The Learning Design involves students taking on roles in a behavioural simulation. The phases of this behavioural simulation include:

• Initial role selection.
• Creation of Information Technology (IT) support for the fictitious Cultural Heritage Authority.
• Role change.
• Reflection.
• Submission of assessment item.

The Learning Design Sequence is illustrated as follows.

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WHAT THE STUDENTS DO
Overall, the students create, play roles in (have jobs in) and undertake IT development work for the fictitious organisation: the Cultural Heritage Authority (CHA).

Students play various roles in the CHA (e.g. two of: IT designer, IT user, project manager, strategic planner, quality manager, information manager, CEO, CIO). Students start in one role and change to another part-way through.

The simulation/game runs for a whole semester. The reason is that it takes this long to do substantive IT work (that is, the whole semester). They take 2 roles so that they get different perspectives on IT development and design.

The aim is to create information systems to support the work of the CHA. The CHA is created and the IT staff and CEO (all played by the students) plan and develop IT infrastructure (based on Lotus Notes) and key applications (using any appropriate IT development environment) for the CHA over the semester. Initial input is a set of consultants' reports advising the CHA (i.e. the students) of the IT needs of the CHA. The end result is typically an intranet and a web site that defines and supports the work of the CHA.

The CHA holds planning and review meetings, brainstorming sessions, undertakes quality-control work, and conducts Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) design sessions. It is best if all students can attend weekly sessions but, because the CHA has CSCW infrastructure, some students may miss some sessions but access and contribute to the CHA online (the CHA 'virtual organisation').

Students select roles (based on job descriptions) as part of the set-up stage for the game. From that point on they determine their own work but are initially guided by the consultants’ reports provided.

Students obtain assistance from tutors who are in attendance and have weekly briefing and debriefing sessions (with their tutor and / or lecturer) to help them review activities they have started and consider what others should be undertaken. Debriefing sessions also assist with group dynamics, etc.

SIGNIFICANCE OF ORDER
Students take on their roles in Week 3 of the semester. In Week 7 they change roles. This brings out the importance of good information management for organisations. In Week 11 they give short reflective presentations to the whole class (which may consist of, say, 3 instances of the game) to help the whole class gain from the experiences of each CHA and to reflect on what's happening. In Week 14 each CHA presents to the whole class about the strategic plan, IT infrastructure and information systems they have designed to support and direct the CHA.

CRITICAL ACTIVITIES
Students decide this themselves and staff and students may introduce new activities to support learning and new ways of working as IT evolves. For example, one semester students in the CHA worked with students at the University of Melbourne to do usability evaluations of each others' web sites.

The game runs differently every year thanks to evolving technology; this is an intentional design feature of the game.

ACCESSIBLE RESOURCES

1. Physical meeting resource
   The "simulation suite" or some similar style of "serviced offices" where students (in role, as members of the CHA) can meet for a 2-hour period each week. It is important that their work can be observed (through one-way glass) by tutor-facilitators and that these facilitators can move between groups to offer assistance and support as relevant. The suite at the University of Canberra has four rooms with a central observation area. Sessions can be videotaped (but typically are not, at the request of participants) and facilitators can hear what is happening in each room (through headphones or broadcast speakers). The rooms are networked with one PC per room so that participants can access and create online resources during sessions, if they choose to do so. The simulation suite PC network is linked into the network for the School of Computing.
   
2. IT resources
   IT infrastructure (in the Suite and broadly around the campus) to facilitate:
   
   • Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).
   • The development of an intranet and web site for the CHA.
   • Information management and more generally, the development of a 'learning organisation'.
   
   We use Lotus Notes as this infrastructure but other software that suited a particular institution / learning environment could be used.
   
3. Content materials and subject information materials
   Online materials: A Participants' Manual and materials that are a starting point for the CHA are available online. Materials include, for example, job descriptions, consultants' reports (about the needs for information systems that the CHA might have), interview material (reflecting the interests of many potential stakeholders in the CHA), etc. The resources have been carefully designed and developed to give the students a starting point and a variety of perspectives on the IT needs of an organisation such as the CHA. A major concern is that students understand the need to set up infrastructure to support their own CHA work practices. Because these will be innovative and must last and serve the group for a semester, the infrastructure provided allows participants to have CSCW that evolves with their requirements.

RESOURCES IN CONTEXT
The significance is that this learning design relies on a rich resource set that takes time to develop.

There are three key resources:

1. Physical meeting resource.
   This is essential and gives the game a physical home and space that is like an office environment.
   
