Managing Project Transformation in a Complex Context

Complex projects are often undertaken in uncertain situations in which project participants who adopt a rational‐oriented strategy tend to face difficulties in adapting and adjusting to changes that occur during the project. In this context a process‐oriented strategy, although difficult to manage, can be a better way to handle project transformation. Collective learning then becomes crucial. This article describes some lessons learned when a project manager and team applied a process‐oriented strategy in a complex project. Data has been collected through interactive research and evaluation with different methods including surveys, observations and interviews. The analysis shows that it is possible to organize for learning and to manage transformation in a complex context. Important factors for success are a process‐oriented strategy, a creative climate, formative evaluation and systematic reflections. A major issue that is discussed in the article is the transfer of outcomes from the project to the participating organizations.     

Developing a dynamic project learning and cross‐project learning capability: synthesizing two perspectives

Driven by the complexity of new products and services, project work has become increasingly common in all types of organizations. However, research on project learning suggests that often project teams do not meet their stated objectives and, moreover, there is limited organizational learning from the experiences of project work. We use the dynamic capabilities framework to argue that building a dynamic project learning capability is useful for organizations that make extensive use of projects. We use both survey and interview data to discuss the key ways in which such a dynamic capability can be built. Our survey data demonstrate the importance of documenting project learning, but our interview data show that teams are often remiss at documenting their learning. The results from the two different approaches are synthesized using Boland & Tenkasi’s notions of perspective‐making and perspective‐taking. Importantly, combining the results from the two sets of data suggests that organizations need to emphasize the benefits from project reviews and documentation and explore ways in which the documents produced can be made more useful as boundary objects to encourage the sharing of learning across projects.     

Teaching of a computer literacy course in South Africa: A case study using traditional and co‐operative learning

Abstract

The Department of Informatics at the University of Pretoria in South Africa has been involved in a research project funded by the Foundation for Research and Development (FRD) since 1996. The main focus of this project is to establish computer‐supported co‐operative learning centres in various rural communities. The case study described in this paper discusses a part of this project that was undertaken during 1998. The paper outlines the computer literacy course where co‐operative learning and traditional learning methods were used. A discussion about co‐operative learning and traditional learning, with specific reference to the implementation of the two methods at SEIDET, is presented. An outline of the research results based on a questionnaire completed by the teachers who took part in the case study, is given. Although most of the teachers preferred the traditional and known method of teaching that was used for the MsExcel part of the course, they indicated that they have learnt more using the co‐operative learning method.     

Supervised machine learning in multimodal learning analytics for estimating success in project‐based learning

Multimodal learning analytics provides researchers new tools and techniques to capture different types of data from complex learning activities in dynamic learning environments. This paper investigates the use of diverse sensors, including computer vision, user‐generated content, and data from the learning objects (physical computing components), to record high‐fidelity synchronised multimodal recordings of small groups of learners interacting. We processed and extracted different aspects of the students' interactions to answer the following question: Which features of student group work are good predictors of team success in open‐ended tasks with physical computing? To answer this question, we have explored different supervised machine learning approaches (traditional and deep learning techniques) to analyse the data coming from multiple sources. The results illustrate that state‐of‐the‐art computational techniques can be used to generate insights into the "black box" of learning in students' project‐based activities. The features identified from the analysis show that distance between learners' hands and faces is a strong predictor of students' artefact quality, which can indicate the value of student collaboration. Our research shows that new and promising approaches such as neural networks, and more traditional regression approaches can both be used to classify multimodal learning analytics data, and both have advantages and disadvantages depending on the research questions and contexts being investigated. The work presented here is a significant contribution towards developing techniques to automatically identify the key aspects of students success in project‐based learning environments, and to ultimately help teachers provide appropriate and timely support to students in these fundamental aspects.     

In search of online pedagogical models: investigating a paradigm change in teaching through the School for All community

Following a preliminary evaluation of the Web‐mediated School for All in 2002, this study further examines the online teacher role and explores the possible pedagogical models in this Web‐based informal lifelong learning context through a long‐term innovative e‐learning project over a 2‐year period. The author documents the educational rationale, reviews related literature on Web‐based instructional design, and presents longitudinal in‐depth study results based on empirical data collected from the four Web‐course contests held over 2 years from the perspective of outstanding online teachers. Significantly, three categories of six Web‐based pedagogical models induced from this research project are presented, and the rationale for how and why teachers would prefer to use certain teaching models is discussed. In addition, the characteristics of the outstanding online teachers and issues inherent in this alternative mode of a Web‐based informal educational setting are discussed. Finally, more research issues, questions, and possibilities for future research work are raised or identified for further study.     

