Professor Stewart Marshall

Faculty of Informatics and Communication

Central Queensland University

Australia

As with other universities, the University of West Indies needs to tackle the question - "How do we secure sustainability in the current environment, where innovation, change and uncertainty are the natural state of things?" Some refer to a phenomenon called "The Red Queen effect" after the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass remarks "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place". Long-term sustainability isn't possible without continual "responsiveness to the external and industry environment and opportunistic strategic management to leverage from changes in this environment" (Gregor, et al, 2002). So the University must operate in a way that incorporates continual adaptation to pursue emergent directions but which also emphasises the distinctive strengths and values of the University. In the University, we need to cultivate evolving populations of strategies. Kauffman (1995) refers to this evolutionary process as the "development of fitness landscapes" where the corporation will search for the high points on their fitness landscapes. This process of evolutionary search is continuous and also multiplex – and it requires a strategic approach to diversity to successfully explore the terrain.

The use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) is central to both the reason for the constantly changing educational environment and to our responses to those changes. Using the new ICTs in the global learning environment requires both staff and students to cross new socio-cultural borders (Jegede, 2000), acquire new literacies and learning skills (Wallace and Yell, 1997), and facilitates massive change in existing work practices (Coaldrake and Stedman, 1999).

This paper considers some of the transformations necessary for universities to meet the challenges arising from global competition and advances in information and communication technology (ICT). In particular, the paper outlines the ICT facilitated paradigm shifts in the:

• Inter-organisational environment;
• Teaching/working/organisation environment;
• Learning environment;
• Community environment.

As a case study, I describe the transformations that have occurred at Central Queensland University (CQU), Australia, in responding to the challenge of remote education and operation on a national and international basis. CQU has been a distance education and on-campus education provider since 1972 and is now Australia’s fastest growing university. Inherent in all CQU’s operations is a model in which the organization, its members and its partners are all constituents of a network of learning facilitators. This network is simultaneously global and local - hence the portmanteau expression ‘glocal’ is used to describe this ‘glocal’ model for higher education in a borderless world. The paper also describes an "emancipatory" approach to online learning that uses ICT to enable students to work collaboratively in virtual groups.

A key factor in the success of the ICT transformations has been the adoption of an "emergent" or "evolutionary" philosophy of change management. These transformations or changes are not solely ‘technology led’ or solely ‘organizational/agency driven’. Instead, they arise from complex interactions between technology, people and the organization, and are encouraged to "emerge" or "evolve" over time by identifying and supporting early adopters and innovators. Another key factor is that of embracing collaboration at all levels, e.g., international, national, societal, organizational, faculty, and student.

I believe these key factors and the other lessons from the virtualization experiences of CQU and other organizations, together with the literature reviewed in this paper, may provide useful perspectives on the challenges and opportunities facing the University of West Indies Distance Education Centre.

Open and distance education are central to this evolution, because they

Today’s post-secondary students are a combination of the traditional school leavers and the non-traditional student seeking access to learning generally not available through the traditional classroom and study schedules. In this context the following trend regarding the nature of our future students was predicted by Farrell (1994):

• Part-time learning will be the norm;
• More will be over 25 years of age, working full time, married and with families;
• More will already have post-secondary experience;
• Many will be looking for updating and "partial credit" rather than standard degree diploma or research courses;
• They will demand courses that are up-to-date, current and relevant to their needs;
• They will require access to information and experience globally and they will have the skills, and expect to use those skills, in accessing and managing information rather than receiving direct instruction as they did the first time around;
• These mature learners will want to "network" rather than be "instructed";
• Most will already have experience in using interactive technologies and they will expect to use that technology in their post-secondary education.

