Collaboration, cooperation and cultural change: EdNA's potential - Planning for progress, partnership and prophecy Jon Mason and Jillian Dellit Education.Au Limited

Planning

During the latter period of the Keating government a number of initiatives were implemented both antecedent to and as a consequence of the Creative Nation statement. These initiatives were aimed specifically at harnessing the enabling power of information technologies in Australia. The Cooperative Multimedia Centres were one such initiative, aimed at promoting broad industry support in the development of multimedia expertise and products, while EdNA, or Education Network Australia, was another, initiated as a process that would provide a means for the various education systems and sectors to gain value-added benefit from access to the Internet. A significant characteristic of EdNA is that the Task Force established to guide its development was not a 'top-down' initiative but was the result of representation from all education sectors as well as all States and Territories together with the Commonwealth. Recommendations originating from a variety of stakeholders at the time advocating cross-sectoral participation were seen as crucial in promoting the view that networking was not just an issue concerning connectivity. (Johns, et al, 1995: 38).

Culturally, educational growth and reform in this country has been tied very closely to government agendas. The involvement of Federal and State governments in educational delivery inevitably leads in a federated system, to partial reforms, with lobbying checks and balances. Some of the big reforms that have taken place, such as those under Dawkins during the 1980s, only affected particular sectors. With the dawning of the so-called 'digital revolution', and specifically the dramatic growth in information technology utilisation in both education and the workplace, there are new prospects for educational reform. There are many terms being used to describe this milieu but probably the most descriptive is the emerging 'network society'. While EdNA is not explicitly representative of an educational reform it is nonetheless indicative of the kind of developments likely to proliferate in this next decade or so where 'networking' has new meaning to many more players. It is a manifestation of cultural change facilitated by communications and information technologies (CITs). Conventional (power) networks will no doubt endure but they will be challenged by the emergence of new networks made possible by CITs: the organisational pyramids that have been flattening in recent years are being transformed in this process by new architectures. It is now well recognised that the opportunities and threats accompanying the usage of CITs are unprecedented, and in educational settings pose transformative challenges for the established pedagogical and organisational cultures. (West, et al, 1998)

Since its early gestation and initial planning phase EdNA has metamorphosed. Originally, it had been conceived primarily as a physical network to deliver educational products and services nationally while also aimed at containing the costs of interactive information networks. Emphasis was upon infrastructure development and connectivity, particularly for the schools and Vocational Education and Training (VET) communities. This was clearly a very logical place to start since AARNet, the Australian Academic and Research Network, was already well-established as the Internet gateway for Australian universities and their affiliates. At this time, despite the lack of media exposure, the EdNA initiative also commenced collaboration on building a value-added Directory Service.

There have been a number of diverse forces at work contributing to EdNA's development since then. To sum a few of these up: the dramatic growth of Internet usage in Australia over the last few years; a change in government at the federal level; the deregulation of telecommunications law; a growing concern throughout the broader community for mechanisms which will protect children from access to unwholesome content and individuals on the Internet; increases in electronic commerce in Australia and overseas; the 'globalisation' of the educational marketplace; and, a significant strengthening of commitment from State governments to information technology in education, particularly schools. If this paper were aimed at analysing all the contributing forces then no doubt the list would continue. The important achievement, however, is that EdNA has developed to its current form as a national framework for collaboration between all sectors of the Australian education and training community, with a view to maximising the benefits of CITs in education.

Partnership

They come together, they develop, they evolve, they disperse, according to the timing, the logic, the rhythms, and the social energy of their learning. As a result, unlike more formal types of organisational structures, it is not clear where they begin and end. They do not have launching and dismissal dates. In this sense, a community of practice is a different kind of entity than, say, a task force or a team. (Wenger, in Press)

Progress along the pathway of collaboration and cooperation is difficult to measure, not least for reasons of access to metrics appropriate to the task of revealing accurate information on social interaction which takes place in 'online' environments. And much, though certainly not most, of the collaboration which has taken place to date on EdNA-related projects has taken place online. At the end of the day, it is outcomes of this collaboration which are of most interest to most people. However, perhaps a few words here about the framework established to enable this collaboration itself are also instructive.

