DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT OF E-LEARNING AND EAD PROJECTS
Management Area
Steps in its implementation: Diagnosis and planning: institutional and strategic decision, instructional design, interdisciplinary team, recipients / students, teachers / tutors, content, technology
Logistics and marketing
Steps in the Management of a Project
Conformation of the Team
Determination of Starting Point and Objectives
Life cycle of a project
Vision, Mission and Leadership
The Virtual Value Chain
ROI calculation
Legal aspects
The three areas that must be taken into account in the management of an E-learning project are the educational, technological and organizational areas. Each of these areas undergoes a "process" of change when an educational institution decides to "begin" to transition from traditional education to E-learning.
From this differential, we can define a virtual education project or e-learning project as the combination of human and technological resources organized to achieve an online teaching-learning purpose, to a specific audience in a set time; In this way, the planning, administration and control management must apply certain knowledge, skills and techniques to achieve the established teaching purpose.
Starting from the basic processes of a project: Start, Planning, Execution, Control and Closing and the Cost, Time, Scope and Resource Management Areas that must be considered within their management, it is important in an e-learning project to establish strategies organizational that combine the pedagogical and technological aspects that stipulate the ways of teaching and learning with technology and that in turn this technology is adapted to the organizers and recipients.
The use of information, communication and collaboration technologies (TICC) in educational processes in higher education is an increasingly discussed topic at a global level (reference is made to the concept of TICC to highlight the possibilities that technologies have to develop experiences of collaboration by breaking barriers of time and space).
The main characteristic of a virtual learning environment is the use of digital ICTs to support the teaching-learning processes.
The term TICC is used to refer to digital technologies, the internet, applications and other devices.
These technologies allow the operation, in virtual environments, of the following three types of processes:
• Of information, related to the search, selection, storage, logical and numerical processing, organization, administration, transfer, exchange and presentation of data and information, synchronously or asynchronously, in any solution of structure or manageable format in virtual environments to through such devices.
• Communication between people, synchronously or asynchronously.
• Collaborative, synchronously or asynchronously, for the organization and implementation of collaborative projects or activities.
It should be noted that there is no cause-effect relationship between the use of digital technologies and the possible impacts on the quality, coverage or relevance of education.
To achieve them effectively, it is essential to see the process in all its complexity, and put education at the center and specifically the teaching-learning process, which in turn implies having, for example, a shared vision and strategies , institutionally, on the role of ICTs in education; encourage the commitment and participation of teachers; create instructional design teams and teaching materials; implement administrative and regulatory changes; train and support ICT users; maintain assistance networks in educational and technical support aspects; and ensure efficiency in telecommunications and internet services.
In recent months, the educational technique e-learning has been the only viable option to learn, so that more and more are implementing these methods and benefit from it. Read on and learn the best way to generate sales by combining e-learning with marketing.
What is e-learning?
E-learning, also known as virtual education or virtual teaching, is an alternative to the traditional educational process that has been used for some years. Which has the characteristic of using the internet as the only channel for transmitting information and communication.
What is marketing?
Marketing is the discipline that is responsible for recording and monitoring the sales of a given market with the intention of attracting and retaining potential customers of a product, brand or business, through the implementation of strategies.
How to develop an e-learning marketing strategy?
If you want to invoice sales by teaching e-learning classes, the first thing you should do is create a marketing plan that allows you to reach as many customers as possible. To do this, in addition to creating the respective social networks, define the theme that you like the most and specialize. Although it seems strange, having a single theme allows you to have more customers and sales.
Once you are clear about the topic you are going to deal with, create a blog with relevant information that you can develop in one or more classes and form a showcase of the courses you can teach. This will allow your potential customers to see what content you are really good at and to be interested in your service.
Also, if you want to attract more customers, you can create free "mini classes" in exchange for their emails. This will allow you to demonstrate your skills when teaching the classes and, in turn, create a database.
Bear in mind that to achieve success in the educational world of e-learning, it not only depends on a good marketing strategy, the bibliographic content and the interaction platform are also important.
The use of information, communication and collaboration technologies in educational processes in higher education is an increasingly debated topic at a global level.
Lines of action have been drawn up to start or consolidate educational systems that consider technologies to support the diversification of the offer, including blended or distance academic programs, as a potential solution to quality, coverage, relevance or equity requirements.
However, when entering a transition process from face-to-face to virtual, traditionally face-to-face systems demand strategies, methodologies and tools to carry out modifications in the processes and functions of the main actors of teaching and learning.
In the literature on the subject (see Underwood, 2009) it is generally accepted that the use of these technologies in the teaching-learning process can have favorable impacts on the following aspects:
- Reduce or eliminate the restriction of synchrony in time and space typical of face-to-face environments, typically the classroom.