This trend has gathered momentum in an information age in which the demand for manual skills is declining. Reform in education and training has been called for to explore and implement ways of educating and training the 21st century work-force and ways to provide life skills for citizens in an information society (for example, Microsoft, 2003). The demand for learning by adults has been demonstrated by data from the National Centre for Education Statistics (NCES), which indicted that in 1999 – 2001, seventy three percent of all undergraduates were in some way "non-traditional" (NCES, 2002). Many higher institutions, such as CQU have a large percentage of their student population classed as "non-traditional students". However up to this time the culture of ICT remains young, middle-class, male and western based (e.g., Holderness, 1998). The challenge of educators, policy makers, governments, industry and society in general is to develop models for access to education and training that will reach all in both developed and developing countries.

The globalisation of knowledge and educational products and services means that all countries can, in principle, be both providers and consumers. However, given the existence of greater production capacity, powerful alliances, and high volume markets, it seems more likely that larger developed countries (and to some extent, larger developing countries) rather than small developing countries will become the major producers of distance education products and services. By using division of labour (some people developing learning materials, others supporting students, others providing logistic support, etc.) and the specialisation that this permits, the 'mega-universities' (Daniel, 1996) have been able to develop a model of supported open learning which can operate flexibly at large scale, with low costs and high quality. This can pose an economic, political and cultural threat to small developing countries and small states (UWIDEC, 2000, p.6). Small state economies such as those of Swaziland and the Caribbean find it difficult to respond because their inability to access economies of scale make "the creation and delivery of distance material constitute a substantial investment, which is difficult to quantify and equally difficult to recoup" (Morgan, 2000, p.107).There are those who fear that globalised open and distance education will amount to cultural importation/invasion/imperialism (Evans, 1995b, pp.314-315).

The particular social, cultural and political context may also make it difficult for small state economies to introduce distance education. Morgan (2000, p.107) points out that although distance delivery is ideally suited to the island chain of the Caribbean, "there is still the propensity to treat this mode as the despised poor relation of face-to-face teaching". Perraton (1983) makes the more general point that the success or failure of a distance education project will depend at least as much on its political context as on its methods because

Organizational culture can also affect the success or failure of a distance education project. Morgan (2000, p.108) describes the introduction of distance education at the University of the West Indies as "fraught with difficulties, ranging from lack of conviction as to the viability of the distance mode, to the disparity between the responsibility placed on the Distance Education Centre and its funding and positioning within the university structure".

ICTs make possible new learning environments. In Australia, online and videoconferencing systems are being developed as alternatives to face-to-face communication where the people are physically dispersed. The alternative learning/teaching approaches using ICTs include: the Internet (facilitating synchronous and asynchronous interactions between learners); video-conferencing (facilitating tutorials comprising distributed groups of students, and also remote access to live lectures); digital libraries (as knowledge repositories); computer simulation (substitutes for laboratories); and many others (Evans & Nation, 1993; Evans & Newell, 1993; Asensio, et al, 2000; Jegede, 2000; McAlpine, 2000; Devi, 2001; Williams et al, 2001; Discenza, et al, 2002; Ruth, 2002). Overall, these new technologies create a learning environment in which learners, tutors and learning resources can all be networked.

These same ICT possibilities also permit new working environments for those responsible for the facilitation of learning. Thus lecturers can use the Internet for synchronous and asynchronous communication with colleagues, video-conferencing for meetings, digital libraries for research, etc. The interaction of these new technologies with the people creates a teaching environment in which lecturers, tutors and teaching resources can all be networked. But to achieve maximum advantage from the use of these ICTs, it is necessary to re-engineer work practices. The ‘mega-universities’ (Daniel, 1996) use division of labour (some people developing learning materials, others supporting students, others providing logistic support, etc.) and the specialization that this permits, to develop a model of supported open learning which can operate flexibly at large scale, with low costs and high quality (Daniel, 1999).

Traditionally, universities have carried out all the functions relating to the provision of higher education: content production; packaging content; credentialing programs; presentation to students; marketing; registration, payment and record keeping; and, assessment. In the online world, these functions can more readily be disaggregated and the university can specialize in those functions that it regards as its ‘core business’, forming alliances for other functions or outsourcing to new intermediaries in the value chain. The communication options offered by advances in information technology facilitate the required changes in inter-organizational relationships.

