Page 6 - Ice Breaker Article

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For the lecturer this online, interactive teaching provides a more rewarding and stimulating
teaching experience and as with the institution it allows a more efficient and effective teaching
pedagogy that increases the performance of all the constituent elements.

For the institution, organisational performance will increase as both its efficiency and
effectiveness is enhanced for example, as these elements impact student retention will increase
as students respond to this higher quality pedagogic process.
Interactive, multimedia case studies are still in their infancy. Construction and usage
parameters have not yet been set and mistakes are still being made at fundamental levels.
However, interaction has been highlighted as one of the keys to the success of Internet-based
distance education [Picciano, 2002]. Nevertheless, this e-resource has attempted to provide a
richer and more enjoyable experience for the user by extending their horizons and for those
developing interactive case studies aid them through recording the processes associated with the
production of these business cases and their associated online interactive applications.

Developing interactive, multimedia business case studies does not happen in isolation. The
lecturer who builds case studies can no longer simply record a good story. He or she is driven by
a market whose customers now demand more in terms of information, analysis, and integration of
pedagogic linkages, timeliness of communication, ease of access and increased efficiency and
effectiveness.

In seeking to achieve this electronic delivery the lecturer must produce not only the most
effective and rewarding learning experience possible but also the most efficient. However, as
Zawacki-Richter [Zawacki-Richter, 2005], point out “A frequently encountered reason for the
reserved attitude to media-based teaching is the high workload associated with it. Academic
reputations on the road to a professorship are acquired more by publishing research results and
attracting external funds than by good teaching. In contrast, 60% to 70% of the working hours of a
member of the academic staff are taken up with teaching, without this being adequately
appreciated in proportion. The motivation to invest even more work in teaching is at times
correspondingly slight.”

This view is supported by Jenkins and Healey [Jenkins and Healey, 2005] when they observed
that

“Internationally there is a range of studies that show staff experience of institutions that give
limited recognition to quality teaching in promotion decisions [e.g. Ramsden et al., 1995] and mainly
emphasise research. There have been very few studies that have looked at whether institutions
provide rewards not only for better teaching or for better research but for demonstrations of the
integration between teaching and research” [Hattie and Marsh, 1996, p.529].

Lecturers may not have the motivation to devote the effort and time to climb the learning curves
of the software packages and systems requirements to produce online, interactive deliverables if
they are not perceived as route to academic advancement. This perception is dependent to a great
extent upon the actions of the institution and its administrative systems.

Diagrammatically the interactive e-resource case study may be represented as shown in
Diagram 2: the E-Resource Case Study diagram.
At its heart is the case study which has been developed by the lecturer for use with the student
body. In the e-resource case study diagram the case study is depicted as being embedded in a
matrix where its compass points depict an integrative and interdependent relationship. For
example, case development may be based on armchair case which is developed to demonstrate
an event, a piece of theory or a situational analysis. If a live case study is developed then this may
not just produce a case study it may provide an entry point into a business with the potential for a
more lasting relationship. Furthermore, this ‘live’ case study may lead to further research on the
target company, its industry or pedagogy. Case teaching is not about pedagogy per say, rather it
is partly about releasing the lecturer from the regurgitation of theory to the interpretation of such
through a more dynamic environmental interface. Likewise, case analysis is not simply about