Integrated Project Development Team Model


Because of the multidisciplinary expertise requirements for the LearnCanada project, an Integrated Project Development Team Model will be used to manage the project. Five development teams, with expertise in evaluation, infrastructure, software/multimedia, instructional design and virtual community development have been selected and assigned responsibility for the development, implementation and evaluation of their team's assigned work packages.

 

Governance Process

LearnCanada will use two for a:

Founding Members Committee

  • mandate: ensure relevance to the organizations by starting up the project and responding to structural project changes (e.g. organizations leaving, change within member organizations, etc.).
     
  • makeup: one representative from each of the Founding Member organizations, lead by Chairperson.
     
  • decision process: standard process of discussion, motion, voting with simple majority.

Management Team

  • mandate: implement project
     
  • makeup: one Team Leader from each of the five workpackages and a representative from the Lead Contractor. The Management Team is lead by LearnCanada's Project Manager.
     
  • decision process: standard process of discussion, motion, voting with simple majority.

Operational Structure

Work within each workpackage is managed by the corresponding Team Leader. The Team Leaders report to the Project Manager, who reports to the Lead Contractor, who reports to CANARIE.
 

LearnCanada Founding Members Committee:
John Spence, Chairperson

Corporate Members:
Business (Shaw Communications/Group Telecom) Education (EPSB, OCDSB, AESB, KPRDSB, TDSB, CSCV, STEM~Net))

Corporate business members contribute intellectual properties, expertise and experience in the development, management and distribution of innovative broadband services. They also bring experience in moving products to national and international markets and expertise in the successful commercialization of intellectual properties. Corporate educational members contribute intellectual properties, pedagogical expertise, the functional requirements of the eventual communities of users, access to the school sites to form the K-12 testbed, and experienced staff from these communities to ensure the suitability, sustainability and usefulness of the developed infrastructure, applications and content.

Government Members:
(CRC, NRC, and SchoolNet) The government members contribute the resources and expertise of their research institutes, access to international networks, research expertise in national/international interoperability, development of broadband collaborative learning and knowledge management software and liaison with provincial, national and international networks currently under development. They also bring a national perspective on standards and protocols for infrastructure and middleware being negotiated, both between provinces and internationally.
 

Lead Contractor:
Nancy Parsons Heath, STEM~Net, School of Continuing Education, Memorial University

Lead Contractor Roles and Responsibilities

  • Act as the single point of contact with CANARIE for the Project.
  • Provide a representative for the Integrated Project Management team.
  • Provide leadership and collaborate with the LearnCanada Founding Members to successfully implement and manage the LearnCanada project to its successful completion.
  • Be accountable for all Lead Contractor legal responsibilities as defined by the CANARIE Learning Program Project Agreement.
  • Negotiate and sign off all required legal documents with partners and CANARIE.
  • Provide quarterly and annual progress reports to CANARIE and the LearnCanada Founding Members.
  • Provide financial management for the LearnCanada project through the Comptroller 's Office of Memorial University of Newfoundland. To manage the project budget, the project lead will receive approved time sheets from the team leaders, consolidate them and submit to CANARIE for payment.
  • Meet on a regular basis with the LearnCanada Steering Committee to report on the status of the project.
  • Be responsible for the development and maintenance of the LearnCanada web site.


 

Project Manager:
John Hinde

Project Manager Roles and Responsibilities

  • Report to the Lead Contractor
  • Provide project management leadership for the overall project.
  • Lead the Management Team.
  • Track and monitor project deliverables and milestones.
  • Schedule bi-weekly Management Team meetings to review status of work packages.
  • Assimilate team reports to prepare and submit summative quarterly and annual progress review reports to Lead Contractor.
  • Will receive approved time sheets from the team leaders, consolidate them and submit to the Lead Contractor for final approval and submission to CANARIE for payment.

Management Team:
Members: Nancy Parsons Heath, STEM~Net; Michel Savoie and John Spence, CRC; Dr. Martin Brooks, NRC; Karen Andrews, EPS; Dr. Marion Barfurth, University of Ottawa. Also Project Manager, TBD.

Management Team Roles and Responsibilities

  • Provide leadership and management for their individual workpackages.
  • Ensure that the five vertical components (infrastructure, evaluation, software/multimedia, instructional design, virtual community development) are developed incrementally and in parallel for successful integration and that user requirements are met.
  • Complete required quarterly and annual progress review reports.
  • Responsible to assist the external research and evaluation contractor in defining the research and evaluation components within and amongst the workpackages.

Project Teams
Project team members and their respective leaders will ensure milestones and deliverables are achieved within their respective project work packages. Team leaders will collaborate with the Project Manager for the successful integration of the various work packages, respond to identified user requirements, track and submit timesheets, invoices, progress reports, and contribute to the collection of data for formative and summative evaluations.
 

Research and Evaluation Team:
Team Leader: Dr.Marion Barfurth, University of Ottawa

Members:
Marjorie Clegg, OCDSB; Craig White, AESB; R. Calman, TDSB; P. Redhead, EPS, KPRDSB-TBD, CSCV-TBD.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Coordinate the design and implementation of formative and summative evaluation components of the project as outlined in the evaluation section.
  • Work closely with project team leaders on identifying the research and evaluation requirements within and amongst the work packages.
  • Ensure that appropriate research ethics requirements are implemented.
  • Collaborate in the development of annual and semi-annual summative research and evaluation reports.
  • Complete required quarterly and annual progress review reports.