The advantage to the ‘non-mega-universities’ of these alliances is the opportunity to improve the quality of the educational experience through the aggregation of expertise from different sources. Thus, the marketing of a university’s programs can be outsourced to a company that specializes in researching the market and promoting the university. Recruitment can be better done close to the students, and can even be conducted in the students’ languages by agents in the relevant countries. Library facilities can be provided by new intermediaries close to the students or provided online by cybermediaries. Fee–payment, especially online payment, can similarly be outsourced to a cybermediary.

CQU is a regional university in Australia that is responding to the challenge to provide education and training sought by the people alluded to above using ICTs in the online world.

With nearly 23,000 students in 2002, CQU is Australia’s fastest growing university in terms of international students. CQU has the largest percentage of international students (41%, or 9389 students out of the total) of any university in Australia. By comparison, in 1996, international fee paying students comprised only 7.3% of the total number of students (DETYA, 1997). These figures are the basis for the claim that CQU is a virtual organization that is successful commercially.

In Central Queensland, CQU’s traditional catchment area, Rockhampton is the location of the main campus, Mackay campus 350 kilometres to the North, Gladstone campus 120 kilometres to the South, Emerald campus 280 kilometres to the West and Bundaberg campus 330 kilometres to the South. A key component of this integrated network of campuses is the Interactive System-Wide Learning system – a synchronous video link that facilitates networked learning. Thus, on these campuses, classes are taught using combinations of synchronous video delivery of live lectures, videoconferencing to connect distributed groups of learners, web-delivery, email discussion lists, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and face-to-face classes. Distance education students are serviced with a combination of printed, CD-ROM and web-delivered material, as well as electronic asynchronous communication for class discussion and mailing lists. Thus, for both on-campus and distance education modes, CQU has moved to a networked education model that uses ICTs to link learners, teaching/learning resources, lecturers, and tutors. In effect, it has used ICTs to network its teaching/learning locations and collaborative partners and hence create a virtual organization.

CQU formed an alliance with a commercial partner to establish campuses at Sydney in 1994, Melbourne in 1996, Brisbane in 1999 and the Gold Coast in 2001, specifically to provide educational services for international students. In addition, alliances have been formed with partners to create educational delivery centres in Singapore, Malaysia, China and Hong Kong, and a full campus in Fiji. Inherent in all these educational partnerships is a model in which the function of content production has been detached from other functions (for example, lecturing) traditionally carried out by the university. At all these locations, the flexible learning resource materials produced by the CQU academic staff in Central Queensland provide the global content for the teaching, which is conducted by locally appointed academic staff, specifically employed for teaching rather than research. The model is a ‘glocal’ networked education system – an education system that uses a global approach to the delivery of higher education in which global learning resources and networks are used, but local academic and administrative support is provided for student learning (see Figure 1). Hence the portmanteau expression "glocal" – it is global and local at the same time.

(Figure from Marshall & Gregor, 2002)

Thus, as represented in Figure 2, a CQU academic development team is responsible for the design and development of the ‘global core’ (for example, the course profile, CQU learning resources) for the supported online course. The global core is then made available electronically to the local partner, who is responsible for adding the local education interface to the global core by creating a website with a culturally appropriate, local ‘look and feel’. The CQU academic development team in Australia works electronically with the local development team to maintain quality control of this locally added component.

As regards the facilitation of learning during the presentation of a particular course, a lecturer on one Central Queensland campus is designated as the Coordinator, and that person, together with the administration multi-campus support team, coordinates the activities of the learning facilitators/tutors on all the other campuses on which that particular course is taught. Thus, rather than dealing directly with a thousand students on campuses all over the world, the CQU coordinator deals only with the in-country tutors who in turn facilitate the learning of the students. The local campus/centre acts as a hub for the local learning network – as shown in Figure 3. Through the coordinator in Australia, CQU is responsible for quality control of the facilitation of the learning process. By using this globally created and validated, but locally mediated and supported system of open and distance learning, CQU is able to cater for the needs of its diverse student body.

