding grant via the TELP project funded by USAID. As a result each title was provided a total of R 150 000 for human resource replacement. This enabled our authors to spend full time on developing the text while their institution had funds to find replacement staff to take over their lecturing function. In addition the funding provided for the appointment of a full time project manager, travel and workshop expenses and the total production cost for each of the textbooks produced. The publisher (in our case Juta & Co) took responsibility for the cost of printing, marketing and distribution of the series.

Management approach

I would now like to explore some of the key features of the management approach used

by the project. As suggested earlier in the document, the organisation structure of the project mirrored that present in the parent organisation of Pentech (and in many respects the other technikons involved in the project). However, the management approach in use in the project could clearly be defined as adhering to the basic principles of project management. Projects are usually defined as a specific one-off activity to meet a specific goal or outcome, undertaken over a set period of time which has a specific allocation of financial resources or costs to ensure the attainment of its objectives. [Meredith & Mantel, 1985 & Kerzner, 1984] In relation to the TELP project under review, this would translate into the following scenario:

a) the specific objective: producing 8 foundation level engineering text aimed at under prepared students

b) duration of project: 42 months

c) cost allocation: R 2,9million

A further dimension which is introduced to the above equation is that of quality or as Kerzner suggest , performance. The quality or performance dimension as it relates here to the materials development project under review is the level of quality materials produced within the defined cost and time dimensions. So ideally a project management approach would seek to balance the competing demands of meeting the objective, within cost, within time and ensure suitable levels of quality. In relation to the writing teams in the TELP Project it was very much the attempt to balance the inherent shortcomings (i.e. low level of writing experience of authors) with the strengths (the contextual knowledge of the target audience shared by the authors).

An additional feature of the management approach by which the project could be characterised is the way it sort to effectively develop complimentary and interlinking relationships between higher education institutions, industry and international funding organisations. This dimension was fundamental to ensuring the success of the project. In many respects this aspect also relates to the organisational management approach employed by the project. Clearly without the funders, USAID, a project of this scale and employing some of the organisational and structural arrangements as described earlier could not have been undertaken in the first place solely by any one or even a combination of the HDT’s involved in the project. In such a context they clearly lacked the financial resources and the production and publication experience and expertise to make a project of this nature a reality in the period of time suggested. The input and commitment from Juta our industry partner, was invaluable in this respect. Not only did they ensure that quality of the materials produced were appropriate , but they also ensured that the time dimensions were adhered to. Additional benefits of our industry linkage with Juta has ensured that the TELP Engineering Series has been and is marketed and distributed throughout South Africa, allowing the textbooks to reach a far wider audience than the original consortium grouping. The HDT’s were able to complement and add to this relationship by providing the authors who are situated within an academic context which services previously disadvantaged and under prepared learners, possessing what George Subotzky refers to as the "counter-advantage of tacit and explicit knowledge of their context" [1998:73]. This interlinking relationship helped to ensure that in many respects the text produced are both relevant and appropriate in terms of content, context and form to the learning needs of the target audience.

Benefits

I believe that by adopting this approach in the management of the project the following benefits were gained.

Materials Development Approach

Previously I mentioned that the TELP Engineering Materials Development Project, attempted to develop relevant and appropriate foundation level engineering textbooks. The rationale behind this was to develop materials that attempted to bridge the educational gap between previously disadvantaged and under prepared learners and the technological and mathematical conceptual understandings required by such types of courses. The project proposers’ argued that the standard materials being used at technikons at the time did not significantly assist learners in this category to gain the basic necessary understanding for their respective courses. It was proposed that the development of materials that catered more to the learning needs of these learners might be better suited to achieving this aim.

While publishing the 8 (9) textbooks might have been the key deliverable for the project , running parallel to this process was a clear developmental agenda, i.e. to develop the capacity of HDT’s to nurture and support new and innovative materials developers. In many respects the development agenda favoured a more collaborative approach to the materials development process especially in light of the fact that most of the authors were in-experienced materials developers. It was suggested that such an approach was more likely to provide for peer support to the new writers in terms of content, style and structure. The collaborative materials development approach as adopted by the project embodied the following characteristics:

Benefits

In many respects the beneficial experiences of this method of materials development are similar to those noted by Mike Adendorff [1998] of the SAIDE Study of Education project.

This approach used in the TELP project as with the Study of Education project resulted in the following benefits:

Lessons Learnt

Many people in the publishing industry often use the analogy of "giving birth" to describe the process of publishing materials. Specifically the idea that the pain of the birthing process is usually forgotten almost seconds after the baby is born and the proud parent first see their child. Similarly it is very easy to forget the "pain" and the many difficulties and challengers experienced during the past 3 ½ years of this project and only highlight the positive and beneficial outcomes, like having published nine textbooks. Any critical reflection, especially if the aim is to improve the practice, needs to take cognisance of both the positive and negative aspects so that a clear picture of the lessons learnt can be drawn.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the lessons learnt by the TELP Engineering Materials Development Project as a result of utilizing the project management and collaborative materials development approaches as described above. These lessons document the perceptions of the PM in relation to her role as both manager of the production process and facilitator of the more developmental and educational processes.

The above descriptions details just one of many different experiences gained as a results of being a participant in the this unique project. No doubt each participant experienced some degree of learning and development whether positive or negative, or whether it was about materials development or interpersonal relationships. It is hoped that this paper helps to describe some of these experiences of the TELP Engineering Materials Development Project, and helps to facilitate a better understanding of collaborative materials development projects that adopt the approaches (in terms of organisational structure and management) we have.

Notes

  1. TELP refers to the Tertiary Education Linkage Project which is an inter-institutional funding agreement which covers all Historically Disadvantaged Higher Education Institutions in South African. TELP is funded by the United States Agency of International Aid [USAID]
  2. The titles of the course textbooks cover the following Engineering disciplines: Civil Engineering (Construction Materials and Methods & Drawings (S1 & S2), Electrical Engineering (Introductory Digital Systems, Circuit Analysis & Electronics), Mechanical Engineering (Mechanics and Drawing) and Chemical Engineering (Physics).
  3. This structure was further replicated at the other technikon’s where the Dean’s of Engineering became the main functionary responsible for the projects implementation at that particular institution.
  4. Some moderators were granted less lecturing time so that they could assist in project work while others completed most of their tasks in their own share time.
  5. These workshops were conducted in the first 12 months of the project. It was organised and facilitated by the Centre for Curriculum Design and Development at Technikon South Africa, our initial service provider. The CCDD through mutual agreement withdrew from the entire project in January 1999.
  6. The textbooks developed and published by the project is referred to as the TELP Engineering series.

 References

Adendorff, M (1998) Collaborative , cross-institutional materials development, in OLTDE, 4 (3) pg 4-7
Kerzner, H (1984) Project Management. A systems approach to planning, scheduling and controlling. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York.
Meredith, J and Mantel, S (1985) Project Management, A Managerial Approach. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York.
Subotzky, G (1998) Higher Education and business - Forging Partnerships to meet global competitiveness and reconstructive development. In Education Africa Forum, Second Edition, Hofmeyr, J and Perold, H (eds), Education Africa, Pinegowrie

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