Tuesday 28 June 2011

Assessing Resistance and Risk for the Pilot Study

A minimal risk of resistance in attitude towards participation and change has been predicted. In terms of proving a commitment to the notion of the project, the stakeholder group share an interest in experimenting with learning and creative technologies and tools. The anticipated potential risks include: students and key staff taking holidays over the pilot period; students preoccupied with final projects and assessments; stability issues of cloud computing increases the risk of data being lost or service terminated; difficulty or failure in archiving Twitter conversations; difficultly arranging convenient times for participation due to global time differences; using open and creative platforms may create risk of misuse, leaving the course open to defamation and criticism; biased views may be presented; contributions may be dominated from a one single discipline or member; low levels of participation due to users lack of awareness of tools and need for guidance/support; as a non subject specialist, I may source and distribute non relevant or low level information.


Representative participation in the proposed trial of Twitter and Diigo activities is vital to the success of the project. In an attempt to address some of these risks I have planned the following itinerary of measures: providing guidelines and screen-cast tutorials for tools used; timing of synchronous Twitter chat sessions will be carefully planned; advice on archiving Tweets will be sourced; establish holiday dates for key stakeholders before the trail; design activities to be concise, manageable and relevant; participation and collaboration will be encouraged via this blog and direct email contact; all comments submitted will be moderated; I will seek recommendations for RSS feeds from specialists.

Working collaboratively is an important aspect of action research and a valued ideology of the Institute. The project will adopt an involving and building approach to working with stakeholders. All views and ideas contributed will be acknowledged and valued. Direct and indirect feedback offered by collaborators will help to review, inform and influence the pilot study, exploratory activities and the summative report

The Masters Programme Leader will help to direct student/staff groups through the pilot activities to encourage maximum engagement and transdisciplinary representation.

Stakeholder Analysis


SWOT Analysis on Tools to be Implemented

2 comments:

  1. Hi Lisa,

    1. On risks: think about technical risks [cloud-based or in-house services] and evaluation risks [data collection, user engagement etc.]

    2. When you say "can involvement be inclusively synchronous?" what do you mean?

    3. When you note "Good and representative participation", do you mean good-enough?

    4. Link your risks to the SWOT analysis - which is really good [as is teh stakeholder analysis].

    Richard.

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  2. Thanks for these really helpful comments Richard. I have now added to the original post and have considered other risks, as prompted.
    I think that I have addressed your other questions in the updated post. I take your point about the use of the word "good".

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