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An evaluation of the Hong Kong design and development strategy
CHAPTER 2
AN EVALUATION OF THE HONG KONG DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY ALEX C. W. FUNG Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Abstract This chapter addresses the complexissues of a district-wide school information system design and development in Hong Kong. The SAMS (SchoolAdministration & Management System) is being implemented by the governmentin about 1,500 schools. The focus of the chapter is on the system design and developmentstrategy and the related outcome.Evidencethat a design and development strategy withoutgenuine user participation produces a low quality systemand low user acceptanceis provided. Besides technical issues there are political factorsthat need to be consideredin designing and developinga district-wide school informationsystem. Moreover, an officiallyintended design and developmentstrategyis one thing; the actual strategy is another. Furthermore, the SAMSproject shows that high quality systemscannotbe developedusing a strategythat ignores a detailed study of school organizationalinformationrequirements. Copyright© 1996Elsevier ScienceLtd
Introduction In September 1993, the Hong Kong Government adopted the recommendations of an external consultancy report to implement "The Information Systems Strategy for the Hong Kong Education Department". A five-year budget of about 550 million Hong Kong dollars (US$ 70 million) was provided to computerize the Education Department (ED) and all schools in the public sector (about 1,500 primary and secondary). The project is referred io as the School Administration and Management System (SAMS); schools are given a standard SAMS-package of computer hardware and software. The computer hardware given to each school is a local area network with one server and three to four workstations depending on the school size. In the future, schools will be tele-linked to 19 different district education offices in the territory as well as to El) headquarters. When the project is in place SAMS will assist schools in internal administration and management, as well as in electronic data transfer with ED. The SAMS software package is being centrally developed by the government. Three main parties are involved in system design and development, piloting, and implementation (including training, maintenance and support): ED (the sponsor), the schools (the users), and Information Technology Services Department (ITSD; the technology provider). As this last party is the 297
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official agent for all information technology projects in all Hong Kong government departments, it is responsible for the design and development of SAMS. ED takes charge of financing and implementing the project in the schools. The Hong Kong case is a rather rare example, in terms of both the scale of implementation and the investment, of a government taking a central lead in school information systems. The SAMS project is now in its third year with design and development work still ongoing. In addition, phased implementation of parts of the system is already in about 300 schools. In this chapter, problems faced in the design and development of SAMS are first described. This is followed by a section describing the officially intended strategy, and another section on the actual strategy adopted. After a discussion of the merits and demerits of the actual strategy, the chapter ends with a presentation of key issues identified in the SAMS case in relation to design and development strategies for school information systems.
Problems Faced in the Design and Development of SAMS In the development of a standard school information system that can be applied in all primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, a large number of factors has to be taken into consideration. On the one hand, SAMS had to satisfy requirements for administration and management in individual schools. On the other, it had to satisfy requirements for administering schools at the central ED level and for forecfisting and planning for the entire education system. This formidable task has a number of potential problem areas. According to Hsu (1995), Assistant Director of Education, there are four major issues.
The Problem of Standardization versus Flexibility There is extremely considerable diversity in schools and the whole system has become extremely complex. To take a few examples,we see vastly differenttypes of curriculum, many different modes of funding arrangements,and markedlydifferenttimetablestructures. Whereasdiversityand choice may he advantageous under open marketconditions, this situation presents difficulties when data items need to he standardised at a corporatelevel (p. 54). Schools are all different in terms of what kind of data they currently store and how such data are being handled and used in various formats. They are also different in their work-flows and habits. Integration and standardization, with enough built-in flexibility to take care of unique school characteristics and autonomy, is no easy problem to solve. The implications of this problem for the SAMS design and development strategy are related to data standardization and system architecture. To enable data transfer between ED and schools electronically, data requirements of both parties have to be identified and then standardized codes have to be defined. A balance has to be achieved between the central department's view and the users' view with regard to the quantity and the kind of data to be input and stored. The design of the system has to provide sufficient flexibility, for example, to allow individual schools to store their own additional data in addition to the standard set.
The Problem of Two Languages The system is further complicated by the fact that we have two official languages, English and Chinese.... While computerprocessingin English is commonplace, the processingof information in Chinese has yet to be standardised (p. 54).
