learning - Academic Conferences Limited

3.1 Definition of case study
Peter Mkhize et al.
Case study is one of the government departments that is in charge of open-source migration from
proprietary software. Among other training delivery mechanism is eLearning. This change happens in
the midst of high unemployment rates due to skills shortages in South Africa. This department is also
in charge of end-user training. This is disconcerting, because training initiatives have failed to serve
training needs that existed before the latest requirement of open-source training.
The authors interviewed six members of migration training programmes. They all work for the same
departments, but consult in different departments that have already started to migrate. They are faced
by different challenges, which they shared during interview sessions. The average interview duration
recorded was 43 minutes. Each interview was transcribed and open coded before the subsequent
interview, in order to grasp the exact situation, thereby adapting the interview schedule where necessary.
After open coding comes axial coding – which allows the researcher to categorise open codes
into families. This is a term used in AtlasTI, the qualitative data analysis software used to analyse
data in this study. Subsequent to that is selective coding, where relationships between families are
established; in this study, a network of codes is used to represent such relationships. Code networks
are discussed in the discussion of findings.
4. Discussion of findings
Findings are discussed in relation to categories deduced from codes as they emerged from interview
transcripts. Two major categories emerged during the analysis of data. These categories were formed
by grouping related codes together into families, as is the term used in AtlasTI to describe groups of
codes. Within these categories, codes were interconnected according their relationships with each
other in the family, in order to create a story based on the interconnection (Creswell 2007; Charmaz
2006). Two categories emerged with networked codes as discussed below.
4.1 Management and administration of collaboration
Collaborative learning emerged as the prevalent instructional strategy in the public sector. This category
illustrates the setting up of collaborative forums, allows for flexible learning between collaborators
as they define the learning process and what is to be learnt (Acton and Golden 2003). However,
membership of collaborative forums is controlled, to ensure that everybody in the forum makes a
meaningful contribution, and to facilitate the sharing of ideas around development and adoption of
open sources software in the public sector. Since open sources adoption takes place in the initial
stages of the migration process, most of the communication among participants in the collaboration
forums is kept confidential; therefore, requests to join should be trusted.
I think it’s just about the confidentiality of the information, say you are in government you
typically want to control whoever joins cause you might discuss strategies, communication
strategies, ...in that case you will firstly have the private network ... you might be able
to invite external people but then you would qualify them ...
Even though membership of collaborative forums is closed, there is a need to attract or invite expert
people to fill knowledge and skills gaps in the group of collaborators. Sometimes, social networks are
used to attract prospective collaborators who have something to contribute, as the administrator
would scan the social space to find bloggers who seem to have some level of expertise in open
source – or any other skills that is deemed useful to the group. This makes collaborative learning
even more accessible to those who are not employees in same department. Knowledge sharing is
then extended to specialised experts.
I would maybe do some research and see...the thinkers in that area and I would extend
an invite to that somebody that writing a blog that’s...or start talking to that network and
say who are the real experts in open source ... Stakeholders onto that network the multiplier
effect, wow ...
Proposition 1: Profile the audience of the intended learning programme, then establish instructional
technology that is accessible to all participants in the learning or training initiative.
496