The naïve model may be characterised as "putting the lecture notes on the Web". No extra facilities are provided, and the notes used in live face-to-face lectures are transformed with minimal alteration into a web-based format accessible by a standard browser (such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator).

The standard model attempts to actively utilise the advantages provided by the technology to allow a significant degree of communication and interaction between students and staff. Features of the standard model include the following:

• a range of electronic resources linked to from the course home page;
• electronic copies of all printed course materials;
• lecture slides in Powerpoint format;
• any notes arising out of on-campus lectures and tutorials;
• workshop tasks and solutions;
• assignment marking guidelines;
• full contact details of all instructors;
• copies of past examinations for the course;
• hints and tips for the current examination;
• an electronic course discussion list.

The evolutionary model takes the standard model as a basis and supplements it with many other features to enhance both the teaching and learning environment. Aspects that distinguish the evolutionary model include:

• distribution on CD-ROM of a mirror of the Web site as it pertains at the beginning of semester;
• pre-recorded audio lectures available both on the CD and from the Web;
• animations to explain many of the concepts;
• live lectures given only in response to specific student requests;
• web-based archives of mailing list discussions from previous semesters;
• electronic assignments submission, recording marking, and return;
• provision of a "feedback barometer" (Svensson et al 1999).

The radical model dispenses with lectures entirely. Instead, students are formed into groups, and learn by interacting amongst themselves and using the vast amount of existing Web-based resources, with the instructor providing guidance as and when required. Distinguishing features of the radical model include:

• a video sent out to all students prior to the commencement of semester explaining the "way the course works";
• minimal traditional instruction from the instructor;
• an expectation that students will use the set text, and make extensive use of search engines and other facilities to seek out resources available on the Web;
• compulsory use of the course mailing list for communication;
• the replacement of lectures by online electronic presentations prepared by the students themselves, each based on the topic for that week;
• the allocation of students into groups, each of which is responsible not only for providing an electronic presentation at some point during the semester, but also for responding critically to all other such presentations.

Taylor et al (2003) describe this radical model as an "emancipatory" approach to online learning. This approach, used at CQU at both the postgraduate and undergraduate levels, employs ‘one to many’, ‘one to one’ and ‘many to many’ forms of interaction with students. Students are expected to subscribe electronically to the class email list. They are then encouraged by the lecturer to introduce themselves online by informing the class about themselves, their interests, their current work or study areas and their backgrounds. This helps to contextualize the backgrounds of the class members and hence provides a framework for discussion, interpretation and linking across the whole class. The students are allocated to ‘virtual groups’ in the second week of the semester. As shown in Figure 4, a virtual group may comprise students who are studying on-campus or at Study Centres at various CQU locations and also students who are studying in distance education mode anywhere in the world. Students then establish contact with their virtual group members and start working on their assessment tasks. This time is also used to seek out incompatibilities in the groups, try to resolve any conflicts and help people to learn to work together. Any traditional cultural or ethnic differences are treated with immediate sensitivity. In week 3 of the semester, the first group makes its presentation to the class online. The presentation consists of a critique that links an article with the reading in the book for the week. Feedback from students contributes to the mark for the presentation. The above process is repeated for ten weeks until the end of the semester, with each week dedicated to an in-depth discussion on a different topic that is related to the reading for that week.

Taylor et al (2003) describe six major advantages of the approach:

• It involves the three modes of teacher-student interaction.

• It provides flexibility for lecturer and learner.

• It allows for increasing understanding across cultural groupings.

• It accommodates regular and timely asynchronous interaction.

• It mitigates issues of power and social presence

• It strengthens both hard and soft skills.

