Page 340 - The Case Lab Book

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