- Expand opportunities for greater coverage of educational programs, putting educational content and services closer to users and their significant contexts.
- Promote a change in the roles of teacher and student more favorable to an education focused on learning.
- Take advantage of the possibilities of collaboration through digital technologies to introduce co-evaluation exercises with the participation of students, in which the roles of evaluated and evaluator are balanced.
The project management cycle includes five major phases that represent from start to finish all aspects of managing a project.
These five phases are: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Control, and Closing. For a project to run smoothly, the manager must understand the parts of each phase, and ensure its operation. For this reason, we will do an analysis of what each of these five phases consists of.
In the inception phase , the project manager and perhaps other specialists will review the business case associated with the required projects.
In the planning phase , the team in charge will work on developing detailed requirements about the project, and then prioritize them. Later, these requirements will be included in a process mapping together with some specialists who will work on the project and the main stakeholders.
During the execution phase the product is developed and everything that will be used to test the quality of the final product, whether the project manager supervises the construction of a building or the creation of application software.
In the monitoring and control phase of a project performance indicators are monitored during product development.
The most important component of the closing phase is that the final products are delivered to the requesting entity, and that it agrees to receive those products. The project manager then verifies that the main stakeholders approve and sign all project documentation and that it is properly stored. Finally, the project manager must also ensure that all outstanding project invoices are ready for payment.
A work team consists of a group of people working together who “share perceptions, have a common proposal, agree with the work procedures, cooperate with each other, accept a compromise, resolve their disagreements in open discussions and do all of that. it does not appear automatically, but must be built little by little ”.
Multiple studies clearly and forcefully point out that collaborative work between teachers constitutes one of the most determining quality criteria. It is expressed through various factors, including:
"Planning and execution of the work in a collegiate way and structured interaction of the teachers";
"Processes of collaboration, cohesion and support"; or "consensus and teamwork of the teaching staff."
Benefits of teamwork
Synergistic action is usually more effective and efficient than individual action or the simple sum of individual actions. Through collaboration, it seems more feasible to improve the pedagogical aids provided to students, to offer a more complete educational offer and a fairer education.
Stages of development of a work team
- Conformation: people consider themselves part of a group, but they do not know well the purpose, structure and leadership that unites and organizes them.
- Formation of subgroups: subgroups tend to be formed to reduce insecurity and uncertainty.
- Conflict and confrontation: a stage of great wealth and diversity. It is common, as part of team development, for conflicts to emerge.
- Cohesion in the difference: in teams that have known how to resolve conflicts in a healthy way, relationships become closer and cohesion is shown.
- Shared responsibility: corresponds to the team consolidation stage. The energy is focused on the execution of the common task. Each one takes charge of their tasks, but takes responsibility for the success of the whole.
The learning evaluation process, through the instruments that are deemed appropriate, requires a planning process to ensure that the evaluation exercise will yield results that enrich the training process that allow a series of improvement and change decisions to be made around this. Thus, for the evaluation to correspond to the learning process, the starting point of said process must be taken into account.
That starting point is dictated by the learning objectives. Thorndike (1989) ensures that the objectives are the guide par excellence, which help to determine what and how far it is planned to go in the teaching-learning process or, in other words, what are the expected learning.
In formal education, this curricular source for each disciplinary area and for each grade or school level is known as the curriculum. It is from this that the teacher carries out his planning to carry out the points that the plan deems essential.
To avoid these inaccuracies, the author mentions five conditions that any conduct subject to measurement must comply with:
- Be common to a group or class of subjects
- Capturable by the senses
- Definable with clarity and precision
- Variables in relation to the results that emerge (that it is possible to detect differences)
- Promoters of very similar reactions between evaluators.
Organizations often identify a specific set of life cycles to use in their projects.
In the life cycle of a project, the phases that link the beginning of the project to its end are defined. And those phases are:
Home → Planning → Execution → Project closure
Generally, the transition from one phase to another within the life cycle of a project involves some form of technical transfer. Thus, the deliverables of a phase are reviewed to verify their compliance and are approved before the start of the next phase.
What defines the life cycle of a project?
The project life cycle defines:
- What is the technical work to be carried out in each phase. For example: in what phase should the work of geologists be carried out?
- When the deliverables of each phase should be generated and how each of them will be reviewed, verified and validated
- Who or who are involved in each phase.
- How to control and approve each phase. You can have very general or very detailed descriptions. Very detailed ones usually include forms, diagrams, and checklists.
In the current context, achieving the planned results for many organizations has been very difficult or the goals were simply not achieved in recent years. This situation, with good reason, leads many organizations to be very cautious in their investments and decisions. However, it is important to start thinking about the next cycle.
How can we make the most of the opportunities we envision in addition to preparing for business change and transformation?
It is there where strategic vision and leadership play a transcendental role in organizations.