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While primary schools in Hong Kong commonly use the Chinese language, secondary schools mainly use English (with some Chinese where necessary) in their documents. SAMS has therefore to cater to both languages for input and output. Technically speaking this is not much of a problem as commercial software such as Chinese Windows, Chinese Word, and Chinese Excel are quite commonly used. However, depending on the sophistication of the hardware chosen and the architecture of the design when large databases are involved, the response speed of the system might be unsatisfactory with Chinese processing. The resolution of this issue thus depends on the quality of the SAMS hardware and on the design of SAMS software. The implications for the SAMS design and development strategy are related to the choice of the hardware, the operating system, and the programming tools. The capacity of the configuration chosen and its compatibility with further development and upgrading will affect significantly the quality of SAMS in the future with technological advances in Chinese language processing.
The Problem of Scale The informationsystemaims at providingan electroniclinkagefor no less than 1,500schools.Its sheer size is a pioneeringeffortfor Hong Kong(p. 54). This problem of scale is not just one of technicality. Difficulties in training, support, and the time frame have to be recognized as well. The SAMS project is targeted for completion within five years (1993-1998) and the total number of teachers affected in the 1,500 schools is estimated to be around 50,000 together with another 4,000 school office staff. The issue here is not just one of implementation, training, and support for a large number of schools. The system design and development strategy play a vital role in determining system quality. Efforts required in implementation, training, and support are dependent directly on the quality of the SAMS system produced. The implications for the SAMS design and development strategy are mainly related to the "user-interface", i.e., how "easy-to-use" SAMS is. As school staff in general are only lay persons with regard to computers, they can only be expected to operate SAMS. They will likely lack an understanding of the internal architecture and technical background operations of the system. Thus, SAMS must be designed, as far as possible, to be error-proof (with enough errortrapping routines in anticipation of operation mistakes of lay-users), easy to operate (with sufficient on-line help), and uncomplicated to maintain (as there is no computer systems personnel within schools employed for such a function).
Different IT-cultures in Primary and Secondary Schools Computers are not common in Hong Kong primary schools; consequently, the problems of user resistance there may include technical, social, organizational, and cultural issues. For the secondary schools, a different picture arises. The majority of secondary schools have already computerized their administration to different extents, using individual systems tailored to their own needs and requirements. Secondary schools, then, would be quite reluctant to shift to a new SAMS unless they find good reasons for doing so. ED could not force schools to use SAMS. Schools accustomed to their own systems might find SAMS inconvenient, not sufficiently comprehensive, outputting different formats (e.g., report cards to parents), and inflexible (because schools are not allowed to write their own programs intruding into the SAMS). SAMS
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must be a better system than the ones the schools already have or else the shift to SAMS will not be made. This is a challenge to those designing SAMS. The secondary school users might expect SAMS to be a sophisticated system with functions more advanced than their existing individual systems; the primary school users without much computer background could find such a system too complicated to manage. An ideal system would be sophisticated but at the same time include all basic functions for first-time-users, allowing the latter to use part or all of the system functions as they advance in their computer knowledge.
The Intended Design and Development Strategy ED well recognizes the major problems inherent in the SAMS project and the measures to deal with them. Hsu (1995) summarizes the measures that will be taken. 1. "To improve user acceptance, the system will be designed with particular attention to userinterface techniques and the choice of software tools. Hopefully, the system will be userfriendly, even to novice users of IT." 2. "To guarantee that the future system meets the needs of users at the school level, a 'parmership' approach has been adopted where practising teachers and serving principals are actively involved during implementation . . . . serving teachers and principals have been seconded to work closely with system engineers in the actual design work." 3. "Pilots are being conducted in schools where prototypes are tested in an operational environment and the evaluation findings will serve as the basis of improvement" (p. 55). The first measure spelled out by Hsu is an expression of hope. User-friendliness is stressed in the design and development of SAMS so that user acceptance can be obtained. This measure can be considered more of a design and development objective, while measures two and three are more strategic. An "evolutionary strategy" is being adopted as SAMS is being designed and developed in an attempt to solve the four problems mentioned earlier. These three proclaimed design and development principles together form the "intended" design and development strategy. What really happened in practice is described in the next section.
The Actual Design and Development Strategy A SAMS project team was officially formed in September 1993 under ED to take charge of design and development, implementation, training, and support for schools. Members of the team consisted of ED officers and ITSD staff. The following paragraphs describe steps taken by the project team in connection with the design and development of SAMS.