 

Infrastructure Team:
Team leader: Michel Savoie, CRC.

Members:
William Maton, Eric Tsang, Bobby Ho, Thao Nguyen, CRC; Martin Brooks, NRC; John Hindle and Dave Miller, OCDSB; Dale Fraser and Leo Harlick, STEM~Net; John Greer, TDSB; Gilles Lepage, KPRDSB; Doug MacKintosh and Terry Alexandria, EPS

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Establish the Network Operations Center at the CRC BADLAB.
  • Design and implement the LearnCanada infrastructure testbed, which features an advanced set of Protocols, Services and Technologies (PSTs).
  • Validate and test the PSTs and then migrate to the National Test Network (NTN).
  • Provide technical training and support for the LearnCanada testbed sites.
  • Collaborate with national (ie. POOL and BELLE) and international research teams to identify requirements for "last mile solutions" for diffusion of broadband enabled learning environments for K-12 Canadian schools.
  • Complete required quarterly and annual progress review reports.
  • Assist in the collection of required research and evaluation data.


 

Software/Multimedia Development Team:
Team Leader: Martin Brooks, NRC


Members:
Dr. M.Vigder, J. Dean, Dr. M. Wein, Dr. N. Vison, A. Desclets and Dr. S. Marsh, New Hire 1, New Hire 2, NRC; SchoolNet Meta tagging developers;

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Research K-12 educator user requirements for portal development, multi-media tools and video-mediated learning.
  • Evaluate existing off the shelf software (COTS).
  • Digitize existing material for use on professional development program.
  • Define new software and multimedia objects development requirements.
  • Develop prototype portal applications.
  • Conduct usability testing on prototype applications and multimedia learning objects.
  • Recommend prototypes for industrial grade development.
  • Complete required quarterly and annual progress review reports.
  • Assist in the collection of required research and evaluation data.


 

Instructional Design Team:
Team Leader: Karen Andrews, Edmonton Public Schools

Members:
Geoff Irvine, OCDSB; Luc Prud'Homme, Commission Scolaire au Coeur-des Vallées; Janet Murphy, TDSB; Jonathan Brown, KPRDSB; Robb Wynn, EPS; Sean Penney, AESB.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Conduct focus groups to define educator's professional development requirements.
  • Conduct orientation training and team building activities with selected teachers from each site.
  • Access and evaluate existing multimedia content.
  • Collect and evaluate resources.
  • Identify and develop collaborative project-based learning modules.
  • Act as focus groups for the software and multimedia design team for definition of software requirements.
  • Beta test and evaluate developed prototypes during field trials.
  • Plan and coordinate site/multiple site professional development activities.
  • Coordinate and participate in national and international broadband enabled staff development programs.
  • Complete required quarterly and annual progress review reports.
  • Contribute in the collection of required research and evaluation data.


 

Virtual Community Development Team:
Team Leader: John Spence, CRC

Members:
Janet Murphy, TDSB; Alex Park and Peter Senchuk, Shaw Communications/Group Telecom; Eric Tsang and Debbie Kemp, CRC; Jonathan Brown, KPRDSB; Nancy Parsons Heath, STEM~Net; Karen Andrews, EPS; Martin Brooks, NRC

Roles and Responsibilities

 

  • Develop and Implement a communications plan.
  • Coordinate Founding Members Steering Committee Meeting.
  • Research educators' user requirements to sustain active membership in broadband enabled learning environments.
  • Develop a strategic, business and marketing plan for the dissemination and sustainability of the project.
  • Evaluate governance structures to address cross-sector/cross-regional institutional barriers.
  • Review literature on requirements for successful virtual communities.
  • Produce and Coordinate virtual encounter sessions for the project.
  • Organize special demonstration events and conferences, national and international media and market initiatives.
  • Expand national and international broadband learning partnerships.
  • Negotiate MOU's with selected Associate Partners for Founding Members final approval.
  • Complete required quarterly and annual progress review reports.
  • Contribute in the collection of required research and evaluation data.


 

Other Management Issues
Resolution Committee

The Integrated Project Management Team will fulfill the duties of the resolution committee to address disputes and/or intellectual property issues that may arise during the project. If unresolved the Resolution Committee will forward their recommendations to the Lead Contractor and the LearnCanada Founding Members Committee for decision.

Intellectual Property

In the event that any intellectual property is developed during the term of this understanding, its use, protection and exploitation shall be specified in a separate agreement between the Parties. Such an agreement will be guided by the following:

  1. Ownership of intellectual property created or developed independently by one of the Parties shall belong exclusively to that Party; and
  2. Intellectual property created or developed co-operatively by the Parties shall be co-owned
  3. Founding Members will negotiate the use and free licensing of each other's intellectual properties for the duration of the project
  4. Prototype broadband multimedia software will be made available to the research community via an open source licensee

 

Member Withdrawal

Should a member withdraw from the project, effort will be undertaken by the Lead Contractor, STEM~Net and the LearnCanada Founding Members to find a replacement. Terms and conditions for withdrawal will be negotiated as part of the contractual agreement for the LearnCanada project.