The "Mission" is the raison d'être of the organization focused on the present while the "Vision" is the future ambition. I have read that many CEOs always clearly define the “Vision” of the company in order to have clear, challenging but achievable goals to prepare for the future and achieve success in the medium and short term.
Planning strategically will lead us to progress and evolve as an organization and to define a “Vision”, which will lead us to success, inspire teams and prepare for an increasingly challenging and changing business environment.
The leader must define a vision, it is the first task that a good leader must carry out, from then on the organization must understand, share and feel the achievable and challenging vision in such a way that working as a team takes place in the planned time.
This is where the individual and collective objectives contemplated in the annual bonus schemes for executives who manage teams and affect results must be very well defined to guarantee execution and monitor the agreed objectives.
"Leadership is the ability to transform vision into reality, ensuring execution and present results"
The challenge we leaders have is not minor and it is not enough to be aware of the above, we have to prepare and train. There are tools that can help us become aware of our strengths and areas for improvement as leaders, as well as “inspire” our teams to exercise leadership that leads the company to success. On another occasion I will tell you more in depth from my experience the use of tools to enhance leadership.
"Let us have confidence in the future and learn to tactically manage the present while continuing to strategically prepare and plan for the future."
It is a conceptual framework that is based on the business value of the existing company in both physical and virtual spaces, the so-called market place and market space. The main activities: Collect, organize, select, synthesize and distribute information.
The economic logic of the two chains is different, a conventional understanding of the economy of scale and the approach does not apply to the Virtual Value Chain the same way as it does in the physical Value Chain (CVF), however, these two chains should be managed differently, but in harmony.
The man-team relationship is one of importance, remember the example of accounting carried out on computers and by hand in case the machine breaks, then, what I gain in relation to costs with the introduction of information technology in accounting management.
The Internet and e-business is a challenge for accounting. The effectiveness of companies is largely defined by how they use the Internet network, since current technologies accelerate decision-making in real time, allowing them to be more efficient and effective.
With the expansion of the Internet and the accelerated growth in the number of users, companies have begun to look for a way to take advantage of this network for the development of their businesses, not only within their company, but also involving customers and suppliers.
The modern company is a place where you learn. And this learning is not limited to the acquisition of new specific skills in training courses but of general habits that become second nature in each work group. The permanent incorporation of innovative digital resources in the company requires an assimilation process that can be long and difficult.
The above is a new field of study of Managerial Accounting, the number of teams, the man-machine relationship and the real effects on the competitive increase and the number of contracts won.
The ROI relates the investment made with the benefits generated by it, so in order to calculate it it is necessary to apply a mathematical formula that contains both variables.
The formula to calculate ROI is the difference between income and investment, divided by investment: ROI = (Income - Investment) / Investment. This result gives a figure that indicates the return obtained by the investment and is usually converted to a percentage to analyze this return.
Let's see an example of ROI calculation assuming an investment of € 1000 in a sales campaign for an e-commerce product. This campaign generates an income of € 3000, so to calculate the ROI according to its formula we would have ROI = (3000 - 1000) / 1000 = 2.
Difference ROI and ROE ROE
(Return of Equity) is a very important parameter to measure the profits of a company. It is a ratio that is calculated by dividing net profits by equity.
Although ROI and ROE are two similar figures, their main difference is that the ROE takes into account the interest and taxes associated with the investment, while the ROI uses the gross income figure.
That is why it may be the case that in general terms an investment may be profitable according to the value of its ROI, but having high interest and associated taxes, the ROE is not so profitable.
In the topic exposed and analyzed within the "Legal aspects of e-learning", we can highlight, in the current global context, the complexity involved in establishing common legislative borders and frameworks in the physical world. If this reality is complex, it is even greater when it comes to regulating the virtual world and its harmonization with the physical world, through Private International Law, the protection of personal data and privacy, the establishment of a Legal Regime of the Society of Information, and protection of Intellectual Property and domains.
The protection of privacy and personal data are not only compromised with territorial control mechanisms. The companies, and especially the technological ones, in their liberalization policies try to obtain higher levels of governmental permissiveness in the treatment of said data, as well as in the legal regimes of contractual activities within the Information Society.
Intellectual property and, in particular, copyrights are threatened by technology itself that facilitates, among unscrupulous, the abuse of private copying, communication, distribution and transformation of works, as well as the violation of measures protection implemented to prevent such actions.
The greatest damage culminates when there is also an illicit lucrative purpose.
While Governments and International Organizations can improve legal and procedural actions within the Information Society, citizens must become aware of the need to respect the rules.
Special mention should be made with respect to intellectual property and licensed products, since, if the environment is observed, there is too much permissiveness and acceptance of an illegal activity that is considered normal and appropriate according to what circumstances.