User Group and Representatives Following the user-involvement strategy, a user group was formed in October 1993 to assist the SAMS project team. The user group has about ten members and includes primary and
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secondary heads as well as teachers with experience in the use of computer-assisted administration. The user group was divided into subgroups attending to issues related to the modules to be developed in SAMS: Data Standardization, Security, Housekeeping, School Management, Student Data, Assessment, Timetabling, School Finance, Programme Scheduling, and Staff Data. Proposals for the design of SAMS, including inputs, outputs, and formats, were initiated by the SAMS project team. These were then given to the user group for comments. Frequent discussion meetings between the project team and the user group were held in the first year. Final decisions were made by the project team but user input did have some effect at times. For example, the acceptance of using a Windows platform with color monitors was due to strong opinions from the user group against monochromes. On the other hand, the decision to have one SAMS system for all primary and secondary schools (instead of two separate ones) was a decision taken by the project team irrespective of alternatives suggested by the user group.
School Visits and Seminars Members of the project team visited about six schools with computer-assisted administration systems in the first half year of project development. Each visit lasted no more than half a day and the primary purpose was to get some idea of how schools were operating. Some computer printouts were collected in these schools for reference. In addition, a large sample of over a hundred different school report cards was collected around the territory. During the design and development process, schools were invited to seminars where different designed SAMS modules were explained to school representatives. These were also occasions where opinions of users were collected.
Prototypes and Pilots Between September 1993 and June 1994, five SAMS modules were developed: Housekeeping, Security, School Management, Student Data, and Assessment. Prototypes of these modules were first examined by the user group before they were placed in ten pilot schools during the summer of 1994. There was no formal evaluation of the pilot, however. Implementation subsequently began in groups of schools in September 1994 when the first version of SAMS was disseminated to other schools.
Informal Feedback from Users Training and support followed as SAMS began its "roll-out" to schools. A hot-line telephone support service was set up so that SAMS users could telephone for help. In addition to the seminars as earlier described, feedback from users was obtained from the training sessions and the hot-line. So far, there has not been any formal organization of the feedback nor any evaluation of SAMS. Continuous Revision
Based on the information collected as explained above, the SAMS system is continuously being revised. In March 1996, SAMS is already in its fourth version, with the fifth forthcoming.
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A.C.W. FUNG Reflections on the Hong Kong Strategy
In looking back on the strategy used to develop and implement SAMS, several comments seem appropriate and timely. They are presented in this section.
User Participation User-participation in information systems development has become quite well accepted as one of the most critical factors for success (Mumford & Weir, 1979; Ives & Olson, 1984; Jarvenpaa & Ives, 1991). For instance, ETHICS is a method that advocates user participation throughout the systems design stage to produce a socio-technical system (Mumford & Weir, 1979; Mumford, 1983). JAD (Joint Application Design) similarly stresses user involvement in the systems development process (Wood & Silver, 1989; Kettelhut, 1993). Furthermore, as King & Cleland (1987) have suggested, there is considerable evidence that the lack of involvement of users in different phases of systems development has been a significant factor contributing to the failure of many management information systems to perform as expected. ED's strategy of involving user groups, school visits, and seminars well demonstrates the merits recognized from user participation in the SAMS development. The pooling of experience from schools has much to contribute and also generates commitment and support.
One System for All The SAMS project team decided that there should be only one SAMS for both primary and secondary schools of any type, with dual language (English and Chinese) capabilities. The value of having one system for all schools, instead of two separate systems, respectively, for the primary and the secondary sector, is cost-effectiveness in system maintenance, enhancement, support, and training. The drawback, however, is that the current SAMS is rather complicated, and quite clumsy to use. For example, some data items not required by primary schools appear on the standard screen display, and vice versa for secondary schools. Users are thus presented with quite a number of irrelevant data fields which they must omit in input and output. No attempt was made in the design to automatically filter out unnecessary items for different types of users.