Constructing a web information system development methodology

Abstract. This paper reports on the extension of the Multiview framework to web‐based information systems. The aims are firstly to investigate the appropriateness of Multiview – a pre‐Internet analysis and design methodology – to web‐based information systems and, secondly, to reflect on the nature and role of methodology, as distinct from method, in the information systems (IS) development process. A 2‐year e‐commerce development project in a small to medium enterprise is the setting for learning through action research. To distinguish the project from consultancy, a framework of ideas – Multiview – is declared and tested in the research process. The differences and similarities of pre‐Internet and Internet‐based projects are analysed and reported on. At a higher order of learning the project provided an opportunity to reflect on how methodologies are constructed in practice.     

Teaching meta-heuristics within virtual learning environments

Modern education of operations research and management science (OR/MS) can greatly benefit from interactive learning methods in order to build and develop modeling and problem‐solving skills. In this paper we consider the teaching of meta‐heuristics as an important part of OR/MS with significant recent interest. We discuss possibilities of supporting the teaching of meta‐heuristics such as simulated annealing or tabu search through interactive learning. The paper also presents a survey of some relevant issues within VORMS (Virtual Operations Research/Management Science), a project currently undertaken at six universities within Germany, and provides a presentation of the advances regarding the teaching of meta‐heuristics within this project. Further ideas refer to incorporating hotframe, a heuristic optimization framework, into the virtual learning environment.     

The learning organization information system (LOIS): looking for the next generation

This paper explores the notion that the next generation of information systems will focus on supporting organizational learning. The paper suggests that the increasingly successful automation of procedural work will lead to pressure on organizations to improve performance through enhanced support for knowledge work. A set of outline requirements for the learning organization information system (LOIS) is then proposed using recent research findings from computer supported co‐operative working and organizational learning. The computerized on‐line journal from this research is described. This journal provides transparent capture of episodes of work and it is argued that the general principles established could support LOIS by helping to provide a richly defined organizational memory. The journal supports collaborative working through the use of groupware, which manages the sharing of, and learning from, journal contents. This can facilitate the retention of not only data and information, but also the inquiry process that produced them. The paper concludes that LOIS will be a self‐organizing system, focussing on knowledge work, learning and using advanced technologies drawn from ubiquitous computing. A view of a system that moves towards this aim is presented. Future topics for research are identified, and a natural language approach to knowledge asset management is discussed briefly. In closing, it is argued that LOIS is an important future vision for organizations operating in the information age.     

CC–LR: providing interactive,challenging and attractive Collaborative Complex Learning Resources

Many researchers argue that students must be meaningfully engaged in the learning resources for effective learning to occur. However, current online learners still report a problematic lack of attractive and challenging learning resources that engage them in the learning process. This endemic problem is even more evident in online collaborative learning approaches whose resources lack of authentic interactivity, user empowerment, social identity and challenge, thus having a negative effect on learners' self‐motivation and engagement. To overcome these and other limitations and deficiencies, in this paper, a new type of learning resource named Collaborative Complex Learning Resources (CC–LR) is presented based on the virtualization of collaborative learning with the aim of leveraging knowledge elicited during live sessions. During the CC–LR execution, the collaborative sessions are animated so learners can observe how avatars discuss and collaborate, how discussion threads grow and how knowledge is been constructed, refined and consolidated. In addition, complex aspects of the learning process can be incorporated in the CC–LRs during their creation, such as cognitive assessment and emotional awareness. The system produced from this research is tested to evaluate the CC‐LR enriched with complex information and analyze its effects in the discussion process. The research reported in this paper was undertaken within the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) European project called ‘Adaptive Learning via Intuitive/Interactive, Collaborative and Emotional systems’.     

The Learning Organization as Facilitator of Complex NPD Projects

With rapid technological and market changes, new product development (NPD) complexity is a significant issue that organizations continually face in their development projects. The inability to recognize and/or manage complexity can cause the best‐intentioned projects to fail. By creating a learning organization attuned to complexity and its management, however, companies are more likely to have the knowledge and skills essential to respond competently to the complexity frequently encountered in NPD projects. In this paper, we first define complexity in NPD and then examine organizational learning as it can assist in dealing with development complexity. Next, we report findings from an exploratory research study on organizational learning and its relationship to product development complexity. The study is based on 32 field interviews with NPD participants regarding their learning experiences in dealing with complexity; the transfer of project learning to other projects; and the factors that minimize/block the transfer of learning among projects. Based on our research, we advance several suggestions for implementing a learning organization designed specifically to capitalize on the experiences of development firms' efforts in dealing with complexity and its consequences.     

