E-LEARNING PROCESS MATURITY IN THE NEW ZEALAND TERTIARY SECTOR

Elsewhere (Marshall and Mitchell, 2002, 2003, 2004), we have presented the idea that tertiary organisations engaged in e-learning might benefit from the application of process maturity modeling in better understanding their e-learning capability. These ideas, which have been successfully applied in a number of fields including software engineering, provide for a system of evaluating the ability of organisations to create and deploy e-learning that is independent of the particular technologies and pedagogies used. As well as providing valuable information for management oversight, resource allocation and strategic planning, this type of analysis also offers the prospect of being able to compare organisations across an entire sector, with the view to identifying common strengths and weaknesses. In this paper we present the preliminary findings of a detailed examination of institutional e-learning process capabilities as determined through the application of the eMM model and discuss how these can be used to determine both institutional and sector-wide priorities for investment and development.