Prototype and Piloting This is perhaps the part of the intended strategy that has been put into actual practice most poorly. Prototypes of the SAMS modules were very nearly end products when they were given to the user group to test for user acceptance. Minimal revisions were made in the prototypes before the modules were given to the ten pilot schools for field-testing. Similarly, the piloting was not formally evaluated and the same version of SAMS was disseminated shortly afterwards to other schools. The piloting can be considered more appropriately as first phase implementation in ten schools. It did help in some way for ED to gain experience, for example, in implementation procedures such as site preparation in schools, data conversion, and training. The piloting, strictly speaking, was not related much to system design and development.
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Standardization versus Flexibility Data standardization is an important issue in the SAMS project. The strategy used in SAMS is to identify first the standard set of core data items required for both ED and schools in future electronic transfers. Second, data items that schools individually might require are provided as "free-entry" fields. The structure of the data files are then designed and fixed and the input of core data is controlled using three kinds of codified tables. The merit of this strategy is the provision of flexibility together with standardization. However, because the system has to cater for all types of schools, a large number of codified tables has to be maintained. Housekeeping for the system is therefore quite a tedious business for the school users. Because of this, perhaps, and to avoid complexity in design and programming, schools are not given further flexibility to add user defined data fields. For security reasons, SAMS is designed to be a closed system, i.e., users are not permitted to write their own programs to input data into SAMS even if they have the skills needed to program in FoxPro. This limitation is understandable since ED is responsible for maintenance and support of the system. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to support different school users writing individual add-on programs (possibly with bugs). An alternative way to provide users with some flexibility is to allow extraction of partial data from SAMS into a user enhancement area for self-developed programs and to provide schools with the FoxPro programming tool. The strategy employed certainly has merits in giving flexibility to schools while at the same time satisfying ~equirements for standardization. Furthermore, it is in line with what Fung (1991) has recommended to solve the dilemma of standardization versus flexibility.
The Evolutionary Approach In addition to the user group, ED has gone one step further and set up a user enhancement group for the purpose of pooling expertise from school users interested in program development. Teachers are encouraged to develop enhancement programs on their own and contribute such programs to be shared among schools. Such self-developed programs are made available to other users initially from a bulletin board system. There is also the intention to select the good ones from this pool for future incorporation into SAMS. The user enhancement group was later changed formally into an Add-on Programme Section (APS) within ED. Although the work of APS is only peripheral and separated from the main SAMS development by ITSD, this change indicates clearly the evolutionary development strategy adopted by ED. Perhaps it is a recognition that SAMS could not be developed as a one-shot package that would satisfy different user needs. The merit of this evolutionary strategy in design and development is that the system gets continual improvement and can conform with new user requirements as time changes. In practice, the outcome of the main development work in SAMS is also rapidly changing. One major demerit of this strategy is that the implementation of a fast-changing system in schools could be interpreted as immature development by some users. In fact, a majority of schools are taking a "wait-and-see" attitude and are not yet fully committed to using the SAMS currently installed. The evolutionary development strategy therefore has a "back-wash" effect on implementation. Moreover, it is also demanding for the SAMS project team to attend to revision, development, and implementation at the same time.
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Looking back at the intended design and development strategy and what has been done in practice, it may be difficult to understand why the SAMS system, even with user participation in the design and development process, is still far from a user-friendly system. Two major causes are most probable - - the political factor and the lack of a fundamental approach in system design.
The Political Factor In the issue of user involvement and participation, the SAMS case has raised interesting questions: (1) Who is the genuine user? and (2) Is the involvement genuine, i.e., does the user have a real say? In the SAMS project, ED is technically supported by ITSD. Because ITSD oversees all IT-services in Hong Kong government departments, its roles in SAMS thus include the "expert in control", on the one hand, and the "service provider", on the other. Although SAMS is intended to be an administration and management system for school use, ITSD considers the ED as their client and user, not the schools (Fung, Teather, Visscher, Wild, & Selwood, 1995). The idea of taking both ED and the schools as genuine users was simply missing from ITSD. Although there is a group of user-representatives from schools, formed under the ED to advise on the system development of SAMS, no such member is found on the Project Board. System requirements are therefore not directly obtained from nor negotiated with schools by ITSD, but instead through ED. The "user set", using King and Cleland's (1987) term, is thus differently interpreted by ITSD and by the schools, which consider themselves naturally as the primary users. This omission of "stakeholder analysis" (Lyytinen, 1987) could be a major cause of the currently unsatisfactory implementation of several SAMS-modules already installed in schools. The second question, whether user involvement is genuine or not, has no easy answer. In the SAMS case, although ED is the sponsor of the project, the straight jacket government policy of ITSD taking both roles of "expert" and "service provider" simultaneously has apparently given rise to more problems than it has solved. There are conflicts of interests and politics in system development. How seriously the ITSD considers suggestions and requirements from the ED and the user representative group has always been a problem. Much time and effort were spent on negotiations, but feedback through informal discussions between the author and the user representatives indicates strong dissatisfaction with the system requirements finally specified. Perhaps this was the major reason why ED had to adopt the evolutionary strategy in the design and development of SAMS. From the above, one can conclude that a formal strategy is one thing; how that strategy is applied is another.