The effect of process tailoring on software project performance: The role of team absorptive capacity and its knowledge‐based enablers

Software process tailoring (SPT) is a team‐based and learning‐intensive activity that addresses the particular dynamic characteristics of a development project. Because SPT critically influences how projects are conducted, its performance should be investigated. However, the extant literature lacks empirical evidence on how the underlying effects of SPT performance and its team‐supportive factors operate and influence software project performance. From the knowledge perspective, this study adopts dynamic capabilities theory and considers the learning ability and absorptive capacity of software project teams to develop a theoretical model to address this gap. The results of an empirical examination of the model with 135 software project teams advance our understanding of how team‐level learning antecedents—experience, communication quality and trust—dynamically facilitate teams' absorptive capacity (AC) when they conduct SPT, which in turn reinforces project performance. The mediating effects of the proposed model are unveiled and discussed, and theoretical implications as well as practical guidance for how AC and these factors promote SPT and project performance are suggested.     

Internet project-based learning environment: the effects of thinking styles on learning transfer

The purpose of this study, in an environment of Internet project‐based learning, is to undertake research on the effects of thinking styles on learning transfer. In this study, we establish an environment that incorporates project‐based learning and Internet. Within this environment, we divide our sample of elementary school students into four groups: Executive Group, Legislative Group, Judicial Group, and Mixed Group. Taking the learning of ‘Natural Science’ as an example, we investigate the effects of different thinking styles on learning transfer. The results of this study are:

• (a) significant differences between the near transfer of the Executive Group and the Legislative Group,
• (b) no significant differences in far transfer are found among groups of different thinking styles,
• (c) the near transfer of the Mixed Group is superior to that of the Legislative Group and the Judicial Group, and
• (d) the far transfer of the Mixed Group is superior to that of the Legislative Group.

     

Understanding mobile learning from the perspective of self‐regulated learning

Cognizant of the research gap in the theorization of mobile learning, this paper conceptually explores how the theories and methodology of self‐regulated learning (SRL), an active area in contemporary educational psychology, are inherently suited to address the issues originating from the defining characteristics of mobile learning: enabling student‐centred, personal, and ubiquitous learning. These characteristics provide some of the conditions for learners to learn anywhere and anytime, and thus, entail learners to be motivated and to be able to self‐regulate their own learning. We propose an analytic SRL model of mobile learning as a conceptual framework for understanding mobile learning, in which the notion of self‐regulation as agency is at the core. The rationale behind this model is built on our recognition of the challenges in the current conceptualization of the mechanisms and processes of mobile learning, and the inherent relationship between mobile learning and SRL. We draw on work in a 3‐year research project in developing and implementing a mobile learning environment in elementary science classes in Singapore to illustrate the application of SRL theories and methodology to understand and analyse mobile learning.     

Critical issues for e‐learning delivery: what may seem obvious is not always put into practice

Abstract The successful adoption of information and communication technology to enhance learning can be very challenging, requiring a complex blend of technological, pedagogical and organizational components, which may at times require the resolution of contradictory demands and conflicting needs. The research reported in this paper investigated and analysed critical success factors (CSFs) that are required to deliver e‐learning within higher education (HE) courses and programmes. The research design adopted a critical research approach, instantiated by focus group discussions with e‐learning experts drawn from administrative, educational, technology and research domains. The findings revealed that staffing issues, pedagogically sound delivery models and training of both tutors and students cannot be treated as trivial issues and are critical to the success of e‐learning. Furthermore, this research also shows that there is a strong relationship between these factors and inspirational institutional leadership. The findings also suggest that in order to assure the success of e‐learning, this leadership should guarantee the presence of institutional enablers. It is hoped that the CSFs, described and discussed in depth in this paper, will provide a suitable theoretical foundation to underpin the successful delivery of e‐learning within HE.     

Textual data mining for industrial knowledge management and text classification: A business oriented approach

Textual databases are useful sources of information and knowledge and if these are well utilised then issues related to future project management and product or service quality improvement may be resolved. A large part of corporate information, approximately 80%, is available in textual data formats. Text Classification techniques are well known for managing on-line sources of digital documents. The identification of key issues discussed within textual data and their classification into two different classes could help decision makers or knowledge workers to manage their future activities better. This research is relevant for most text based documents and is demonstrated on Post Project Reviews (PPRs) which are valuable source of information and knowledge. The application of textual data mining techniques for discovering useful knowledge and classifying textual data into different classes is a relatively new area of research. The research work presented in this paper is focused on the use of hybrid applications of text mining or textual data mining techniques to classify textual data into two different classes. The research applies clustering techniques at the first stage and Apriori Association Rule Mining at the second stage. The Apriori Association Rule of Mining is applied to generate Multiple Key Term Phrasal Knowledge Sequences (MKTPKS) which are later used for classification. Additionally, studies were made to improve the classification accuracies of the classifiers i.e. C4.5, K-NN, Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The classification accuracies were measured and the results compared with those of a single term based classification model. The methodology proposed could be used to analyse any free formatted textual data and in the current research it has been demonstrated on an industrial dataset consisting of Post Project Reviews (PPRs) collected from the construction industry. The data or information available in these reviews is codified in multiple different formats but in the current research scenario only free formatted text documents are examined. Experiments showed that the performance of classifiers improved through adopting the proposed methodology.     

