PATHWAYS FOR POSITIVE SOCIAL IMPACTS THROUGH DESIGNING COMMUNICATION STRATEGY AND TOOLS WITHIN ELEARNING PROJECTS

Abstract

The abundance of eLearning projects requires an integrated design for the communication strategy for such projects. The technological changes need to be reflected within the communication strategy and communication tools used within these projects. Inappropriately designed communication strategy could be an important generator of risks for the project, dissatisfaction for the target group (clients targeted by the eLearning project), dysfunctionalities within the project's team, resource waste, and others similar to these. Designing communication strategy and tools is contributing to the social impact of the project in which they are used. Both extremes, allocating too many or insufficient resources to communication within eLearning projects has its own pitfalls. This paper is aiming to tackle into some of the important aspects regarding the efficient design for the communication strategy and tools. Some of the questions aiming to be answered by this paper are: what should the communication strategy for an eLearning project entail? How communication strategy and tools are linked with the social impact generated by that respective project? How detailed the communication planning should be? Who should be addressed by communication within an eLearning project? Which are the tools due to be used for communicating within an eLearning project distinguished by the phase of the project? The theoretical distinctions tackled here will be illustrated by a case study, referring to a nationwide strategic eLearning project, co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Romanian Government, under the Sectorial Operational Programme Human Resource Development (SOP HRD) in Romania. The project was implemented in partnership by the following organizations: University "Politehnica" in Bucharest (partnership leader), the Technical University "Gheorghe Asachi" in Iasi (the first two technical universities from Romania accredited for research and advanced education), Pythia International (a technical and management consultancy company in Bucharest), and CSI Piedmonte (a public consortium in Torino, Italy, specialized in IT for public administration). The main outcome of the eProf project is a number of 2000 secondary education (ISCED 2-3) teachers who graduated the training program, using interactive methods of eLearning. Communication strategy, planning and other communication tools where designed and used throughout the entire duration of the project for managing the communication with the teachers targeted by the training program provided by this project.

Headnote

Abstract: The abundance of eLearning projects requires an integrated design for the communication strategy for such projects. The technological changes need to be reflected within the communication strategy and communication tools used within these projects. Inappropriately designed communication strategy could be an important generator of risks for the project, dissatisfaction for the target group (clients targeted by the eLearning project), dysfunctionalities within the project's team, resource waste, and others similar to these. Designing communication strategy and tools is contributing to the social impact of the project in which they are used. Both extremes, allocating too many or insufficient resources to communication within eLearning projects has its own pitfalls. This paper is aiming to tackle into some of the important aspects regarding the efficient design for the communication strategy and tools. Some of the questions aiming to be answered by this paper are: what should the communication strategy for an eLearning project entail? How communication strategy and tools are linked with the social impact generated by that respective project? How detailed the communication planning should be? Who should be addressed by communication within an eLearning project? Which are the tools due to be used for communicating within an eLearning project distinguished by the phase of the project?

The theoretical distinctions tackled here will be illustrated by a case study, referring to a nationwide strategic eLearning project, co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Romanian Government, under the Sectorial Operational Programme Human Resource Development (SOP HRD) in Romania. The project was implemented in partnership by the following organizations: University "Politehnica" in Bucharest (partnership leader), the Technical University "Gheorghe Asachi" in Iasi (the first two technical universities from Romania accredited for research and advanced education), Pythia International (a technical and management consultancy company in Bucharest), and CSI Piedmonte (a public consortium in Torino, Italy, specialized in IT for public administration). The main outcome of the eProf project is a number of 2000 secondary education (ISCED 2-3) teachers who graduated the training program, using interactive methods of eLearning. Communication strategy, planning and other communication tools where designed and used throughout the entire duration of the project for managing the communication with the teachers targeted by the training program provided by this project.

Keywords: Social Impact; Communication Strategy; Communication Plan; Communication Tools; eLearning; Online Communication.

I. INTRODUCTION

Most eLearning projects employ different communication tools and data gathering and analysing processes during implementation. This paper is aiming to introduce a conceptual model that argues in the favour of designing communication activities that rely on data regarding the social context due to be impacted by the projects. Increasing awareness with regards to social impact of projects is due to provide coherence and unity for project during implementation, and contribute to the sustainability of the projects as they are due to better respond to a broader social context.The following sections are focused around presenting how the distinctions provided by the social impact assessment (SIA - defined as "the processes of analyzing, monitoring and managing the intended and unintended social consequences, both positive and negative, of planned interventions (policies, programs, plans, projects) and any social change processes invoked by those interventions", Vanclay, F., 2003) in synergy with communication activities contribute to increased sustainability. SIA implies successive phases during which are provided tools and means to analyse and manage social impacts. Each phase of a development project should include SIA tools, values of different relevant indicators collected in different phases of the project allow the comparative perspective required by the measurement of social change and also allowing to manage stakeholder engagement and social management plan. The participatory approach of SIA is aiming to integrate the subjective perspective of stakeholders into the design and implementation of projects. SIA specialists become rather facilitators who aim to integrate in the decision making process the values and point of view of the affected culture/community. This translates into benefits for the projects and organizations, and the arguments for this are ethical and focused around long term benefits but can also be formulated in terms of reducing risks that might occur if the social context is not considered. Following this train of thoughts, the following references to data gathering and analysing regarding the social context of a project is put under the SIA paradigm. In the following section of this paper links between data gathering tools offered by SIA and communication and their benefits for project design and implementation. Two eLearning project are presented as case studies that support the idea of communication founded on data and communication providing tools to gather and analyse data regarding the social context of the projects. Data gathering and analysing and impact assessment used by the presented project are elements of SIA but not referred as such during projects' implementation, as this activities were selected out of a list of available eligible activities. We argue that using SIA paradigm is due to benefit the projects. In addition, the proposed model presented within this paper that links SIA with a communication strategy based on data is provide further added value in terms of coherence and sustainability for projects.

