E-1) Guiding Principles
E-2) Administrative Structure EvNet's administrative structure will consist of a program leader, an administrator/technical specialist, and management, research, networking, training, dissemination, and stakeholder committees. Their relations with one another are depicted in the accompanying diagram (see Figure 8), and expanded further in the text. Not reflected in Figure 8 are the cross-appointments on various committees, and outside representation on common structures among the five funded SSHRC networks (see Part G).
E-3) Network Leader The Network Leader, Carl Cuneo, will draw on his experience as program leader of RITE (Research Institute for Technology in Education) and co-leader of the Technology-Based Learning Network Canada (TBL.CA). He will assume responsibility for the overall intellectual and research direction of EvNet, as well as being an active participant on several of its research projects. Cuneo will also be responsible for overall administrative policies of EvNet, and ensure that they adhere to the guidelines and procedures of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. To support the time devoted to these duties, McMaster University has agreed to grant him a three-unit release from teaching in each of the five years of SSHRC funding. Cuneo will chair the research committee, and be a member on the networking, stakeholder, dissemination, and training committees. He will be EvNet's representative on the proposed SRNET Management and Research Committees (see Part G).
E-4) Administrator/Technical Specialist The Strategic Research Networks in Education and Training are not comparable in size or scope to the networks in the Centres of Excellence program under the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. The administrative duties should therefore be less onerous. Yet the Program Leader should devote the majority of his time providing intellectual direction to the network rather than with daily administrative and communication activities. Because of budget constraints, and the importance of providing staff support for the technical aspects of electronic communications, we propose that there be an administrator whose duties also include facilitating electronic communications, with the following responsibilities:
E-5) The Management Committee will have responsibility for setting the policies and procedures of the Network, and for ensuring that adequate mechanisms are put in place for their implementation. It will be responsible for developing EvNet's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) document, and for creating a policy on agreements between the Network and partners around shared activities and product development. It will be chaired by a representative from one of EvNet's partner organizations. This person must have extensive managerial experience, especially with the partnering process within research networks. There will be ten other members:
E-6) A Research Committee of principal investigators will monitor bi-annually the progress of research projects. Its primary function will be to receive annual reports from the principal investigators of projects, and to monitor their performance as established by the schedules and milestones. This is the normal body for monitoring research projects in federally funded networks. In addition, Dr. Sid Gilbert, Program Leader of C-METO (University of Guelph), has agreed to sit on this Committee. We think he can advise EvNet researchers about the appropriate measures for learning outcomes, the area of expertise of C-METO. He will also facilitate our several links with C-METO researchers. The Research Committee will be chaired by the program leader.
E-7) A Stakeholder Committee will be responsible for leveraging the Network and SSHRC funding as a basis for cultivating new partners in the public, private, and non-profit sectors, especially in the international arena where EvNet is already exploring relationships. Its duty is to bring in fresh ventures in the form of in-kind and cash committments from existing and new partners, and to suggest new research projects and opportunities, especially with a commercial and educational value. It will assume overall planning for ways and means of making EvNet self-sustaining by the end of the fifth year of funding. The Stakeholder Committee will explore the incorporation of EvNet for the purpose of marketing its deliverables in the area of educational and training courseware and learnware. It will work closely with the dissemination and training committees. The Stakeholder Committee will have seven members -
E-8) The Dissemination Committee will devise policies, procedures and mechanisms to diffuse 'best teaching practices,' network research findings, and tangible project products to targeted individuals and organizations, such as as practioners, educational organizations, training institutes, professional associations, selected policy makers, and other researchers. The media of dissemination will be traditional print, conventional media, scholarly and non-scholarly, and electronic, covering the WEB, INTERNET listserves, databases, etc. Further details may be found in Part G. We have sought dissemination partners from electronic producers and distributors, and traditional publishing companies. The following have agreed to sit on this committee:
E-9) The Networking Committee will
primarily be concerned with communications within EvNet and with the other
four funded networks. We view its functions as distinct but related to the
dissemination committee. The networking committee is concerned primarily
with communications during the research process across the five years;
although it is primarily focused on relations among researchers within and
between networks, it will also be concered with how these relate to the
functions of the dissemination and stakeholder committees. The
dissemination committee is primarily concerned with research results and
their diffusion . The networking committee will also be concerned with
setting up and maintaining the infrastructure of an electronic
communications infrastructure. We will maintain a central web node, a cash
and in-kind contribution by the Centre for Landscape Research (CLR),
University of Toronto. We are also offering this facility as a central
node server for all five funded SRNET networks
(see Part G). The critical issue in
Web maintenance is staff time, which will be derived from four sources:
part of the time and duties of the administrator; contributions from CLR;
researcher and collaborator time distributed throughout EvNet; and,
technical staff hired on a contract basis. As well, researchers in each
university site will maintain their specialized web pages, a continuation
of present practice.