The Lack of a Fundamental Approach in System Design A fundamental approach to the design of school information systems, according to Visscher and Spuck (1991), is one in which designers are aware that the first step is to draw a picture of the needs of the entire schoolin terms of informationflowsand informationdemands.Oncethis pictureis availableand whenthe mutual
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relationships between information elements are clear, it then is possible to define the architecture of the entire system, resulting in an information system framework. Subsequently, individual modules from the system framework are developed in a stepwise manner (p. 156).
The SAMS project team did not carry out any detailed feasibility study when the system was being designed and developed. As far as the author can see, the recommendations of an external consultancy feasibility study (KPMG, Peat Marwick, 1992) was a kind of blueprint for SAMS design and development. There was no evidence of a fundamental approach in the SAMS system design and development as defined by Visscher and Spuck. In the SCHOLIS project in the Netherlands (Visscher, 1991), for example, about two years of research on school information requirements was conducted before system development began. In contrast, programming for the SAMS had already begun within three months after the project was initiated. This was done so that something could be produced and rolled-out to schools within a year - - to meet deadlines laid down by the government. No effort was spent by ITSD in schools for detailed study and analysis of organizational information requirements. Instead, user representatives and officers of ED provided the major input in these areas. Davis (1987) has pointed out that "asking users for information requirements may not yield a complete correct set" (p. 237) - - the SAMS-case reflects exactly such an unfortunate situation. In the special issue "An International Analysis on Computer-assisted School Administration and Management", Visscher and Spuck (1991) observed that "the fundamental approach to system design is not yet widespread. On the contrary, the majority of countries have not achieved this level of system development, and those who have are really exceptions" (p. 156). The SAMS case has demonstrated that a system design and development strategy affects directly the quality of the system produced, and therefore, has strong implications for the implementation process. Moreover, high quality systems cannot be developed with a strategy that ignores detailed studies of school organizational information requirements. In other words, high quality systems cannot be developed without using a fundamental approach. References Davis, G. B. (1987). Strategies for information requirements determination. In R. Galliers (Ed.) Information analysis: Selected readings. Sydney: Addison-Wesley Publishers. Fung, A. C. W. (1991). Computer assisted school administration in Hong Kong. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 24(1), 41-61. Fung, A. C. W., Teather, D. C. B., Visscher, A. J., Wild, P., & Selwood, I. (1995). SAMS preliminary study report. Unpublished report submitted to the Research Committee, Hong Kong Baptist University. Hsu, S. H. (1995). Case study of the information systems stratgegy (ISS) of the Hong Kong Education Department. In B. Z. Barta, M. Telem & Y. Gev (Eds.), Information technology in educational management. London: Chapman & Hall. Ives, B. & Olson, M. H. 0984). User involvement and MIS success: A review of research. Management Science, 30, 586-608. Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Ives, B. (1991). Executive involvement and participation in the management of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 15(2), 229-242. Kettelhut, M. C. (1993). JAD methodology and group dynamics. Information Systems Management, 10(1), 46-53. King, W. R., & Cleland, D. I. (1987). The design of management information systems: An information system analysis approach. In R. Galliers (Ed.), Information analysis: Selected readings. Sydney: Addison-Wesley Publishers. KPMG, Peat Marwick, (1992). A study of the information needs of the schools education programme of the Hong Kong government - - Annex 4: User functional requirements for school based systems to support the implementation of the School Management Initiative. Unpublished report submitted to the Hong Kong government. Lyytinen, K. (1987). A taxonomic perspective of information systems development: Theoretical constructs and recommendations. In R. J. Boland Jr. & R. A. Hirschheim (Eds.), Critical issues in information systems research. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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Mumford, E., & Weir, M. (1979). Computer systems in work design - - the ETHICS method. New York:Wiley. Mumford, E. (1983). Designing human systems. Manchester:ManchesterBusiness School. Visscher, A. J. (1991). Computer-assistedschool administration - - the Dutch experience. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 24(1), 91-106. Visscher,A. J., & Spuck,D. W. (1991). Computer-assistedschooladministrationand management:The stateof the art in seven nations. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 24(1), 146-167. Wood, J., & Silver, D. (1989). Joint application design. New York:Wiley Press.