Online distance education courses can take many approaches and include new forms of interaction that involve learners in open discourse providing increased contextual and emancipatory dimensions. In the provision of a distance education, new approaches can involve an open discourse approach as a part of the delivery mechanism. Such an approach can also address issues of differences in understanding brought about by cultural diversity. The "emancipatory" approach outlined, provides a mechanism for a wider engagement in, and interpretation of, the learning process through use of ICT which reduces the negative impact social presence, increases the use of weak ties in the learning process and provides a degree of anonymity to increase contribution. It recognizes the reality of power relationships, politics and conflict in the learning process and brings them into the process rather than ignoring their existence. Thus, the approach also develops skills, which are becoming increasingly important in the application of knowledge and learning in a community setting. It encourages a pluralistic interpretation, which allows learning to be discussed, and locally contextualized across wide variations in culture and experience.

A philosophy of "emergent" or "evolutionary" change underpinned the development of the models discussed above. Online components were progressively added to the DE teaching model. This same philosophy applied to the development of the technical system required to support the online components. The ability of a technical system to adapt to support emergent and evolutionary changes is very important. The technical system used in the Faculty of Informatics and Communication is Webfuse, developed by a staff member of the Faculty (Jones, 1999a; 1999b). Webfuse is a web-authoring tool that integrates a collection of support tools behind a common interface. The support tools are hidden behind hypermedia templates (Catlin and Garret, 1991) which simplify the authoring process while ensuring good design principles. Additional functionality can be added as requirements change by developing new hypermedia templates. The use of a scripting language means that Webfuse is not restricted by a single platform or component model. All of the existing Webfuse hypermedia templates allow the quick integration of most Web-based software into a common management framework, which has further increased the ability of Webfuse to adapt to changes and provide additional functionality (Jones, 1999a; 1999b). Examples of Websites constructed with Webfuse include:

• http://www.infocom.cqu.edu.au/
  The Website for the Faculty of Informatics and Communication at CQU;
• http://webfuse.cqu.edu.au/
  The main Webfuse web site which includes copies of Webfuse.

From the huge volume of written material, there can be no doubt that the Internet has huge and unprecedented implications for society at large. However, the uneven adoption of Internet technologies across the world is great cause for concern to international collaborative bodies whose efforts are related to global inequity (UNDP, 2001; DOTforce, 2001). Despite the huge potential of Internet technologies to assist communities to increase their overall well-being through community development, there are relatively few examples of sustained community networks built around Internet technologies when compared to commercial applications, even in the developed countries where the technology has been increasingly available for up to 20 years. Early work in the field has had mixed success (O’Neal, 2001) and researchers report a wide range of potential success factors and impediments (see for example, Byrne and Wood-Harper, 2000; Gurstein, 2000; Pigg, 1999; Rosenbaum and Gregson, 1998; Schuler, 1996; Shearman, 1999). However, despite the lack of emergence of useful generic theories or models from the current work in community informatics, there are some common elements beginning to emerge. Pre-eminent amongst these is that social network strategies and the building of social capital at the local level are key issues for the successful adoption of Internet technologies for development (Shearman, 1999; Horrigan and Wilson, 2001; Harris, 2001). Also whilst the lack of external funding for equipment can be a barrier to success, provision in itself is no guarantee of successful adoption in community (Harris,2001; Byrne and Wood-Harper, 2000).

As a result of this, the Faculty of Informatics and Communication at CQU sought to establish an action research centre to simultaneously implement and study community informatics in a provincial regional environment. Essential to this approach was the recognition that the effort must be collaborative with community in neither ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ approaches but in a combination recently described as ‘inside out’ (Nyden, 2001) which recognises the needs for existing structures to extend their resources to address integrated community needs in equal partnerships. The action research centre was located in Rockhampton, a city with a population of 65,000, which has been the traditional service and administrative centre for a large sparsely populated geography dependent upon mining, light metals processing, power generation and agriculture. When compared to national and state averages, it has comparatively lower levels of formal education, income, people in the 26-55 year age bracket and home use of the Internet (25% less) when compared to both State and National averages (ABS, 2000; CQSS, 2000). It has correspondingly higher proportions of people over 55 years of age. Despite the city being both the home base for a vibrant regional University which is the largest employer in the city and it being a substantial base for regional public service administration, home connection to the Internet was approximately 34% which is 20 points below that of capital cities and substantially below adoption rural areas in Australia. Significantly, those over 55 years of age had home connection rates of 16% compared to 44% for the preceding cohort in the 40-55 age bracket.