II. THE DESIGN OF COMMUNICATION WITHIN ELEARNING PROJECTS

Communication strategy, planning and tools

The role of communication in a project is to contribute to the visibility of the project, to facilitate the dialog of the project with its internal and external environment. Communication supports and facilitate the technical activities of the project through the means of internal and external communication.

Implementing eLearning projects might require the coordination of several different organizations and here is where the communication strategy and planning could make a difference. This tools could provide an overall guidance for internal and external communication activities, making sure all parties are on the same page with regards to both implementing the technical activities of the project and in relation with the target group addressed with communication.

A strategic approach to communication implies blending abstract scopes, principles and values with concrete data regarding context, target group and communication tools.

Formulating a communication strategy is a critical step that will contribute to an effective use of resources for the success of the project. Most communication strategies include the following structure:

. Defining the context, situation analysis and challenges;

. Describing the target group or groups, the public addressed by the project;

o Primary - target group who will attend the courses/resources offered by the project;

o Secondary - stakeholders, interested parties, influencers - different categories of public and/or institutions who might have a stake related to the implementation of the project;

. Formulating communication objectives;

. Concrete level of communication:

o Tools or instruments (visual identity manuals, brochures, presentations, websites, pages on social media, newsletters, etc.);

o Activities (communication campaigns, above the line and below the line communication, direct communication, conferences, events, fairs, expositions, promotions, etc.);

o Planning (communication plan).

. Monitoring and feedback (media monitoring, campaign monitoring, feedback questionnaires during events etc.).

Communication's Links to Social Impact of eLearning project

The aim of this paper is to contribute to a more positive social impact of eLearning projects including through the way the communication process is design.

Communication and social impact assessment are complementary tools, communication becomes more effective by relying on data coming from the public it tries to address, while social impact assessment can better contribute to positive outcomes and diminish negative one. Both communication process and social impact assessment require the use of data about the social context (different categories of public) and the use of communication channels and tools. Data provided by the SIA process could contribute to a better articulation of the communication strategy: content of messages, channels, etc. Communication tools could contribute to different stages of SIA in engaging with stakeholders and communities impacted by the analysed project.

Having an integrative view of communication tools and SIA could improve the use of resources both offer. Starting from the way SIA process is described by the relevant recent literature (Vanclay, F., et. All, 2015), the following figure proposes a conceptual model with regards to how communication strategy and tools could be integrated within the different phases of SIA. This is aiming to provide a conceptual model that integrates both SIA and the use of communication tools and channels.

Data collected by SIA could contribute to designing, planning and managing communication in aspects such as:

. Distinguish and describe different segments of public due to be addressed by the eLearning project;

. Identify the appropriate communication channels to be used for project's communication activity and campaigns;

. Designing communication tools and campaigns;

. Engaging public in the project with direct communication tools.

Communication strategy and tools could support SIA in aspects such as:

. Supports the process of informing communities, public, stakeholders with regards to the project;

. Contributes to establishing and following through with grievance mechanism;

. Contribute to the design of participative processes;

. Contribute to the design and implementation of Social Impact Management Plan (SIMP);

. Contribute to monitoring activities, design and implement participative monitoring plan.

The benefits of this approach include aspects such as:

. Avoid redundancies in terms of resources use, data collection and communication efforts could benefit of a better coordination;

. Improved capacity to plan, organize, coordinate different internal and external components of a project;

. Design projects that are better aligned with their public, clients, stakeholders;

. Increase project sustainability as the project design is aligned to the needs of the public it addresses, considers the broader context in which it is implemented;

III. THE DESIGN OF COMMUNICATION IN TWO eLEARNING PROJECTS

The case studies presented here are two projects developed under an EU-funded Structural Operational Program for Human Resources Development (SOP HRD). eProf project developed a state-of-the-art distance learning platform and trained over 2,000 Romanian high school teachers in the use of ICT and in integrating advanced e-learning systems and practices into the traditional secondary educational process. ACTIV project organized professional training program for 1000 unemployed persons using blended learning (both eLearning and onsite training), providing training in different specialization in the field of information and communication technology (ICT).