Biography Alex C. W. Fung received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Education, University of London, and is a senior lecturer at the Department of Education Studies of Hong Kong Baptist University. His special research interests are in the areas of management of educational change and information technology in education. He has been an Advisor for the School Administration & Management System project of the Hong Kong Education Department since 1993 when the government launched the computerization scheme for all schools in Hong Kong. He is currently also the Director of the SAMS Training & Research Unit at the Hong Kong Baptist University.
AN EVALUATION OF THE HONG KONG DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY ALEX C. W. FUNG Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
Abstract This chapter addresses the complexissues of a district-wide school information system design and development in Hong Kong. The SAMS (SchoolAdministration & Management System) is being implemented by the governmentin about 1,500 schools. The focus of the chapter is on the system design and developmentstrategy and the related outcome.Evidencethat a design and development strategy withoutgenuine user participation produces a low quality systemand low user acceptanceis provided. Besides technical issues there are political factorsthat need to be consideredin designing and developinga district-wide school informationsystem. Moreover, an officiallyintended design and developmentstrategyis one thing; the actual strategy is another. Furthermore, the SAMSproject shows that high quality systemscannotbe developedusing a strategythat ignores a detailed study of school organizationalinformationrequirements. Copyright© 1996Elsevier ScienceLtd
Introduction In September 1993, the Hong Kong Government adopted the recommendations of an external consultancy report to implement "The Information Systems Strategy for the Hong Kong Education Department". A five-year budget of about 550 million Hong Kong dollars (US$ 70 million) was provided to computerize the Education Department (ED) and all schools in the public sector (about 1,500 primary and secondary). The project is referred io as the School Administration and Management System (SAMS); schools are given a standard SAMS-package of computer hardware and software. The computer hardware given to each school is a local area network with one server and three to four workstations depending on the school size. In the future, schools will be tele-linked to 19 different district education offices in the territory as well as to El) headquarters. When the project is in place SAMS will assist schools in internal administration and management, as well as in electronic data transfer with ED. The SAMS software package is being centrally developed by the government. Three main parties are involved in system design and development, piloting, and implementation (including training, maintenance and support): ED (the sponsor), the schools (the users), and Information Technology Services Department (ITSD; the technology provider). As this last party is the 297
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official agent for all information technology projects in all Hong Kong government departments, it is responsible for the design and development of SAMS. ED takes charge of financing and implementing the project in the schools. The Hong Kong case is a rather rare example, in terms of both the scale of implementation and the investment, of a government taking a central lead in school information systems. The SAMS project is now in its third year with design and development work still ongoing. In addition, phased implementation of parts of the system is already in about 300 schools. In this chapter, problems faced in the design and development of SAMS are first described. This is followed by a section describing the officially intended strategy, and another section on the actual strategy adopted. After a discussion of the merits and demerits of the actual strategy, the chapter ends with a presentation of key issues identified in the SAMS case in relation to design and development strategies for school information systems.
Problems Faced in the Design and Development of SAMS In the development of a standard school information system that can be applied in all primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, a large number of factors has to be taken into consideration. On the one hand, SAMS had to satisfy requirements for administration and management in individual schools. On the other, it had to satisfy requirements for administering schools at the central ED level and for forecfisting and planning for the entire education system. This formidable task has a number of potential problem areas. According to Hsu (1995), Assistant Director of Education, there are four major issues.
