Normalising practice – moving a technological implementation from project phase to operational phase

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that successful implementation of new technologies relies on a project-based institutional approach with a dedicated and motivated project team to champion the technology and support professional development. One challenge that arises following project-style implementations is how to transition support structures and project drivers to 'normalisation' phase where technologies are seen as 'business-as-usual'. Griffith University’s PebblePad implementation project team deliberately planned an end-of-project to business-as- usual transition. This planning involved; embedding PebblePad in the institution’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE); setting up ongoing scalable support structures; and ensuing there were suitable institutional partnerships to sustain the diffusion of the institutional adoption. Griffith’s implementation project was led by the central learning & teaching unit (Learning Futures) and relied heavily on buy-in and support from many institutional stakeholders. Therefore it was essential that stakeholder teams were empowered to maintain the existing users and continue to look for opportunities for targeted and meaningful implementation. Similarly, Learning Futures had to find staffing capacity to continue to support PebblePad as a technology within the VLE. This ongoing work involves maintaining vendor relationships, providing ongoing professional development and continuing to be a centralised point for managing internal and external communications between stakeholders.