Membership:
E-10) The Training Committee will be concerned with the twin issues of developing best practices procedures for ensuring that the large budget for graduate student assistants is properly spent on their training in the context of research projects, and creating practical training products for the educational and non-educational sectors. Although training is a dissemination issue, we place sufficient importance on it that we are creating a separate but related committee. EvNet has three applied training projects:
We have placed on the Training Committee the following practitioners with expertise in training.
E-11) Five Funded Networks. In a period of fiscal restraint, and limited resources, it is important to pool resources (e.g. INTERNET servers, shared workshops) across the five funded networks. This requires an inter-network administrative structure with representatives from the five funded networks to facilitate coordination of common activities in research, dissemination, training, networking and communications, and leveraging stakeholders. The five funded networks should be linked by bridging structures and some common decision-making, while maintaining a separateness in order to fulfill the administrative, research, communications, and partnering mandates within each network. We propose that the management structure linking the five funded networks be a mirror of EvNet's administrative chart. Details may be found in Part G on Dissemination.
E-12) Integration of Disciplines Across Universities and Colleges : EvNet represents fifteen discipline areas of study and research - biology, business, computer science, economics, distance education, education, educational technology, health science, instructional development, labour, languages, management science, pathology, sociology, and writing. This is indeed a broad range of disciplines. They are not isolated but integrated through EvNet research projects. None of the 14 research projects can be characterized as a single-disciplinary approach to educational technology. Additionally, the community colleges in EvNet are not working in isolation from the universities. Researchers at Dawson and Vanier Colleges work primarily with those at Concordia and McGill. Those at Centennial College of Applied Arts and Technology work with Wright, Danahy and Hoinkes in the Centre for Landscape Research at the University of Toronto. St. Lawrence College in Eastern Ontario works with the linguistic and ESL experts at Queen's University. And Grande Prairie Regional College in Alberta works closely with EvNet researchers at Athabasca University. We do not have the space, but we could draw a cross-disciplinary map through each research project that would connect several disciplines, several universities, colleges and schools. As well, each project has one or more non-education partners in the public, private or non-profit sectors. No university site in EvNet works on its own. Our formative evaluation methodology requires the development of products at one site, and then a 'passing of the torch' off to other sites in subsequent years for further testing in different settings (see Figure 7, Appendix A-6). This can only happen in a network, such as EvNet, that links academic members, collaborators, universities, colleges, and public, private and non-profit organizations across disciplines and sectors, such as publishing, software production, learnware testing, INTERNET providers, community organizations, NGOs, corporate trainers, trade unions, and telecommunications companies.
E-13) Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): A number of our corporate partners have raised the issue of copyright and intellectual property rights in our negotiations with them over the terms of their participation in EvNet (for an example, please see the letter by LDF Publishing Incorporated appended to the application). Most IPR policy documents at universities have recently beeen rewritten, or are currently under revision, due to rapid changes in computer-related fields and the relationships between educational and non-educational institutions. We propose a two-part IPR policy. First, there will be within EvNet information and products which are commonly shared by everyone, without restrictions in access and ownership. This is typically the kinds of 'common property' material that one often finds on the World Wide Web, though even such materials have copyright protections. Second, there are products in which organizations invest or develop. They clearly have proprietary interests which they wish to protect. EvNet will protect such intellectual property rights through the signing of letters of agreement with each organization at the beginning of its formal participation in the Network. The rights and duties of EvNet, academic members, collaborators and public, private or non-profit organizations, will be clearly stipulated in such letters of agreement.
E-14) Financial/Accounting Services: As host institution, McMaster University will contribute $30,000 in financial and accounting services in support of EvNet's operations (please see the letter from McMaster's President, Peter George, in Appendix F). The Office of Research Services will provide guidance on the administration and direction of EvNet. Three furnished offices with a value of $28,125, plus $100,000 in INTERNET services, will also be provided by the university.
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