Reply by Hélène Fournier on September 8, 2008 at 9:50am

Key Success PIllar: Collaborative Governance

What values do you feel this pillar represents?
How would you define this pillar?

Reply by Jennie Van Hooft on October 1, 2008 at 12:26pm

Governance refers to who decides what and how information, technology and services are available to Alberta's staff, parents and students. This would have to include both what is included in DL and what is excluded. Collaborative implies that many people will be involved in making these decisions.

Alberta has many public, Catholic, private, special needs, charter, etc. schools and many of these schools have various programs. Can DL be "governed" in a way that will meet the diverse needs of so many students? As well, will availability DL limit the resources available for other avenues of instruction?

Reply by Ralph Helder on October 1, 2008 at 12:48pm

Jennie

I would say that you are right on both counts; governance does imply how information, technology and services are available to all stakeholders. Collaboration if it is truly collaborative governance may not be inclusive but should be representative of those involved and affected by the governance model.

I know that the DL strategy steering committee welcomes thoughts and suggestions on what collaborative governance would look like.
Good to hear from you!

Reply by Steven Greene on October 1, 2008 at 2:52pm

Governance in a DL framework needs to be different than the top-down hierachical framework that currently exists. The idea of a governing structure that is "collaborative" would have an inverted structure when compared to a hierachy (an upside-down triangle).

This is a paradox if we think about accreditation. We need multiple definitions of what constitutes course-completion. If a student is able to present work that is as powerful or comprehensive as a graduate dissertation, yet it does not meet a specified framework of criteria does that mean it is not valid?

Real openess schould, and will, lead to a freedom of the participant to decide on the value of the "completed product." But then the risk is creating a governing structure that could become a useless rubber-stamp bureaucracy.

The best way to avoid this trap is to create ideas and structures that are allowed to evolve naturally over time, with little resistance to change and that have the ability to adapt to individual definitions of course completion/creation/management.

This type of evolving collaborative governance would answer Jennie's problem of diverse needs.
In response to other ideas, I question why collaboration in this context still means those that are traditionally in control. We are changing the idea of governance to include more people, but why not all participants. I don't mean a forum where users provide input, but the type of body that is controlled by the current users. Depending on the needs of the DL community at any given moment, those needs can be met by the exact and entire community that is invovled.

Having everyone on top get together, rather than a few people on top get together, is not real collaboration, it's only half the story.

Reply by Jennie Van Hooft on October 2, 2008 at 8:24am

Steven, ideologically I support your idea of a top-down hierarchical structure, although this would require the educational community to revamp our whole concept of recognizing student achievement. I suspect the bigger issue here is who is ultimately responsible for a student's education. Alberta Education? The particular school the student attends? The teachers? Parents? Students? Post-secondary institutions? Of course, every one of these people play an important role, but who should make the final decision that a student has met the his/her educational requirements and are ready for post-secondary education? Who is ultimately responsible? I propose we need to set up a system where any of the above mentioned people individually or in collaboration could assume this responsibility. For example, the student Steven mentioned who was able to present work as powerful or comprehensive as a graduate dissertation represents the student who took control of his education.

Moving from the top-down hierarchical framework to the upside-down triangle concept would require the educational community to re-evaluate the requirements for graduation and post-secondary school entrance. I propose that a university entrance system similar to that in the United States could be more effective. While high school diplomas are still issued locally, entrance to post-secondary institutions is heavily dependent on a student's SAT scores. These tests are not the same as the Alberta diplomas exams because they're not based on a specific program of studies thereby allowing more flexibility in the governance of a student's education while also giving post-secondary institutions a fairly uniform indication of a student's academic ability.

To effectively enable collaborative governance, we need to provide a process through which we can enable and recognize a wide variety of achievements.

Reply by Ron Taylor on October 6, 2008 at 3:52pm

Albertans define student success and achievement in many different ways. Alberta also has many different governing bodies involved in the Early Childhood Services to Grade 12 education community: publicly elected school boards, societies and companies, and the provincial government. A challenge facing those in governance roles is accounting for success to those who give the governors authority and who define success in those different ways. Add to the challenge that some of these definitions change over time. What are the components of a way of governing distributed learning that engages diverse definitions of success and enables decision-making that helps more students achieve those successes?

