DIGITAL MERGERS - How social software is helping a merging faculty become a community of practice
Johannes C Cronjé
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Abstract
The Faculty of Informatics and Design of the Cape Peninsula Univeristy of Technology consists of twelve departments that were assembled from four faculties out of the two legacy institutions (Cape Technikon and Peninsula Technikon) that merged to form the University.
The Faculty is spread across five buildings in two cities and some departments occupy space in as many as three of those buildings.
This paper will report on an on-going process of using social software to assist with the development of a single corporate identity in the faculty, which contains departments ranging from Jewelry design, Journalism, and Graphic Design to Architecture, Town and Regional Planning and Informatics. Not only is it necessary to create uniform operating platforms between the two legacy institutions, but we need to create a common vocabulary and discourse. Moreover, in the change of organisational form from a Technikon to a University, we also have to change our vision to include an increased focus on research.
And all this has to be done without neglecting our teaching, and our own personal growth and academic advancement through upgraded qualifications.
Thus, we find it hard to find time for all of us to meet at the same place at the same time. Moreover, we find that meetings often waste our time, since we only discuss what we should be doing, rather than just going out and doing it.
As a result we are exploring the use of free social software to assist us in growing common understanding. The platforms that we are currently using are regular email, Blogspot, Facebook, Yahoogroups and WetPaint. This paper will present an overview of what we are learning in the process.
Introduction
The Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) was formed in 2005 as a result of a merger between the Cape Technikon in Cape Town and the Peninsula Technikon in Bellville, as well as a decision to re-position former technikons as universities of technology. This paper will not discuss the rationale of the merger, nor its merits or demerits. It is my point of departure that the merger has happened, and that we need to deal with it. This paper will describe how we use social software in the process of dealing with the formation of the new university. I am the dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Design (FID), and “we” include the staff of the faculty – the heads of departments, as well as academic, research and administrative staff.
When I arrived at CPUT on 1 July 2007 the Faculty had about thirteen departments. Some, such as the Journalism, Film and Video and Multimedia, were historically based in Bellville only, with no counterpart in Cape Town. Some, such as Industrial design and Jewelry were based in Cape Town only with no counterpart in Bellville. Some, such as Architecture, Graphic design and Information Technology (Informatics) had not merged and ran as virtually separate departments on both campuses, offering significantly different courses under entirely different institutional regulations and course codes. Some, such as Fashion design and Surface design had merged fully and were functioning as a new unit. There were two extended programmes – an integrated programme for all the design disciplines in Cape Town, and a dedicated programme for Graphic design in Bellville.
By October 2007 merger operations necessitated that Architecture (Bellville and Cape Town) Town and Regional Planning (based in Cape Town only) and Interior Design (Cape Town only) had to be re-located from their current spaces to a new location in the Thomas Pattullo building on Cape Town’s Foreshore – about 1,5 Km from the Cape Town campus. Rehabilitation of the building started at the end of November, and at the start of the academic year towards the end of January 2008 Architecture enrolled their first group of students in a single department. Town and Regional planning also started in the new building, and Interior Design joined them a few months later.
The head of Graphic Design Cape Town retired at the end of 2007 and the post was not filled. Instead an elected deputy was installed in Cape Town and I instructed him and the co-ordinator in Bellville to start merging the two departments.
Towards the end of 2008 the department of Public Relations was moved from the Faculty of Business to the Faculty of Informatics and Design.
I came to the Faculty after having been a professor of computers in Education at the University of Pretoria for a number of years. I had a keen interest in web-based learning, virtual learning communities, and social software. From the start I felt it would be useful to employ web-based collaboration in improving communication in such a diverse faculty. I had been on Facebook myself for some time. I had also been moderating a number of Yahoo Groups discussion lists. I was registered on Linked-In and I had been running a website of my own for many years. My first intervention upon arriving at CPUT was to start a blog at http://johannescronje.blogspot.com. The blog served two purposes – firstly to update friends and colleagues from Pretoria, (and the rest of the world) about my move to Cape Town, and secondly to give the staff of the new faculty the opportunity to read the rambling thoughts of their new dean. Very soon it became clear that some of the early adopters on the staff had googled me and found my website. Some of the more eager ones also invited me to be their friends on Facebook and to join their networks on Linked-In.
This study is about user-acceptance of technology that is used to create common understanding in a community of practice at a time of radical change. Having lived with the tribe for eighteen months now, my question is “What are we learning about the use of social software in the creation of shared vision in a recently merged Faculty?” The sub-questions are “What works and why?” and “What does not work, and why not?”
We could have a shot at trying to guess at the answers to the main question by considering the literature about communities of practice, response to change and adoption of technology. For the sake of brevity I will consider mainly the work of Lave and Wenger (1998) on communities of practice, of Rogers for response to change, and of Collis and Verwijs for the acceptance of technology.
