Dear Irena White,

I do strongly recommend following and contacting to Mercè Gisbert from Rovira University at Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain). She's also a Research Gate member. 

She Has long experience promoting, implementing, piloting and coordinating the implementation of elearning among teachers at our University. She created (concentrating in the same building of our multi-campuses University) a interdisciplinary support centre for teachers including few informatics, the publications and audiovisual service and their technicians, etc. Troughout an University strategic plan, training activities for trainers were periodically organized, policies were made to share material among University members and copyright issues were recommended among teachers and students. 

There is much more to tell. Lets see if these comments are matching with your question. 

Best wishes, M. Rosa Fenoll-Brunet

I am not sure if I understood correctly the question, but I think that to describe well succeded experiences is a good way to demonstrate and explain this dynamic complexity. 

Irena:

I think making the innovation easily accessible to faculty as is somewhat done in Open and Distance learning, but perhaps through your Intranet that includes the following: e-training sessions on how to use the innovations, a good helpdesk facility that can handle any questions or provided needed support for faculty; and an awareness program that would keep the buzz going about the innovation to include testimonies from faculty who have used it. Here's what's availble on ResearchGate on your topic:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277537761_E-learning_innovations_for_the_education_of_general_practitioners_at_the_Bavarian_Virtual_University_%28BVU%29__a_model_for_other_countries

https://www.researchgate.net/publicliterature.PublicLiterature.search.html?type=keyword&search-keyword=integration+of+e-learning+innovations+in+higher+education+teaching+practice+&search-abstract=&search=Search

Best wishes for every success with your research.

Debra

Article E-learning innovations for the education of general practiti...

Hi Irena,

Just found this article which is very useful with a load of references that may also be of assistance.

Regards Didy

 Hi Didy - thanks for a great resource. The fishbone diagram of barriers to adoption will be very useful.

 Thanks for your reply Ana - I plan to conduct a review of extant case studies to identify common enabling and inhibiting factors. Showing the connections between these factors is the aim of my question.

 Thank you Maria for suggesting that I contact Mercè.

I've looked at the Fishbone; and adored it as highly comprehensive. The only thing I really saw as missing was HR structure and process to recruit the right people for innovation/adoption. But I have a broad quibble as to whether the fishbone structure  isn't a generally applicable one, around technology adoption, rather than specific to Higher Education, an observation I feel highly relevant. The point is, in HE, I've seen ineffective technology as a barrier to adoption and I've seen resistance to change, but HE has a particular enabling factor for resistance to change, that you won't find elsewhere - Academic Freedom

Thank you for your contribution Mark. I found your suggestion that academic freedom should be a force for innovation and adoption of new digital technologies in higher education an interesting proposition. I have found from the literature that quite the opposite is occurring with the widespread use of learning management systems having the effect of stifling creativity and innovation.

I think a misunderstanding there.; "HE has a particular enabling factor for resistance to change that you won't find elsewhere - Academic Freedom" So, yes, I very much agree that academic freedom can, by a paradox (meaning it was supposed to achieve the opposite), stifle creativity and innovation. Put at its simplest it can be used as the justification for doing whatever you want. That includes, for instance, the easiest path for you, or, simply, nothing! We are agreed.

I'll be honest and say that I've used the academic freedom trump card myself; and not in any massively high-minded way, to do with, for instance, research paths. My use was after having concluded that if I were to adopt the University's ideal examining system, my students would be so busy taking exams they'd never have time for reflection or learning. I slashed the amount of testing. I, also, introduced, in some cases, question known examinations, albeit with massively enhanced mark-earning requirements. I wanted to know what my students could do at their best.

Maybe, for Asia, my approach was innovative. Maybe it had nothing to do with innovation. What it certainly did was run contrary to the University's recommended norm. What it certainly didn't do was explore "unusual" or "extreme" ideas. To the extent that it revolved around administration and to the extent that it revolved around concepts of learning, and to the extent that the University had a view, there's a parallel with the e-learning initiatives that I've heard railed against, seen un-adopted, or seen semi-adopted, or adopted adapted.

Hi Mark - in Australia we tend to follow very conservative higher education practices in both teaching and administration that mirror very much the traditional British way of doing things. In universities as in our schooling system there has been an ever increasing administrative load applied to teachers over the past 10 years which has diverted time and energy from coming up with innovative solutions to engaging learners and enhancing teaching and learning experiences. While there is a greater degree of autonomy amongst university lecturers than for teachers in schools this can also lead to silos of practice amongst academic staff. Many universities try to address this problem through offering professional learning/development workshops with the hope of encouraging networking amongst academic teaching staff but there would appear to be little evidence of this being an effective strategy. Lone Rangers (the term coined by Tony Bates) remain the few innovators in universities but have little success in getting others to adopt/adapt their teaching innovations. Understanding the dynamics involved in overcoming this gap between innovation and adoption (referred to in the literature as Moore's Chasm) is full of complexities which my research hopes to reveal.

It's all very interesting. I gave further thought to occasions on which I'd mobilised "academic freedom".In truth, in my mind, these were all concerning administration, rather than academy, though it's difficult to delineate. Certainly, we were talking of nothing high-flown in the realm of ideas (and I certainly wasn't lying in the road to stop a tram, as I once saw a Professor do in Napoli!).

I saw administrations as holding things back, keeping knowledge in past formats. All fairly accurate in China, often elsewhere in Asia, too.

However, an interesting thing to think about is that, maybe, those administrations are, in other parts of the world, or in specific Universities, the innovators. Specifically, the people we, sneeringly, dubbed "bean counters" may now be the innovators, driven by the bean count in an ever more commercialised higher education.

I'm sure that relevant administrations adore, for instance, blended learning and straight online learning, for their cost-effectiveness, and marketing and provision reach.

Maybe we live in an age of rich irony?

In my experience building an understanding of 'open' for resources and approaches, and leveraging a participatory culture of learning is a valuable way to change the focus from instructor to co-learners, and promote longevity in elearning innovations.  Having said that - small stone in a big ocean.

Following.