Any organisation making substantial use of open learning will need to consider developing their own materials. Those who decide to produce materials will need to consider how they establish learning materials development as part of the day to day operation of the organisation. Many institutions and companies do not have an existing infrastructure for producing open learning materials and you may need to establish a number of systems.

Your main focus will be on this organisation of development, but you will also need to establish systems for:

• pilot testing

• lack of in-house expertise

• evaluation

• updating.

There are a number of ways of organising materials development within an organisation. The exact method your organisation selects will depend largely on the resources available. Although there are many possible options and permutations, these can be categorised in three broad groups:

• specialist production group

• internal co-ordination of writing and development team

• development by individuals.

Many larger educational institutions and a small number of companies have established units to develop materials for open learning. This has a major advantage of giving the organisation a dedicated, expert facility, but this is counter balanced by the 'permanent' cost of such a facility. The extent and type of material to be produced and the overall importance of open learning to the organisation will be important factors in determining the viability of this option.

The experience of many organisations is that units of this type can produce material of high quality, but that it is difficult to justify in terms of fixed costs. The most common type of teams are central media production facilities in companies. In the corporate sector, decentralisation of training has tended to reduce the number of specialist central units of this type.

Use this activity to note the role and facilities of any central production facilities in your organisation and details of the remit of any specialist learning material development team.

A popular and potentially successful model of internal development of materials is for an individual or small team to act as co-ordinators or editors. They work with individual writers drawn from departments who have specialist knowledge or skills. The model has been used successfully in Corporate, Further Education and Higher Education sectors and has a number of benefits:

• utilises the expertise of staff

• provides a central resource, expertise and production method

• enables an organisation-wide style and approach to be used

• helps maintain schedules and efficient development

• allows writers to concentrate on content and approach and avoids their time being 'lost' in production tasks

• provides support and assistance to individual writers.

However, the method has drawbacks and will raise a number of important issues for organisations using this model. It tends to:

• place a large responsibility on the central co-ordinators and requires a high level of expertise in both production methods and open learning materials design

• relationships and responsibility between 'editor' and writers needs to be specified as clearly as possible, particularly in regard to content issues

• to work effectively, central guidelines on housestyle, formats and specifications are needed

• management authority needs to be defined clearly to enable effective responses e.g. where a writer needs to be replaced.

If this model appears to be relevant to your organisation and if you wish to examine this method further, complete the following activity. If it is not relevant, move on to the next part of the section.

This activity should enable you to think through how this method might be relevant to your organisation. You can use the questions overleaf to:

• outline how it might work in practiceidentify key issues

• plan initial action

• Specification template
  
  
• House style guide
  
  
• Writing style guide
  
  
• Screen design template
  
  
• Navigation /branching protocols
  
  
• Other
  
  

3. Sketch a flow chart to illustrate how the production system would work.

4. List other internal and external resources required

6. If you were to use this method or if you already use a variant of internally co-ordinated teams, what do you need to do to implement or improve this operation. Note any next steps or action needed.

The activity should have helped you to consider the use of this model of internal materials development in your organisation. In assessing your response to the activity and its viability in your organisation, you will need to address:

• Does sufficient expertise exist at co-ordination level?

• is sufficient time and expertise available amongst prospective writers?

• is some form of training needed in how to author effective open learning materials?

• is it possible/desirable to agree or insist upon an organisation or department house style or approach?

Although this model does require considerable effort in co-ordination and central expertise, it does provide a balance between tapping the knowledge of individuals within the organisation and the need for a more centralised approach. It fails where organisations:

• do not develop a common framework and central guidelines

• are unable to establish clear relationships and division of responsibility between editor and writer

• where insufficient time is allowed for the tasks involved

• do not properly train people in the skills of writing for the open learner

In both education and corporate sectors, there has been a tradition of individual lecturers or trainers developing their own materials. This is likely to continue. Individuals have extended their practice of developing materials to support their own teaching, to producing open and distance learning material. Usually in text or computer based learning, these have tended to be relatively small scale and to cover specific topics or issues in the work area of the individual.

