Building Organisational Capacity for Blended Learning: An Evidence-Based Approach

Blended Learning has become a vital part of Higher Education's teaching strategy. The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need and demand to combine the best from online and face-to-face; synchronous and asynchronous. Simultaneously, it has exposed deficiencies in the sector's capacity to deliver high-quality and effective blended learning. As a consequence, universities need a mechanism for identifying i) current capacity to deliver blended learning, ii) the work required to achieve the ideal state, and iii) a reliable measure of their progress towards it. Many models of blended learning have been proposed in the literature, along with numerous examples of good practice. However, there is no single framework that defines all the elements required to deliver a blended learning approach and allows Universities to easily benchmark their organisation's capacity. This paper presents the rationale for such a framework together with a high-level design; it explores its possible use in the implementation and evaluation of an HE blended learning programme. By combining previous experience in use of an e-learning Maturity Model to assess organisational capability, with an extensive review of current literature, the authors propose an evidence-based framework for blended learning. The framework defines the key elements required, including the environment, the curriculum, the educators and the learners. By clearly defining the relationships between the elements, and capturing the attributes for each, the model can be used to assess an organisation's capacity to deliver effective blended learning. The authors have curated and synthesised hundreds of good practice guidelines and quality criteria for blended learning and, drawing on their own experience in this area, have distilled them into a set of clear performance objectives for each element. This is presented as a checklist for organisations to determine their current state and provide clear goals to work towards. Regular monitoring and review of these objectives can be used to measure an organisation's progress and its relative maturity as a blended learning provider. The paper concludes with some early examples of its use to develop organisational capacity in a UK University, together with recommendations for future development and application in Higher Education quality management.