Reply by Carol Bazinet on October 20, 2008 at 6:55pm

There are different aspects of governance. On one level governance is being responsible for preventing theft, waste or misuse of resources. Legal compliance. Or who gets what resources. On another level governance must be strategic. Someone needs to ask the questions around whether the "business model" is correct. Are we headed in the right direction? On a third level those who govern must look for the "paradigm shifts" that will transform work. We might argue that education in Alberta is undergoing a paradigm shift as we move away from a model based on students being in physical classes of 30 between the hours of 9 and 3 with a teacher offering information. DL may provide a different model but those in govnernance roles must be able to recognize this change and work towards implementation.

Governance can be understood as leadership. (See Governance as Leadership by Chait, Ryan and Taylor.)

Through the discussions above I have yet to understand why the importance of "collaborative governance." Would it not be more important to first define what governance is, what governance is needed for Distributed Learning before attaching an importance to collaborative? Collaboration does not necessarily lead to good governance although it could.

Reply by Steven Greene on October 23, 2008 at 10:16am

I'ld like to focus on your idea of the third level of governance that has to look at the paradigm shift in how decisions are made, and how bodies/institutions are organized.
This shift towards DL (where a student can be educated, critically engaged, meaningfully assessed and accredited without ever attending his classes) is a completely different way of looking at education. It can fit into a young adult's schedule or into someone that is continuing education while raising a family single-handedly. Those changes however are not really about governance. They are more of a shift in implementation, and what is considered education, which really has nothing to do with collaborative governance. The DL shift, the paradigm shift in how people are educated, is part of a greater change. The overarching shift I guess.
It is that overarching change, in how everything is organized that the DL environment would be wise to foresee. There is a fundamental shift in how information is organized. A collaborative, authorless, anti-hierarchical system of organization. I believe this is a positive change, even though I have no idea what it will eventually look like.
That's why a system of organization and accreditation that is open to adaptation and evolution is the best solution. Whatever is implemented, ensure it can adapt easily and change constantly. The collaborative governance framework for example. If there is a rigid top-down approach to organization where a certain title or position must always be filled by one individual, then there is a risk of stagnation and becoming obsolete in a short time.

More naive ramblings from someone just learning how to teach.

Reply by Carol Bazinet on October 26, 2008 at 8:02pm

From wikipedia

"Governance relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. Sometimes people set up a government to administer these processes and systems.

In the case of a non-profit organization, governance relates to consistent management, cohesive policies, processes and decision-rights for a given area of responsibility."

So when decisions are made to change expectations or grant power in a different fashion or verify performance differently, I would argue that it is about governance. Someone has to make these decisions.

Again I would wonder what definition of governance we are using in this discussion.

I suspect that collaborative is a very important value to people but perhaps associated it with governance may not be the proper place to talk about it.

Reply by chris goble on November 1, 2008 at 8:32am

Helene, the collaborative governance continuum presented one page 9 of the summary report raises some interesting questions for me. (great presentation by the way!)

One question that always emerges for me is how senior governing levels maintain contact with grassroot operation. Do we rely on informal backdoor social networks? Do we rely on more formalized reporting procedures and hope we can read between the lines?

This brings up hard questions about what to do with policy-practice gaps. How many layers exist between governance and frontline staff? It seems like how one handles intervention and support plays a big role in which governing model will function. However this just raises bigger questions of how far into the pot one wants to step, and what will actually improve the soup.

Reply by Hélène Fournier on September 8, 2008 at 9:51am

Key Success PIllar: Flexible and Equitable Funding

What values do you feel this pillar represents?
How would you define this pillar?

Reply by Hélène Fournier on September 8, 2008 at 9:52am

Key Success PIllar: Policy to Support Seamless Transitions Between Learning Environments

What values do you feel this pillar represents?
How would you define this pillar?