The common elements displayed by the two projects in terms of communication and social impact assessment aspect are the following:

. Online presence and tools - Web-portal development (eProf.ro) - complex web portal development serving as: project web-site; management instrument for the course registration-admission-assignment-scheduling process; project reporting; eLearning platform. ACTIV - project website, management instrument for registration and scheduling, project reporting, eLearning platform.

. Project communication and publicity (including communication strategy, periodic press conferences);

. Design and coordination of the training needs assessment activity based on data collected from target group. eProf - a nationwide opinion poll [development of methodology and questionnaires, data analysis and reporting (data gathering was subcontracted to Gallup Romania). ACTIV - secondary data analysis regarding target group; data collection and analysis on market trends regarding labour market;

. Process design (e.g. course registration process)

. Impact assessment and course satisfaction analysis.

Both projects were designed around the idea that from design throughout implementation they should rely on data regarding the target group and the broader (social) context. As a result data collection and analysis included concerns regarding how to better communicate with the target public of the projects. Data collection and analyses looked into defining: describe different categories of addressed public (age group, education, geographic distribution, etc.); information channels and means; aspects regarding attitudes and behaviour relevant for the purpose of the project.

The way data gathering and analysis and communication have been organized represent a cyclic process of sharing resources and tools and taking decisions based on data regarding addressed public.

Aligning data gathering and analysis and communication contributed to the coherence of the technical activities (designing training program, course curricula, events organizing, course scheduling, etc.). This also contributed to coordination within projects' teams as both projects were implemented by a consortium of different organizations.

SUSTAINABILITY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR eLEARNING PROJECTS

Following the above described approach (in which communication and other technical activities of an eLearning project rely on data in order to design the project and to continuously monitor and update the project and its tools), both projects made recommendations that envisioned using the finding of the projects along with other similar project by relevant organizations nationwide. The sustainability recommendations were aiming to propose a model of share use of resources, tools and data and to base the design and implementation of project on data regarding target public. In addition to this, the proposed solution are looking to facilitate the communication among target public and among different organizations that might be involved in developing training programs using eLearning tools.

For both projects, the recommendations included developing a portal that would accomplish the following main functionalities:

Federated eLearning platform;

Document repository;

Community and communication component and tools.

In order to formulate this solution, the partners of the project looked predominantly into integrating open source technologies and tools.

A federated approach provides the following benefits:

o For the final user:

§ Reduced number of password to remember;

§ Facile access to online resources, regardless of user's location.

o For the organizing members

§ Reduced costs to create and manage user's profiles and to propose and implement new services;

§ Increased users' satisfaction;

o For the online service providers:

§ Reduced administrative costs to manage identities and accreditations;

§ Increases the chances to extend the community of users.

Extending at nationwide level of the tools and principles based on which both presented projects have been designed relies on the use of methods and tools that are part of a knowledge based economy. This approach promises both to increase the performance of initial education and vocational training and other educational training programs as this approach connects data regarding social context, communication tools and technologies in a dynamic manner that self-regulates its design and coordinates.

IV. CONCLUSIONS

This paper is presenting complementarities and synergies between social impact assessment and communication activities of a project. The conceptual model proposed shows how communication activity and tools are used in different phases of SIA. The outcome of this integrative look is contributing to sustainability of eLearning (but not only) projects. Resources and tools from both perspectives can be better integrated within the projects for better results. The main exchange taking place between the two perspectives is to use and or compare their data collection and analysis and the communication tools they use to engage with the targeted public of the project.

The two presented case studies were two eLearning projects, one with a target of 2000 teachers and the other one addressing 1000 unemployed persons. Both made use of SIA elements, collecting and analyzing data regarding the social context due to be impacted by the project, aiming to manage the generated social impact. The data regarding social impact have been further integrated to design communication strategy.

For both projects, the recommendations included developing a portal that would accomplish the following main functionalities:

- Federated eLearning platform;

- Document repository;

- Community and communication component and tools.

The approach proposed to increase the sustainability of eLearning projects (following the example provided by the presented case studies), emphases the importance of relying on data regarding target public in designing and implementing eLearning project. In the same time, the proposed federated solution emphases the importance of the use of communication tools directly linked with the data gathering and analysis activities and technical activities of the projects.

Acknowledgements

As mentioned, this paper has built on work carried out within two ICT and eLearning training project named eProf and ACTIV. We are grateful to both project's teams for their contributions to making the needs assessment, impact assessment and communication activities to take place and thus generate the data on which this paper is based.

All views expressed in this paper belong to its authors only. They do not necessarily belong to the financing authorities of the eProf and ACTIV projects or the partnering institutions.

We acknowledge the contribution to formulating the solution for a federated eLearning project of Graziella Testaceni from CSI Piemonte.

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