In order to overcome what was seen as a major obstacle for Rockhampton to engage with the information society, the University proposed an action research project to:

• Provide computer and Internet access and training to members of community groups as a means to increase social participation;
• Measure changes in attitude and behaviour to the use of IT for community development in individuals and the various community groups as a result of the project;
• Assist community groups develop an integrated approach to the use of Internet technologies for community development.

The project commenced in mid-1999, as a joint venture between the Faculty and the Rockhampton City Council. A Steering Committee comprising three representatives each from the Faculty and the Council was established and a Memorandum of Understanding between the Faculty and the Council was signed. This approach reflects the key finding from a recent workshop examining the digital divide in that useful approaches to addressing the digital divide require ‘organisations in a strategic compact set off a development dynamic’ (Cohen, 2001). The COIN Internet Academy was opened in mid 2001 with two project managers, administration support, two post-graduate researchers, (all on short term funding) a ten-seat training facility and a nine-seat telecentre. At the end of June 2003, the COIN Internet Academy had 109 community groups with 951 people registered as members for a wide range of programs including ‘train the trainer’ programs to provide for wider diffusion. The Faculty, Rockhampton City Council and the various groups are now collaborating to progressively create a site for vibrant online communities <http://capricornia.org/community> that extends and supports the development needs of their geo-physical counterparts (see Figure 5).

Because CQU has a campus in Rockhampton, the COIN Internet Academy was not established in order to provide access to its educational programs. However, similar telecentres which were established in more remote locations in Central Queensland, did serve this purpose. These were established in collaboration with the local Councils and in some cases with non-government organizations.

The People First Network, or PFnet <http://www.peoplefirst.net.sb/general/pfnet.htm>, is a UNDP-established Information and Communications Technology project, which aims to facilitate rural communications and information flows across all communities in the Solomon Islands, particularly with respect to rural development and peace building. PFnet is a project of the Rural Development Volunteers Association and is affiliated with the Rural Development Division of the Ministry of Provincial Government and Rural Development. In October 2001, the PFnet Internet gateway base station was established and the country’s first rural community email facility was opened at Sasamungga, Choiseul. It has now established five community-run rural email stations, and over 25 planned nationally. PFnet also runs the Internet Café in Honiara.

PFnet enables remote locations on islands across thousands of square kilometres to have access to Internet emails using a simple computer, short-wave radio, and solar power (Leeming et al, 2003). It aims to:

• Facilitate point-to-point communications to/from the remote provinces of the Solomon Islands;
• Facilitate rural development and peace-related information flows among all social groups;
• Facilitate the exchange of information between communities and development programmes, NGOs, government offices, the media, businesses and other stakeholders.

This project aims to utilize an existing rural Internet connection through the rural-development and peace ICT initiative PFnet, to pilot a distance learning facility in one of Solomon Islands’ rural Community High Schools in partnership with the University of South Pacific (USP) Centre of Honiara. It will create a computing centre at the community school close to the email station utilising existing solar power. Local capacity will be built to sustain the facility working in cooperation with the PFnet programme. The project will also study the impacts of the email station on the wider community, focusing on particular vulnerable groups such as women and young people. In doing so, this project will provide invaluable baseline data for the further expansion of PFnet to all rural areas of the country, and provide an excellent example of an application serving the needs of education users and providers.