The Problem of Standardization versus Flexibility There is extremely considerable diversity in schools and the whole system has become extremely complex. To take a few examples,we see vastly differenttypes of curriculum, many different modes of funding arrangements,and markedlydifferenttimetablestructures. Whereasdiversityand choice may he advantageous under open marketconditions, this situation presents difficulties when data items need to he standardised at a corporatelevel (p. 54). Schools are all different in terms of what kind of data they currently store and how such data are being handled and used in various formats. They are also different in their work-flows and habits. Integration and standardization, with enough built-in flexibility to take care of unique school characteristics and autonomy, is no easy problem to solve. The implications of this problem for the SAMS design and development strategy are related to data standardization and system architecture. To enable data transfer between ED and schools electronically, data requirements of both parties have to be identified and then standardized codes have to be defined. A balance has to be achieved between the central department's view and the users' view with regard to the quantity and the kind of data to be input and stored. The design of the system has to provide sufficient flexibility, for example, to allow individual schools to store their own additional data in addition to the standard set.
The Problem of Two Languages The system is further complicated by the fact that we have two official languages, English and Chinese.... While computerprocessingin English is commonplace, the processingof information in Chinese has yet to be standardised (p. 54).
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While primary schools in Hong Kong commonly use the Chinese language, secondary schools mainly use English (with some Chinese where necessary) in their documents. SAMS has therefore to cater to both languages for input and output. Technically speaking this is not much of a problem as commercial software such as Chinese Windows, Chinese Word, and Chinese Excel are quite commonly used. However, depending on the sophistication of the hardware chosen and the architecture of the design when large databases are involved, the response speed of the system might be unsatisfactory with Chinese processing. The resolution of this issue thus depends on the quality of the SAMS hardware and on the design of SAMS software. The implications for the SAMS design and development strategy are related to the choice of the hardware, the operating system, and the programming tools. The capacity of the configuration chosen and its compatibility with further development and upgrading will affect significantly the quality of SAMS in the future with technological advances in Chinese language processing.
The Problem of Scale The informationsystemaims at providingan electroniclinkagefor no less than 1,500schools.Its sheer size is a pioneeringeffortfor Hong Kong(p. 54). This problem of scale is not just one of technicality. Difficulties in training, support, and the time frame have to be recognized as well. The SAMS project is targeted for completion within five years (1993-1998) and the total number of teachers affected in the 1,500 schools is estimated to be around 50,000 together with another 4,000 school office staff. The issue here is not just one of implementation, training, and support for a large number of schools. The system design and development strategy play a vital role in determining system quality. Efforts required in implementation, training, and support are dependent directly on the quality of the SAMS system produced. The implications for the SAMS design and development strategy are mainly related to the "user-interface", i.e., how "easy-to-use" SAMS is. As school staff in general are only lay persons with regard to computers, they can only be expected to operate SAMS. They will likely lack an understanding of the internal architecture and technical background operations of the system. Thus, SAMS must be designed, as far as possible, to be error-proof (with enough errortrapping routines in anticipation of operation mistakes of lay-users), easy to operate (with sufficient on-line help), and uncomplicated to maintain (as there is no computer systems personnel within schools employed for such a function).
Different IT-cultures in Primary and Secondary Schools Computers are not common in Hong Kong primary schools; consequently, the problems of user resistance there may include technical, social, organizational, and cultural issues. For the secondary schools, a different picture arises. The majority of secondary schools have already computerized their administration to different extents, using individual systems tailored to their own needs and requirements. Secondary schools, then, would be quite reluctant to shift to a new SAMS unless they find good reasons for doing so. ED could not force schools to use SAMS. Schools accustomed to their own systems might find SAMS inconvenient, not sufficiently comprehensive, outputting different formats (e.g., report cards to parents), and inflexible (because schools are not allowed to write their own programs intruding into the SAMS). SAMS
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must be a better system than the ones the schools already have or else the shift to SAMS will not be made. This is a challenge to those designing SAMS. The secondary school users might expect SAMS to be a sophisticated system with functions more advanced than their existing individual systems; the primary school users without much computer background could find such a system too complicated to manage. An ideal system would be sophisticated but at the same time include all basic functions for first-time-users, allowing the latter to use part or all of the system functions as they advance in their computer knowledge.