Collaboration occurs within a number of contexts but it is within and between some key consultative groups that agreements are made. The primary advisory body is called the EdNA Reference Committee (ERC) which has been chaired by the Commonwealth representative for the past two years and membership of which is drawn from representatives of all key stakeholders: Schools (including representation from Catholic and Independent schools), Vocational Education and Training (VET), Adult and Community Education (ACE), Higher Education and Department of Education nominees from each of the States and Territories. Each sector has appointed Project Officers who work with advisory groups set up to represent the interests of their sector. Overall management of the process is effected by a small non-profit company, Education.Au Limited, based in Adelaide and jointly owned by the Ministers of Education. Its Board meets regularly and recommends actions to the Ministers. The ERC provides advice to this Board on the EdNA Directory Service. The Schools, VET and Higher Education sectors each have Advisory Groups feeding into the ERC and Board. During the last 12 months, development of the EdNA Directory Service has been the primary visible outcome, as a value-added website catering to the specific interests of the communities referenced above. A number of milestones have been reached in this period and in 1997 the main development was the design and consolidation of a meaningful category structure populated with high quality information, collected both manually and automatically, in order to effect focused online resource discovery. The EdNA Directory Service has continued to develop and during 1998 there is discussion about whether the website needs to modify its name in order to indicate that it is, in fact, much more than a directory service. The fact that 82 discussion groups are currently hosted on the site seems to already be evidence enough that interactive services which facilitate networking opportunities are as important as catalogued information. Clearly, it is intrinsic to the architecture of an online network that there will always be more than one descriptive 'community of interest' that comprises it.

While the foundations for ongoing collaboration and cooperation are in place, their durability and effectiveness in supporting value-added services for the education and training communities in this country is yet to be rigorously tested. Some commentators warn that such networks may even be short-lived, reflecting the demise of 'goodwill' in cyberspace culture as e-commerce gains the ascendancy. (Clarke, 1997)

The politics which accompany the EdNA process are also an important factor in making progress and it would be misleading not to indicate the extent of this factor. In broad-brush terms it would be fair to say that most of those active stakeholders contributing to the process have a developing appreciation for the complexity of agendas and needs . 'Collaboration' may be a concept with a semantic bias toward cooperative endeavour, but it certainly does not come easily! In fact, it can be argued that the collaboration taking place has a component of necessity, or economic survival. (Bond and Thompson, 1996: v)

The online world is an expensive one to establish on a large scale - and education systems are large scale. Industry has responded to this challenge by 're-engineering' - freeing money from salaries and production lines, inventory and delivery systems to computerise manual functions and building global corporations on the strength of improved communications systems. Education systems have less flexibility -particularly when grounded in government service delivery.

The pathways to educational change that have hitherto been successful in Australia may not, however, be adequate for the breadth of changes unleashed by digitisation. Governments in Australia (as elsewhere) are confronted with enormous costs to move education systems into electronic networked environments. Schools in particular, have had only limited capital expenditure in the last two decades. Their buildings are not flexible and easily redesigned. Recurrent funding is tied to salary expenditure. Location is inconveniently dictated by population location rather than by building and infrastructure availability.

Expertise is also thin on the ground - skills in 'virtual' educational environments are scarce and hence the pressure on educational policy and delivery to produce them in quantity. When such skills are produced, the commercial marketplace is able to attract those with the skills into the global, well paid and well rewarded workforce. Education systems and institutions in Australia have an experienced workforce and limited capacity to recruit. Retraining is expensive and slow.

In this environment, EdNA has provided a framework for systems and sectors to share problems, solutions and ideas in a non-competitive environment. The emerging awareness of the size of the challenge facing education has been shared. The political, educational, vocational and social pressures have been felt more or less simultaneously - and the economic pressure and demand has been also been shared. Within the EdNA environment skills and experience have been shared. State schooling systems have put a toe in the water and tried a strategy - a way of funding computers in schools, or a tender for Internet provision, or a scheme for networks in schools. The VET sector has cooperated in online course delivery or information networks. The Higher Education sector has gained support from other education sectors for its concerns about Educational copyright in the digital environment. Each sector and system has had a more rapid learning curve because of the information shared and vicarious experience gained. In a (combined) sector struggling to meet community expectations and conscious of the nexus between the community's future and what occurs in educational institutions today, this has been very significant in generating a belief that virtual learning is possible and indeed exciting.

The fear of being left behind is a real one in the education community. For an institution in Australia in the 1990s this can mean closure. For a State education or training system, it can mean the economic future of the community is further at risk, more difficulty attracting industry, fewer jobs and a downward spiral of employment and prosperity. The EdNA collaboration has meant this does not have to happen. All players can learn from others, provide concrete information and examples to Ministers, move forward with a little bit of money, share that experience with others who in turn build on it and move the education community forward. It is hardly a revolution, but it is solid and steady - a learning solution.

The EdNA Directory Service itself is an outward manifestation of this collaboration. It represents the collaboration in a visible form. It saves some technical developments being repeated. The search engine, for example, is licensed to any system or sector education body that contributes to EdNA and wants to use it. Devolved administration of the system allows EdNA discussion groups and Noticeboards to be used by systems, sectors and groups within the education community as a tool for their own agendas. The EdNA Directory Service becomes then, a test bed for online tools and techniques as well as a channel for sharing content.

Progress

Of greater concern to educators is the kind of citizen education systems and education dollars are producing. EdNA has provided the forum in which the discussion about the kind of education that is required to achieve the networked society can be had. This has been particularly true of the schooling sector. Will five year olds of the future be much like five year olds of the present and past? Is literacy the same in the networked society? How do we ensure young people can discriminate between truth and dross when having unlimited resources available to them in the privacy of their own thinking space? Is an age cohort still the appropriate grouping for their education? Do they need schools? What should schools look like?

