NB: Post edited to include updated diagram
It’s not unusual for the term ‘ecosystem’ to be used in relation to digital technologies (as in this recent article), but it’s generally used to describe a collection of technologies that interact with each other, much like the term ‘virtual learning environment‘. Sometimes the term is used to capture a broader concept of technologies and people, but this is often framed through a dichotomy of technology and pedagogy, and doesn’t consider the organisational practice and process domains.
However, when we look at the definition of an ecosystem, it’s intended to capture the breadth or complexity of people, relationships and experiences in an ecosystem – not just the pedagogical aspects of people and practices but the full range of experiences across the university context.
Through the Learning Futures project, and in particular the LMS Renewal workstream, we have begun using the term ‘next-generation ecosystem’ to signal a shift in how we as an institution frame our relationship to online learning. When we use the term ‘ecosystem’, we mean moving beyond thinking about a collection of technologies and a binary between technology and pedagogy. We mean taking a more complex view and thinking about all of the people, platforms, processes, products and practices that work together to shape online learning.
Ecosystem: The people, platforms, processes, products and practices that work together to shape online learning
The diagram below illustrates the range of things we can think of as part of the next-generation ecosystem and the organic ways they distribute and intersect:
Only some of these aspects are included as part of the Learning Futures program of work, but contextualising them within the broader ecosystem allows us to understand how project outcomes will impact the wider university.
Reframing our thinking around an ecosystem means we can make much more effective decisions about how what we do and why we do it, because we are considering a whole range of phenomena in context, rather than just a small decontextualised subset. It means we can consider the interactions with humans and our organisational goals to realise the affordances of technology, rather than just plugging different tools into each other. It also allows us to take action in many different domains to create more effective experiences overall – redesigning business processes, creating new opportunities for data practice, renewing policy and investing in capability building are just some of the ways we can create robust and sustainable impact.
For those interested in the theoretical lenses underpinning the ecosystem framing, here is some further reading: