5.3.3 The Orchestrator Organizational Structure
A third organizational structure emerged which was neither characterized by just
a faculty or a partnership between a faculty and a single other member of the team
who shared responsibility for the development of the courseware. This structure was
characterized by the emergence of a third organization to support courseware development
that was neither an academic organization nor the main campus computing organization.
Instead, this organization was characterized by a distinct set of goals specifically
related to the active development of software and courseware. Two organizations were
characterized by this structure within this study. The first was the Information and
Research in Information Scholarship (IRIS) organization at Brown which developed
Intermedia. The second was the team that surrounded the Geology Tutor Project.
Specifically, the project was supported through the VCG within the Athena Project,
and eventually CECI which the was formed by the VCG after the Athena Experiment
ended and Athena became a permanent part of the MIT computing organization.
The orchestration role is uniquely characterized by support for many courseware
projects instead of just one. In the following passages, Davis (personal interview,
December 8, 1992), Manager of CECI describes the particular conditions that surround
this type of structure and his own role within the structure:
Davis: The traditional way to build projects in industry was to write
a brief abstract of what the goals and objectives are, build a flow chart of your
imagined path through the materials, build story boards for the interface
design, and then have a meeting and say, "the deadline for this is one year from now,
so you do this and you do this." That's the industry model. But that process
falls apart in academia. An important variable in an academic model is local culture.
How does your academic organization actually operate, and what are the dynamics of
the politics, the funding, the rivalries, the resources and the personalities?
There are things that you cannot control as you can in industry, where you can
fire somebody if they're not producing the story board. In academia, it's more
of a collaborative effort, which requires a lot of latitude. You have to focus
on what people are really good at, and what people have time to do.
Because in academia, you are doing something that is not in the charter of the
institution. Nothing is budgeted to do this, and the technology itself has effects,
as Athena proved. No one said that it was going to cause a convulsion in the way
the institute does it's educational business. But it does, and the repercussions
of that are just beginning to be understood.
My function was coordinating among the faculty, the software design people,
and the people who wanted to work on interfaces. I would go around, between them,
constantly. My training for it was having taught in an Art school, where the process
of teaching visual thinking is to work with people, give them skills, have them use
the skills on actual things like video tapes or photographs, evaluate those things,
and then have them make other things. Also it was important to have the ability
to work with creative people's personalities.
Hopper: You've been involved in projects that incorporate the digital media
that you're going to see in the near future on a common basis. Will a team be
important for these projects?
Davis: So far I haven't met anybody who knows how to do it all. It's almost too much.
To know about text, graphics, animation, video, color composition, interactivity,
and all the other things too.
Hopper: Why is it too much?
Davis: I think it's just too big of an integration. Ultimately, it is also not
as interesting as working with a group. It's as if the Beatles was all John Lennon.
He wasn't the Beatles. It's more than the sum of its parts. That's what orchestration
is about.
Hopper: Part of orchestration then is not just the media, but the people involved,
and how to orchestrate their particular skills, talents, and abilities into something
that is complimentary.
Davis: Absolutely. The team has to be people who are interested in everything.
The core people have to be interested in how the video works, how the interface works,
how the software works, what the content is. They're interested in the connections
between things as much as they are the things.
In the orchestrator organizational structure, there were still people who held
the role of integrator within projects. This was the point at which the academic,
technical, and "orchestration" organizations met. In the Physical Geology Tutor Project,
Schlusselberg filled the role of integrator at the beginning of the project.
In the following passage, Schlusselberg describes her view of the value of "integrator"
role she fills within the larger context of this organizational structure
(personal interview, October 1, 1992):
Schlusselberg: When you are developing a multimedia application
people with different skills tend to get involved in the project and there needs
to be one person who is the coordinator. This person does not have to be, and in
many cases should not be, the content expert. I believe a new professional field
is evolving. Although the coordinator may be the person implementing the application
this does not mean they are just programmers. Their interests tend to extend and
focus on interface issues, integrating and structuring information, and using
technology to achieve desired outcomes. The content expert shouldn't necessarily
have to worry about these issues. An analogy between interface design and desktop
publishing can be drawn. Software enables everybody to desktop publish, but there
will be designs which are more or less effective. In the same light, some content
experts will be great at designing and coordinating their own applications. And,
like desktop publishing, the software to enable them should be available.
However, not everyone's strength nor interest lie in design and development.
And not everyone has the time to learn about the issues and the technologies.
Many faculty members are tapped out on their time and if they don't want to take
on application development as a hobby they should be able to go to someone who
specializes in it. Currently, the relationship between the content expert and
the coordinator is not well defined. However, they both need to realize that
they are a team or a partnership - where each one has different responsibilities
and areas of expertise.
A fascinating dynamic aspect of this organizational structure was the way in
which there was clearly provision for roles to both evolve and shift. The aspect
that contributed to this was the socialization which took place for new members
of the structure. In the beginning, it was clear that Schlusselberg began as an
integrator, who received a part of her preparation for the role through socialization
and sharing among the community in her organization, often out of necessity
(E. Schlusselberg, personal interview, October 1, 1992):
Schlusselberg: I learned how to use the authoring system by looking
at what other people had done with it. And there were many times when I would
go to people and say, "Hey, I've got a quick question." When I first came I
saw all the cables and thought, "What are all these cables for?" But, as I
saw people trouble-shooting and putting things together I would think, "Oh, I see."
Then I would try and do it myself. You get to the point where you need to know things,
like how things are connected to each other. You want to learn because you feel bad
asking someone how to do the same thing 29 times. The other reason is that we have
a demonstration room where we do presentations. People always switch the cables,
and when you're planning on a doing a presentation you better know how to get the
machines to work again. It's something that you need to know. You pick it up,
because you need it.
The interesting aspect of this was the way in which both the role of integrator
and the skills required for the role were then passed from Schlusselberg to Kinnicutt
who now serves as the integrator for the Physical Geology Tutor courseware project.
His role evolved gradually. Before he worked on the project, there was another
graduate student who worked on the Geology Tutor project. Kinnicutt was an undergraduate,
when he first began working on the project, and he worked with the previous graduate
student. And when he graduated, he became first a M.S., and then eventually a Ph.D.
student. Because he had experience with the project as an undergraduate, he started
working on it. As he went from undergraduate to graduate school and took on the role
of integrator, he maintained close contact with CECI. Initially he worked with
Schlusselberg to learn the about the software. Then as he became more experienced
he clearly took on the role of integrator for his own project. Kinnicutt is now
involved with AthenaMuse 2 software development effort as well. Finally, there is
another graduate student who Kinnicutt is now training to take on more responsibility.
In organizations where a separate organizational structure formed and was supported
by an "orchestration" approach to team construction, a different structure evolved
to provide continuation. The Physical Geology Tutor project represented this type
of structure. Currently, substantial development effort is going on to integrate
interactive graphics with all phases of the Geology Tutor project. Future modification
and additions will concentrate on replacing still picture sequences by moving pictures,
by expanding text and images, and by offering quantitative analysis of some of the
geologic processes. Some of the planned directions for the continuation of this
courseware is described below. (P. Kinnicutt, personal interview, October 1, 1992)
Kinnicutt: We have a project which our group calls the
Engineering Geology Educator. The Physical Geology Tutor is one module
of the Geology Educator. Nomad is another module. My research currently
is related to this project, developing a spatial decision support system
using spatial probabilistic modeling to model the subsurface. Part of one
of the modules is a profiling package called Nomad, which I am developing.
Nomad runs on Athena and is based on X-Windows System Version 11, C/C++ and Motif.
My doctoral work will involve the integration of several different existing software
packages, one of which is AthenaMuse 2, which I'll be using as the visual component.
And there are several other software pieces which I'm using. One of them is an
expert system, which I'll be using for the analysis of subsurface conditions.