The use of an ICT-based education at CQU as described in this paper offers increased flexibility for both the learner and provider. The approach of using the model of a "glocal" networked education system has the advantages of being able to provide a high quality education course for persons "across the globe" which at the same time is able to "customize" the education program to meet the local needs and demands of students. Importantly the model can accommodate the specific education and training nuances of a country as well as cultural and religious needs and demands. It recognizes the emergence of the "non-traditional student", many of whom have current work-based skills and knowledge which can be utilized in the learning process.

Much of the success of the model rests on the separation of four educational functions:

• Development of the global core of learning resources;
• Development of the local education interface;
• Coordination of the learning facilitation;
• Local learning facilitation.

By collaborating with others to fulfill these functions, CQU has progressively grown to be a large virtual organization.

Collaboration will undoubtedly be an important factor in UWIDEC’s successful future. Internal to UWIDEC’s operations, there needs to be collaboration between academics to prepare materials, between sections in the University to support learning, and collaboration between students in learning groups. But I would also suggest that the following external collaborations need to be pursued by UWIDEC:

• With organizations to support, market and deliver education within and outside the region more effectively, and to diversify income sources;
• With individuals and organizations to use/develop Open Source software for the required technical systems - the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) may be prepared to fund some of the development;
• With funding/support bodies to obtain infrastructure for access points (e.g., UNDP, COL, European Union, InfoDev) , especially in the Non-Campus Countries (NCCs);
• With NGOs and government departments to maintain access points as cross-sectoral "knowledge centres" , especially in the NCCs;
• With communities in the region to create socio-cultural learning environments in the "knowledge centres", especially in the NCCs;
• With universities and academics around the world to conduct and publish research on using DE and ICTs in the provision of higher education in difficult circumstances.

An important success factor in the Faculty of Informatics and Communication at CQU has been the use of an emergent methodology in the virtualization process and in the development of the ICT system. Traditional information systems development methodologies generally include the following steps (Jones et al, 2003):

1. A significant period of analysis and design to generate a formal specification of the required system;
2. The construction or purchase of the system;
3. A sign-off stage where the system is checked against the formal specification;
4. A long period of operation and maintenance.
5. Return to step 1 when the system no longer matches the needs of the organisation.

But organizations with continual "responsiveness to the external and industry environment" (Gregor, et al, 2002) are unlikely to experience the sustained periods of stability required for steps 1 and 4. Such organisations are continually undergoing social negotiation and consensus building and thus are "emergent" rather than ever "fully formed" (Truex and Klein, 1999). Emergent development rejects the goals of traditional information systems development and replaces them with new goals, which include (Truex and Klein, 1999): continual analysis; dynamic requirements negotiation; useful, but incomplete specifications; continuous redevelopment; and, the ability to adapt.

Jones (2000) provides the following useful principles to support emergent virtualization:

• Fully engage the members of an organisation and encourage shared construction and positive debate about the identity of the organisation. Encourage alternative views.
• Provide an appropriate organizational culture where innovation is encouraged and errors honored.
• Ensure a heterogeneous organization by supporting and encouraging those operating at the fringes. Allow multiple approaches.
• Put in place an approach to capture and disseminate knowledge and lessons learned by practitioners.
• Enable control to occur from the bottom up.
• Grow in simple steps with an emphasis on high relative advantage, low complexity and high compatibility with existing practice.

I believe these principles would be useful for the online developments in the UWIDEC environment.

Professor Stewart Marshall is the foundation Dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Communication at Central Queensland University in Australia. Although originally an electrical engineer with the Central Electricity Generating Board in the UK, Professor Marshall has worked in higher education since 1973 in England, Papua New Guinea, Australia and Southern Africa. He was the foundation Professor of Communication at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology, foundation Professor of Communication Studies in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University, and foundation Coordinator of Academic Studies and Professor of Distance Education at the Institute of Distance Education at the University of Swaziland in Southern Africa. His research interests are in the role of communication and information technologies in distance education, especially in developing countries. Professor Marshall has published several books and over 90 refereed articles, book chapters and conference papers.