At present, the EdNA Directory Service is recognisable as much like the resources students and teachers have known and used in the past. It takes a while to explore, but any educator with time and Internet access can find a comfort level within a few hours of investigation. However, our expectations are growing. Already, the notion of a directory no longer fits. The notion of place creeps in. Educators are beginning to congregate, to seek each other out within and through EdNA. People like the What's New service emailed to them each week. They have begun to ask for sites and services, to share sites and service - to occupy the space. Progress then becomes possible - even probable. We are making the first stage of the journey towards the education of the future.

Prophecy

We will hazard some predictions. From our experience of EdNA, collaboration is here to stay. Particularly in relation to Internet services, there is no sign of Australian educators in any numbers being able to fund on a regional or sector basis, the infrastructure, research and expertise that will be required to support the formal learning to support the networked society. Clearly, some States are committing significant resources to related initiatives but for inter-operability to be possible such initiatives must be scalable or adaptable to a national framework. Necessity being the mother of invention, EdNA will grow and evolve in some form or another as it is embraced by the education community. Increasingly, technical development will be run through a collective filter. The education sector does not have the resources for expensive mistakes. Compounding this, the sheer turnover in emergent technologies requires some component of ongoing prophecy. Some of this will read the trends correctly, some will not.

In the networked educational future also, bigger is not necessarily better. Some of the innovation and creativity born of necessity is coming from smaller parts of the sector. The organisational pyramids will continue to flatten - and it is likely that the efficacy of such metaphors drawn from Euclidean geometry will no longer be adequate.

Centralisation does not rule OK in the networked society. This provides some big challenges for Australia's centralised government and non-government schooling systems. There are opportunities here - for unions as well as governments. There is opportunity too, for greater professional contribution and EdNA can provide many of the tools to support it. A cultural shift is under way. However, there are a lot of responsibilities that come in the package with professional power. EdNA can develop into an education community - even the Australian education community, presenting a united front to the world, and serving, amongst others, a similar function to the Australian Wine Industry Board, promoting a united Australian education front in the international community. Education.Au has the capacity to steer such a service. As with the wine industry, the challenge is not, however, in the organisation, but in the discipline, vision and professionalism of the industry itself - above all, in the will of its leadership to build consistency, quality and technology worthy of the inputs at the grass roots.

The prophets of the Old Testament rarely announced good news. They warned of the consequences of failure to remain true to visions. Without labouring the point, we would join in the chorus.

References

Clarke, R. (1997). Encouraging Cyberculture. Presented at CAUSE 97, Melbourne. http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/EncoCyberCulture.html

Education Network Australia http://www.edna.edu.au/

Ishida, T., Nishida, T. and Hattori, F. (in press). Communityware: Concept and Practice. John Wiley & Sons.

Johns, B. and Committee (1995). Networking Australia's Future - The Final Report of the Broadband Services Expert Group. Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra.

Wenger, E. (in press). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge University Press: MA

West, R. and Review Committee (1998). Learning for Life, final report - Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy. DEETYA, Commonwealth of Australia: Canberra.

Jon Mason is currently a Senior Consultant with Education.Au Ltd where he has responsibilities for the ongoing development of the EdNA Directory Service and Higher Education liaison. Education.Au has evolved from its forerunner, the Open Learning Technology Corporation, and is charged with implementing the functions of Education Network Australia (EdNA). Prior to commencing this appointment, he was Higher Education Project Manager for EdNA. From 1994 to early 1998 he was based at the University of Melbourne within the Faculty of Education where he was Information Technology Manager. He has worked in IT management since 1992 and in IT services since 1989. Jillian Dellit is currently responsible for strategy, policy and marketing for Education.Au Limited, She is on leave from the South Australian Department of Education, Training and Employment, where she managed The Orphanage Teachers Centre for the last seven years, and the DECStech 2001 project providing technology infrastructure to schools for the last two. She has been a school principal, library adviser, Affirmative Action Coordinator as well as an English/History Teacher and Teacher/Librarian. Her initial training and teaching was in NSW. She has lived in South Australia for 25 years. She writes whenever she gets the opportunity and learns line-dancing every Tuesday night. Jon Mason and Jillian Dellit Education.Au Limited 178 Fullarton Rd, Dulwich SA 5065 jmason@educationau.edu.au jdellit@educationau.edu.au Please cite as: Mason, J. and Dellit, J. (1998). Collaboration, cooperation and cultural change: EdNA's potential - Planning for progress, partnership and prophecy. In C. McBeath and R. Atkinson (Eds), Planning for Progress, Partnership and Profit. Proceedings EdTech'98. Perth: Australian Society for Educational Technology. http://www.aset.org.au/confs/edtech98/pubs/articles/mason.html