Etienne Wenger (n.d.) defines Communities of Practice as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (0nline: ewenger.com/theory). Lave and Wenger (1998) identify three aspects that need to be in place for a community of practice to develop. These are a domain, a community and a practice. In our case the shared domain of interest is the field of design, which is sufficiently diverse to include graphic design, fashion design, architecture, town planning, journalism, and even information and communication technology. The community aspect implies that the group works together on a regular basis. In fact, it is the development of these relationships that lie at the heart of the goal of the exercise described in this paper. For the faculty this relationship develops around a common practice – the practice of design. It is hoped that we can use Web2.0 applications to share the stories that make such common practice.
Rogers (1995) identifies four factors that influence the adoption of an innovation. These are the innovation itself, the communication channels used to spread information about the innovation, time and the society to whom the innovation is introduced. In the case of the faculty the innovation is on two levels – firstly the innovation relates to thinking of ourselves as one new, merged faculty, and secondly the innovation relates to using technological innovations to communicate. This duality of innovation makes it hard to determine if response from the community relates to the merger or to the technology.
Collis and Verwijs (1995) identify three aspects that will predict user adoption of a technology. The product must be useful, it must be usable and and it must make work easier. Cronjé and Barras-Baker (1999) developed these criteria into the following set of questions:
· Will the product be accepted by the users?
· Is the product useful?
· Does it fit in with the personal work needs of the users?
· Does the electronic performance support add value to the learning content?
· Is the product usable?
· Is the user interface easy to use?
· Is the product easy to learn?
· Does the product make the work easier?
· Does it fit in with the work environment?
· Does it fit in with working procedures?
· Do the users have the time needed to use it and does it save time for them?
The above set of questions will be used to draw some conclusions about the adoption, or lack of adoption, of Web2.0 applications during the process of developing the community of practice.
Methods of study
The long-term nature of the study, as well as my situation within the faculty paved the way for an ethnographic study (Yin, 1994). More specifically the nature of the faculty calls for a design ethnography, which is defined by Salvador, Bell and Anderson as "a way of understanding the particulars of daily life in such a way as to increase the success probability of a new product or service or, more appropriately, to reduce the probability of failure specifically due to a lack of understanding of the basic behaviors and frameworks of consumers” (1999, p.36). Thus my research strategy consisted of a series of design experiments connected by participant observation and introspection. My data sources include my research journal (the “blue book”), my email as well as the messages created in the various social software applications that were employed in the process. The research questions are “What happened?”, “What worked, and why?” and “What did not work, and why not?” The reporting style will be narrative and the sequencing will be in order of complexity of the tools used, as well as chronological in terms of when I started using those tools with the Faculty.
Results
Even before I was officially notified by CPUT that I had been appointed, a prospective student working there forwarded me an email that was doing the rounds internally at the institution. The subject line was “The new Dean of the Faculty of Informatics and Design”. Attached to the email was a photograph of me, and my name. I learnt later that a number of members of the Faculty used that opportunity to “Google” me, and easily located the website that I had started at the University of Pretoria in 1997.
I started corresponding with a number of members of the Faculty even before I started at CPUT. A friend who already worked there put me in contact with my future secretary and with some staff who were preparing for a major conference which the Faculty would host a few months after my arrival.
With the support of these people I arranged a paper-writing workshop which I would conduct a month or so after my arrival. What struck some people initially was the immediate response they received to my emails – a habit I have been at pains to continue.
The blog
I started a blog, Johannescronje.blogspot.com on 3 July – the second day of my new job. I defined the purpose of the blog as follows “Like Jan van Riebeeck I am also keeping a diary of my voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. The purpose of this blog is to keep a record of what is happening in the first few days. Also there may be some of my friends, past students and colleagues who might want to know what is happening. Then of course it is for those who will be working with me now - to give them an idea of what is happening so that they can plan, and comment, and generally engage in discussion about the future of the Faculty” (Cronje, 2007, online). I also stated quite clearly my plans for the faculty: To create a culture of research, and to free up teaching time to allow for research. The blog attracted four responses. All were from past students. Two were from Cape Town-based students to welcome me to the Cape. One was from a former student in Australia to wish me well in the new job, and one was from a former student at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. This one entered in debate with my plans. He pointed out that at his institution they did not view research and teaching as “opposites”, but were working on plans to integrate teaching and research. I was encouraged the fact that the blog had sparked debate and looked forward to reading some comments from the Faculty. However, it took a week and a half before one member of the Faculty responded, and then just to say that she was happy that there was a blog at all.
On 22 August I met the whole faculty for the first time, and presented a 90 minute talk outlining my hopes and plans. I shared with staff the idea that I had a blog, and suggested that I would post the text of my talk on the blog. That afternoon I did so, and, once again, there was no response.
Up to now the only time the blog has been useful to obtain response from the Faculty has been when I specifically asked for response by a general email, having posted a request for comment on the blog. Even then I find that, although people would read the blog, they prefer to respond to me directly.
When I “Googled” one of my first contacts at CPUT I found her Facebook page. The only problem was that I could not get to know much of her that way, and had to create my own page to be able to ask her to invite me as a friend, and then in that way to get to know more about her. Thus it turns out that, as far as Facebook goes I was a follower, rather than a leader in the technology.