From transaction to transformation: information and communication technology, professional development and the formation of communities of practice

Abstract Using the concept of ‘layers of community’, this paper describes and explains the ways in which teams of teachers, teacher educators and researchers worked together on the research project InterActive Education: teaching and learning in the information age. The focus is on the development and dissemination of professional knowledge as it relates to teaching and learning that incorporates information and communications technology (ICT) as a tool. Drawing on a range of data, we illustrate how ‘micro‐’, ‘meso‐’ and ‘macro’‐communities inter‐connect to create the settings for improved professional growth. The purpose is to challenge the linearity embedded in much of the professional development processes associated with ICT and to re‐model the relationship between practice and research.     

The role of e‐learning coaches in Australian secondary schools

The purpose of this study was to explore the personal experiences of e‐learning coaches working in secondary schools in order to provide information about the role of an e‐learning coach. Seven secondary schools in the outer‐eastern region of Melbourne, Australia, were involved in a 3‐year e‐learning project. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted by an independent researcher with an e‐learning coach from each of the seven schools involved in the research. A number of themes emerged from the interviews, including role confusion, changes in the role over time, the importance of establishing relationships, barriers to the uptake of information and communication technology (ICT) and ICT usage. To facilitate the integration of ICT with teaching practices in the secondary school setting, we recommend that a full‐time position for an on‐site e‐learning coach receiving the total support of school leaders is needed to provide relevant professional development and ongoing support to classroom teachers.     

A non-linearly virtual sample generation technique using group discovery and parametric equations of hypersphere

In manufacturing systems, only a small training dataset can be obtained in the early stages. A small training dataset usually leads to low learning accuracy with regard to classification of machine learning, and the knowledge derived is often fragile, and this is called the small sample problem. This research mainly aims at overcoming this problem using a special nonlinear classification technique to generate virtual samples to enlarge the training dataset for learning improvement. This research proposes a new sample generation method, named non-linear virtual sample generation (NVSG), which combines a unique group discovery technique and a virtual sample generation method using parametric equations of hypersphere. By applying a back-propagation neural network (BPN) as the learning tool, the computational experiments obtained from the simulated dataset and the real dataset quoted from the Iris Plant Database show that the learning accuracy can be significantly improved using NVSG method for very small training datasets.     

科技项目统计信息系统的设计与实现

根据科技项目情况统计涉及的统计表类型繁多 ,要求统计数字准确、图表精美的特点 ,设计了一个由2 2个关联的表构成的科技项目统计关系数据库 ,对全省每年的科技项目进行各种统计、绘制统计图表 ,并介绍了VFP与 EXCEL间的通信 ,VFP生成图表等几个实现重点     

A project management perspective on student's declarative commitments to goals established within asynchronous communication

Teamwork and technology, even as people are seeing their increased use in organizations, are becoming important components of problem‐based learning in academic settings. Yet, fostering computer‐assisted teamwork is complex and time consuming. Knowing how and when to intervene would prove useful. This study draws from the field of project management to explore how students commit to project goals using collective asynchronous text‐based communication technology. Declarative commitments – goal‐orientated public, voluntary, explicit and non‐retractable messages comprised of a term, an objective and a focus – made by 34 teams during a four‐phase 13‐week project were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitative results show that declarative commitments voluntarily and formally package information about project constraints into a relatively potent message about tasks, coordination and project completion. Team members' suggestions as to what should be carried out in the project and requests for help often preceded others' declarative commitments. As with persuasive communication (i.e. aimed at changing beliefs, attitudes and behaviours), declarative commitments were followed by demands for clarification, new declarative commitments, confirmations of upheld commitments and clear approvals of what was committed to. Looking at project progression from a broader perspective, quantitative analyses show that declarative commitments did partially mediate the relationship between frequencies of task issues and of task solutions. This was particularly pronounced in the mid‐point of the project, but it was not the case during the initial or final phases of the project. Taken together, these results suggest that teachers can facilitate computer‐assisted learning and project goal attainment by monitoring asynchronous electronic discussions, and by eliciting and structuring declarative commitments.