2. IT infrastructure.
   We build on the experiences students have gained in a companion subject in their previous semester (that is, an introduction to Lotus Notes and CSCW as part of their analysis and design subject). Students learn experientially - they create CSCW environments that are robust enough at the start and may well not be good enough at the completion of their work. Through this they can reflect on how to evolve systems over time and how to get a better basis for their systems next time (i.e. in the paid workforce). Infrastructure such as Lotus Notes is essential. At first we thought this might not be the case - but for IT students, having IT systems that they design to support the way they work is essential and an additional form of experiential learning. It encourages students to conceptualise work practices in a sophisticated manner. Email (for example) does not do so and would be a significant down-grading of the IT infrastructure for this type of game aimed at the designers of our emerging work practices!
   
3. Content materials and online information materials.
   It is valuable to have this material online because it gives students easy access. Although we hand out relevant sets to each student in each role at the start, we make all materials available online - this offers an example of how to manage some documents electronically.

VARYING THE RESOURCE SET
None of these resources are optional.

SUPPORTS SUPPLIED
Forms of support include:

Facilitators: Academic staff to oversee and support each two-hour session (there is one facilitator for every approx. 18 students). The support involves "tutoring" - if students have difficulty with certain concepts or techniques - and debriefing - to help students see what they have achieved, what they might plan next, and how to manage any issues with group dynamics. The debriefing sessions help students manage and work in this complex environment and also help them reflect on what they are learning. Being a facilitator is a skilled task and quite difficult - a skill that staff need to learn and develop. One facilitator is also the lecturer-in-charge who runs briefing and debriefing sessions (in lectures).

Co-ordinator's Manual: A Heritage Information Co-ordinator's Manual is available to help tutors understand their role as facilitators in this learning design.

(This is not a direct support resource for students. It is more for those implementing this learning design.)

Participants' Manual: This serves as a support as it explains to the students what is required of them. It contains reference material, notes on some topics that may be new to students, hints on how to get started, ideas about timing, roles, deliverables and assessment. It contains a form so that students can apply for jobs/roles in the CHA. It contains an initial project plan for the game and an overview of how the CHA "works". It also contains an introduction to experiential learning and behavioural simulations.

Guides/templates: Some templates are provided for students to aid them in completing certain tasks - specifically a form for recording "design rationale" - as part of their quality management processes. Other templates are provided to help students set up online workspaces (e.g. discussion templates, repository templates).

Student collaboration: The fact that multiple numbers of students work in one role enables them to collaborate with each other and learn from each other. What this means is that, in one game, there might be three division heads; they can exchange ideas on how to be a manager. There might be 15 heritage officers (the basic staff position) and they can compare notes about how to work with/for a manager or what method of design they are using. There are usually about 3 games running at the same time - each has a CEO and each has a CIO and quality manager - they can also compare notes and learn from each other. To encourage this, we require groups to give summaries of their work to the whole class - this is another way for students to learn from each other. Another key event is the 10 minutes before each scheduled lecture time. The whole class turns up and spends about 10 minutes talking - with each CHA coordinating their own work, holding discussions to share information, etc.

Support for this style of teaching and learning: For many students, this style of experiential learning is challenging and requires considerable support from staff in this subject - and other subjects. It is important that staff in other subjects support this style of learning even if they are not involved in it themselves. It is also important that this style of teaching and learning is supported more broadly across the university, including Head of School, Dean, and VC.

SIGNIFICANCE OF SUPPORT STRATEGIES
Support strategies are very significant. The students find experiential learning challenging (as do the tutors/facilitators) and need a lot of assistance and encouragement. Some really enjoy this type of learning, others find it rather threatening. This can often lead to problems because the simulation / game lasts for 15 weeks. It must be managed to provide support for the students, to re-assure them that they can deal with the uncertainty that they initially face, and that this will lead to valuable learning outcomes, some of which they may not realise for years.

SUPPORT STRATEGY ADAPTATION
I think that different teachers might devise different ways of offering support to student groups. It is quite challenging to become a good facilitator and it might be helpful to call on experts from your university. For example, we use a lecturer in cultural heritage to introduce that domain of work to students. We could use the counselling staff to talk about group work and team building; in fact one of the psychologists does talk to the students at a point when we feel they might appreciate information about how to address issues of conflict, etc. We also use tutor/facilitators who are current practitioners (e.g. work for the government or business or are IT consultants). Many of these people are appreciated by the students because they speak so convincingly of how the simulation reflects reality and offers opportunities to try new ways of working.