1. Institutional Technology Adoption and Integration A Holistic Grass Roots Approach to Inform Institutional Transformation
Increasingly in higher education, our institutions are called to adopt transformational practices to adapt to challenges, including increasing public scrutiny and accountability, constrained finances, and a diverse student population. Educational technologies and technology-enhanced learning strategies can enable institutions to address these issues and to deliver education at scale. However, digital transformation requires a holistic approach to managing change. Technology- enhanced learning organisations, such as ACODE here in Australia and OLC in the United States, have developed frameworks to guide organisation in supporting the implementation of TEL. The framework in the image highlights some of the key considerations in helping institutions to build their digital capacity.
Dave Rigter, Sue Downie, Kristy Newton, and I, along with our academic and professional staff colleagues from faculties, AV, IT, learning design, and the library, set out to explore how our institution could better support the adoption of technology enhanced learning.
Early in 2018, our Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic met with the Education Developers Network, an informal group of learning designers, developers, support personnel, and academics from across the institution to discuss UOW’s technology enhanced learning strategy. As an outcome, we and our colleagues were invited to put together an issues paper highlighting the issues in supporting the adoption of TEL across the institution.
In the six months that followed, our working group engaged in collaborative reflection, discussion, and the development of a paper highlighting the challenges and opportunities to support digital transformation and the adoption of technology- enhanced learning across the institution.
Dr David Bruce Porter, Ms Kristy Newton, Dr Sue Downie, & Mr Dave Rigter

2. (Porter, 2014)

3. We took all the data we had and mapped the various relationships
The group began by identifying the issues that affect the implementation of technology enriched learning at UOW. We drew on data from a variety of sources including:
- our own professional experience
- a formal review of UOW’s TEL strategy, and
- anecdotal and qualitative data from a 2018 research project by the WATTLE TEL Hot Topic group.
We collated all this data into a concept map and began mapping the relationships between all the different areas .  
Five primary themes emerged, including
- digital literacies
- service model
- learning spaces
- academic motivation and recognition, and
technological infrastructure.
We then organised ourselves into sub-groups, with each group taking responsibility for one of the primary themes. These groups worked independently, and shared content via a Sharepoint space. The central draft document remained as a "living document", and the group meetings used the document as a tool for discussion, editing it as needed. 
It's important to note that the members of the group who worked on the individual sections are from different faculties or units across the institution. The collaborative pool of knowledge held by the members was pivotal to the success of the issues paper. It highlighted the complex issues affecting the adoption of TEL, provided valuable perspective, and avoided the potential for the paper to get railroaded into serving the specific agenda of any one faculty or unit above the collective issues identified by the group.
Dave will now talk in more detail about some of these issues.
This helped us to identify the primary themes
Image: TeroVesalainen from Pixabay

4. Break down the silos

5. Have “elbow support”

6. Take an iterative, multi-disciplinary approach

7. Address motivational factors

8. The challenges ahead Momentum and motivation – workload and incentives
Succession planning and continuity
Cross-disciplinary representation, TEL champions in each discipline
Resources (in-kind and financial)
Consultation with stakeholders at each step
Communication & clarification of ownership of TEL supports
Building staff digital literacies
Our challenge ahead moving forward from this collaborative issues paper is maintaining the momentum and motivation from the key stakeholders involved, in appreciation of workloads of staff and the need for incentives for them. The initial increase in workload may stabilise or even reduce.
This is important to have incentives and adequate handover time if staff move on and cannot be involved in the future.
In the succession planning we should strive to continue with cross-discipline representation from TEL champions in each Discipline. Our unity in working towards our goal will be helpful to break down silos and ensure information is disseminated between Faculties and be across all parts of the university to minimise the inefficiencies that can be caused by people working in isolation unnecessarily. It would also be beneficial to been seen as giving collaborative institutional responses to these issues.
We need to be mindful that resources may be necessary both in-kind and financial and be thinking about what possibilities are already available within the support structure and funding opportunities in the university, but also thinking outside of the box in how we can best manage our time, like tapping in to people’s strengths.
Consultation is crucial with stakeholders including our casual staff who are at the coalface teaching the bulk of our undergraduate students,
An area of need that has come to light in our issues paper is the clarification of ownership of TEL at an institutional level and the need to improve the communication about and accessibility to TEL supports across the campus to make this more seamless for staff.
It is imperative moving forward that we build staff digital literacies, and the framework for this should be considered as a long-term need rather than any short term fix for barriers for staff using TEL in their teaching. It is expected from students and employers that curators of knowledge including both professional and academic staff in higher education are in step with our changing digital world.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay