Benchmarking E-learning - MIT90s

MIT90s

The MIT90s framework has been used by the University of Strathclyde (one of the 12 institutions in the Higher Education Academy Benchmarking Pilot) to assist in the structuring of its approach to benchmarking e-learning. For details of its use in Phase 1 see the Higher Education Academy Benchmarking Wiki entry for MIT90s.

The framework was developed by Michael Scott Morton as part of the work of the "MIT90s" initiative which flourished at MIT in the early 1990s. Michael Scott Morton is now Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management. The work is cited under various names: it is correctly entitled The Corporation of the 1990s: Information Technology and Organizational Transformation, edited by Michael Scott Morton with an introduction by Lester Thurow (Oxford University Press, USA), published February 1991, ISBN 0-19-506358-9.

There has been some confusion over the correct name of the initiative and the framework. Readers will find "MIT 90s", "MIT90" and even "MITs 90" in various references.

The MIT90s framework has been central to a number of JISC and related studies (including from DfES) on adoption and maturity. In UK post-16 e-learning terms, probably the most successful use of this is in the RAIIE study led by David Nicol of the University of Strathclyde, funded by JISC during the period April 2003 to May 2004, which produced a final report A Framework for Managing the Risks of e-Learning Investment. There is also a substantial strand of work in Australia associated with the names of Philip Yetton, Anne Forster, Sandra Wills and others, some of it funded by DETYA. This also used the concept of strategic alignment described below.

The MIT90s initiative developed several companion pieces of work o which two are from Venkatraman: transformation levels and strategic alignment. Professor N Venkat Venkatraman is now Professor of Management at Boston University School of Management (and also a visiting professor at London Business School) but was at the Sloan School of Management at MIT during the period of relevance. His work on IT-Induced business reconfiguration is Chapter 5 (pages 122-158) of the main book referred to above.

The Venkatraman thesis is that business use of IT passes through five levels, differing in both the degree of business transformation and in the range (and amount) of potential benefits. The levels are:

• Localised exploitation
• Internal integration
• Business process redesign
• Business network redesign
• Business scope redefinition.

Levels 1 and 2 are called evolutionary levels – levels 3, 4, and 5 are called revolutionary levels.

This has been applied to educational systems, especially in the schools sector, by Becta and DfES.

In passing, it is interesting that this is one of the first situations where a 5-point scale has been used in a situation akin to benchmarking.

The MIT90s framework could have relevance to e-benchmarking frameworks. In particular, the latest version (2.0) of the Pick & Mix methodology uses the MIT90s framework for tagging its criteria in the Pick&Mix 2.0 release of which a beta description is now available.

Further reading

In addition to the work from the University of Strathclyde - see their benchmarking blog for details - there are four main papers/reports that newcomers to the MIT90s framework are advised to read:

1. Wills, Sandra, "Strategic Planning for Blended eLearning", paper presented to the IEE conference ITHET06, Sydney, July 2006, available at http://ro.uow.edu.au/asdpapers/36/. This is a succinct description of an application of the MIT90s approach in a university.
2. Yetton, Philip et al., Managing the Introduction of Technology in the Delivery and Administration of Higher Education, DEETYA, available at http://www.dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/eip9703/front.htm. If you have time just to read just one longer report, read this one.
3. Uys, Philip, Towards the Virtual Class: key management issues in tertiary education, PhD dissertation, Victoria University of Wellington, 2000, available at http://www.globe-online.com/philip.uys/phdthesis. See in particular chapters 2 and 10. This dissertation describes the value of the MIT90s framework in structuring and analysing a large implementation action research programme – and the heuristics derived. It is, along with the work of Wills, one of the few examples of serious feedback into the MIT90s framework.
4. Segrave, Stephen, Holt, Dale and Farmer, James, “The power of the 6three model for enhancing academic teachers’ capacities for effective online teaching and learning: Benefits, initiatives and future directions”, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) 21(1), 2005, available at http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet21/segrave.html. This is a good read useful as a modern confirmation of the relevance of the MIT90s framework.

The original MIT90s book is:

• Scott Morton, Michael S. (ed), The Corporation of the 1990s: Information Technology and Organizational Transformation, Oxford University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-19-506358-9. It is still an excellent and quite fast read.

To fill in further details readers are also referred to:

• Pennell, Russ, and Wills, Sandra, “Changing horses in mid-stream: a new LMS plus improved teaching”, Ausweb06, available at http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw06/papers/refereed/pennell/paper.html.
• Venkatraman, N. and Henderson, J. C. "Strategic alignment: Leveraging information technology for transforming organizations", IBM Systems Journal Vol. 32, No. 1, 1993, available at http://domino.watson.ibm.com/tchjr/journalindex.nsf/600cc5649e2871db852568150060213c/b0d32b9975af5a2e85256bfa00685ca0?OpenDocument.

A book of great interest for those interested in seeing a comprehensive framework based on MIT90s is:

• Ford, Peter, et al., Managing Change in Higher Education: A Learning Environment Architecture, Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, Buckingham, 1996, ISBN 0-335-19792-2 (hardback). This describes the OPENframework, developed by ICL in part based on MIT90s thinking, and its application to IT-driven change management. It was popular in JISC circles, in particular the MLE Steering Group, but there is no information on the web about its actual use in specific universities.