The LinkER Project identified potential problems for project teams working in this area. The staff required by projects working to integrate digital libraries and VLEs are likely to be highly cross disciplinary. Project teams are likely to include librarians, academics and technical staff with a range of divergent skills and different preconceptions and prior knowledge. LinkER projects had difficulties in finding the right staff for the jobs that they were required to do. In LinkER projects the time scale was short and it was difficult to attract the right staff for such short term contracts. This type of problem is not uncommon when project teams are called together for short periods and we think that careful consideration should be given to whether staff of the right type and calibre are readily available to a project from day one if delays are to be limited.
Some of the issues that can arise in relation to project staffing have previously been addressed in the Inspiral project's final report.
The recommendations made in this report still have force and we would recommend reading the full Inspiral Final Report and the other related materials available from the Inspiral site (Link included below)
The experience of the LinkER project would suggest that the boundaries between different grades of staff are not fixed and there may be some blurring between the categories, library staff, academic and learning technologist. We would also add to the list of staff the core technical personnel in an institution. Several LinkER projects had issues that arose concerning the core network. We recommend that project teams should negotiate from the begining to obtain good levels of cooperation with the core network staff. Within the LinkER projects issues arose about timely and appropriate access to areas of the network. Whilst such issues are difficult to anticipate a good relationship with key staff who can act as gatekeeper is essential
The LinkER project also identified another issue that concerns project teams drawn from different parts of a single institution.
"The shifting pattern of provision in the entire institution will present itself to academic staff. They will not be concerned with the political, organisational and technological issues that lie behind the situation but they are likely to be hesitant in the way they approach new initiatives if they cannot see a single stable solution to the problems they identify for their teaching and learning. This raises the question as to how projects can present their work as a component of the institutional e-learning strategy - a requirement for a coherent and compelling institutional vision."
We recommend that projects concerned with drawing together staff from across an institution into a single project team should endeavor to link project aims with the wider institution and its policies.
Inspiral : The Inspiral site contains a Final Report and useful documents, Web resources and a bibliography.
Further material forthcoming..... contributions gratefully received