The organizational structure which evolved to provide for the continuation of
this courseware appears to be designed to provide for its own renewal of resources,
without relying upon university or external funding. This model is represented by
the structure which evolved within CECI which is currently in the process of creating
AthenaMuse 2, as well as cooperating in the production of the evolving Geology Tutor
project. The general model of continuation for the orchestration model of courseware
team structure is described below by Davis (personal interview, December 8, 1992),
Manager of CECI:
Davis: We're only beginning to understand the process,
having done it by falling down and getting up, and trying to step back
occasionally to see what's worked and what hasn't. We've come out of the
project Athena model, where everything was basically paid for by two sponsors,
into a new thing, called CECI, where we actually do fund raising. One aspect
of fund raising is to show people new things.
I've divided time here between four areas, problem solving, tactical behavior,
creative behavior, and miscellaneous activities, and it's a loop.
Basically problem solving is the research we get paid to do. The tactical
part of it is how do you do demos, and generate new projects.
Then the creative part is the part that absolutely has to be there,
in order to get back to the beginning of the process. You have to have
new ideas to get new income. It's been our experience here, that when we
begin having ideas, our loop is closed, and we're creating again.
We take new ideas, and we incorporate them somewhere else. So that's
how the wheel turns. You have to be doing something. The big frustration
here is when we don't have any new demos. So we encourage people here to
make things themselves, that may not be for any course, or teacher,
but just some little thing that they have played with, that we can all look at,
or show. Prototyping is really key. We've been talking lately about a
prototyping fund, where people in the group can come and say,
"Look, I have an idea about plants. I would like to do a little thing."
Everybody has to be an artist of some kind. They have to have the confidence
in their creative abilities, they have to come up with new ideas, and defend those
ideas, and prove those ideas while having them criticized, and so forth. It's
confidence in your own inventiveness. You don't have to know how to draw,
or be the traditional artist activities, but you have to have the confidence to say,
"This idea goes with this idea, and this is why."
Miscellaneous activities means that you're willing to help move the video
recorder where it needs to go, you're willing to do anything that precipitates
the other three things. It's essential that nobody in the group says,
"Gee, I don't move furniture." Another thing that makes the wheel
turn is a sense of mission about the product. That people really are
interested in improving education, or making learning exciting.
So they do whatever it takes to get that condition.
Then what is interesting about this technology is, once you show a
teacher that doesn't do this, models all in one place on a screen,
you are immediately teaching them what needs to be done. It's an
incredible sales tool. They go, "Oh, I know what I should do now,
because this is more interesting than what I've been doing."
Sometimes we get people in who think they just ought to keep up
with what's going on in education. But then, within 15 minutes, they are going,
"you know what else you could put in there." And once you've done that,
you' have triggered their imagination. The demonstration has done its job,
and they are different teachers. So it works. That's the interesting thing
about us doing demonstrations for people. The minute the client or the teacher
you're doing the demonstration for begins designing, by going, "Oh, I could use
this for my project I'm doing." You've done it. That is how it goes.
It's been our experience here, that when they begin having ideas, that
our loop is closed, and we are creating again. We take these ideas,
that's a good idea, we'll incorporate that somewhere else.
So that's how the wheel turns.
An critical aspect of the above model is the degree to which it appears to
provide for obtaining new resources and projects within a cyclic process.
So it is to be a system that's built around not just one end, or project,
but a continual re-invigorating the environment with new ideas and new
projects and new people. The Geology Tutor project is to be a part of this cycle.
The CECI Athena Muse 2 team is working with the courseware team to their mutual benefit.
It is clear from these descriptions that part of the strength of the orchestration
model is that it builds upon the strengths of the departmentally based courseware
project to provide the content and some human resources, while the presence of the
independent support organization for the endeavor helps insure the continual provisions
for technical resources and support. The mutually beneficial relationships are clearly
the foundation of this organizational structure.