Although this has resulted in a range of often successful materials, it does not usually provide an adequate method of production for an organisation as a whole. Some form of co-ordination and overall strategy are needed, although some education initiatives have encouraged individuals across the organisation in specific departments to create their own materials.

Issues to consider are:

• what support, training and resources to provide for the organisation?

• what quality criteria should be used?

• how can these be provided for individuals?

• what are the limitations to this approach in your organisation?

Many organisations will not wish to base a materials development strategy on development by individual practitioners, but will prefer some form of centralised or co-ordinated approach. However, they may also wish to encourage individual production as an 'extra' or as a way of filling small gaps in provision.

Consider the value of individual trainers or lecturers producing open learning materials for use in their own work. Using the headings as a guide, outline any advantages and issues for your organisation.

Individual materials development to date and its rationale.

Advantages

Drawbacks

Issues arising

Possible use in the future

Many organisations, particularly in education have used individuals to produce open and distance learning material. There is now a move to foster greater degrees of team working and development-wide approaches.

It is relatively common for organisations to introduce successful development of open learning materials, but to have difficulty maintaining this over subsequent years. Frequently the resources and infrastructure assembled for an initial project is not or cannot be sustained to enable continued development. When planning a materials strategy, you will need to consider how you will maintain development and, if you have a continuing need to produce, how open learning materials will be embedded within your organisation's operations. Issues will include:

• Arrangements for updating – to remain effective, materials will need to be updated as soon as possible after they become out of date or inappropriate. For some topics this will mean sizable changes or complete revision. In others, changes are more gradual and subtle. You will need to put in place a mechanism which can help ensure that materials do not drift into becoming out of date and then out of use.

• Estimating future materials – part of establishing and embedding a materials development system needs to be concerned with the planning and securing resources to support this process. To do this you will need at least an approximate idea of likely future needs for materials and the potential volume of production over the next 2-3 years. This provides a basic measure of likely activity required.

• What resources are needed and available on a continuing basis – having established the possible needs and potential, you will need to calculate what resources will be needed. If there is a substantial continuing need for materials for open learning, then to meet this effectively your organisation will need to establish a method of achieving this. In educational establishments, there is on-going demand for assessments to be produced which must be linked to formal exam boards and/or professional bodies. In any sizable development of materials you will need normally to plan over at least a 2-3 year period and this will mean developing calculations on resource requirements of sufficient detail to make a case for the expansion.

• How is materials development likely to change in your organisation? – when planning future materials development you should consider how it may change in the mid term. Will the current or initial plans be relevant? Will the increasing use of technologies to assist learning impact on materials development? Will meeting new needs in the organisation change the way you develop materials?

• Will the structure of the organisation and its overall strategy have a direct influence? – many organisations are subject to continual change in structure and operations. You should consider the impact this will have on any materials development activity. This type of change is normally difficult to foresee with accuracy, but it will be useful to at least consider different scenarios and possible impact. Within the corporate sector in particular, moves to and from decentralised business operations have tended to force major change in training and, in particular, tasks such as open learning materials development.

Using the first five headings below, set out in as much detail as possible how you would build up your infrastructure for materials development to meet the continuing needs of your organisation. There is also space to make notes on other issues crucial to your organisation not covered in our points. Use the checklist following this activity to check your plans or as a job aid during your planning.

The checklists below highlight some of the key points you will need to consider to embed learning materials development within the organisation.

This unit has examined some of the main issues in the management of materials development. The focus has been on three central areas of decision making:

• who will produce?

• how will you produce?

• how will materials development be developed beyond initial projects and maintained to meet the organisation's needs?

Maintaining materials development has often proved problematic in both education and training sectors and it can be argued that many organisations have paid insufficient attention to establishing robust structures to sustain materials. The unit has tried to indicate the issues you will need to consider when planning your organisation's approach to developing materials. It should have enabled you to begin planning both an overall approach and for specific resource requirements.