The Intended Design and Development Strategy ED well recognizes the major problems inherent in the SAMS project and the measures to deal with them. Hsu (1995) summarizes the measures that will be taken. 1. "To improve user acceptance, the system will be designed with particular attention to userinterface techniques and the choice of software tools. Hopefully, the system will be userfriendly, even to novice users of IT." 2. "To guarantee that the future system meets the needs of users at the school level, a 'parmership' approach has been adopted where practising teachers and serving principals are actively involved during implementation . . . . serving teachers and principals have been seconded to work closely with system engineers in the actual design work." 3. "Pilots are being conducted in schools where prototypes are tested in an operational environment and the evaluation findings will serve as the basis of improvement" (p. 55). The first measure spelled out by Hsu is an expression of hope. User-friendliness is stressed in the design and development of SAMS so that user acceptance can be obtained. This measure can be considered more of a design and development objective, while measures two and three are more strategic. An "evolutionary strategy" is being adopted as SAMS is being designed and developed in an attempt to solve the four problems mentioned earlier. These three proclaimed design and development principles together form the "intended" design and development strategy. What really happened in practice is described in the next section.
The Actual Design and Development Strategy A SAMS project team was officially formed in September 1993 under ED to take charge of design and development, implementation, training, and support for schools. Members of the team consisted of ED officers and ITSD staff. The following paragraphs describe steps taken by the project team in connection with the design and development of SAMS.
User Group and Representatives Following the user-involvement strategy, a user group was formed in October 1993 to assist the SAMS project team. The user group has about ten members and includes primary and
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secondary heads as well as teachers with experience in the use of computer-assisted administration. The user group was divided into subgroups attending to issues related to the modules to be developed in SAMS: Data Standardization, Security, Housekeeping, School Management, Student Data, Assessment, Timetabling, School Finance, Programme Scheduling, and Staff Data. Proposals for the design of SAMS, including inputs, outputs, and formats, were initiated by the SAMS project team. These were then given to the user group for comments. Frequent discussion meetings between the project team and the user group were held in the first year. Final decisions were made by the project team but user input did have some effect at times. For example, the acceptance of using a Windows platform with color monitors was due to strong opinions from the user group against monochromes. On the other hand, the decision to have one SAMS system for all primary and secondary schools (instead of two separate ones) was a decision taken by the project team irrespective of alternatives suggested by the user group.
School Visits and Seminars Members of the project team visited about six schools with computer-assisted administration systems in the first half year of project development. Each visit lasted no more than half a day and the primary purpose was to get some idea of how schools were operating. Some computer printouts were collected in these schools for reference. In addition, a large sample of over a hundred different school report cards was collected around the territory. During the design and development process, schools were invited to seminars where different designed SAMS modules were explained to school representatives. These were also occasions where opinions of users were collected.
Prototypes and Pilots Between September 1993 and June 1994, five SAMS modules were developed: Housekeeping, Security, School Management, Student Data, and Assessment. Prototypes of these modules were first examined by the user group before they were placed in ten pilot schools during the summer of 1994. There was no formal evaluation of the pilot, however. Implementation subsequently began in groups of schools in September 1994 when the first version of SAMS was disseminated to other schools.
Informal Feedback from Users Training and support followed as SAMS began its "roll-out" to schools. A hot-line telephone support service was set up so that SAMS users could telephone for help. In addition to the seminars as earlier described, feedback from users was obtained from the training sessions and the hot-line. So far, there has not been any formal organization of the feedback nor any evaluation of SAMS. Continuous Revision
Based on the information collected as explained above, the SAMS system is continuously being revised. In March 1996, SAMS is already in its fourth version, with the fifth forthcoming.
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A.C.W. FUNG Reflections on the Hong Kong Strategy
In looking back on the strategy used to develop and implement SAMS, several comments seem appropriate and timely. They are presented in this section.
User Participation User-participation in information systems development has become quite well accepted as one of the most critical factors for success (Mumford & Weir, 1979; Ives & Olson, 1984; Jarvenpaa & Ives, 1991). For instance, ETHICS is a method that advocates user participation throughout the systems design stage to produce a socio-technical system (Mumford & Weir, 1979; Mumford, 1983). JAD (Joint Application Design) similarly stresses user involvement in the systems development process (Wood & Silver, 1989; Kettelhut, 1993). Furthermore, as King & Cleland (1987) have suggested, there is considerable evidence that the lack of involvement of users in different phases of systems development has been a significant factor contributing to the failure of many management information systems to perform as expected. ED's strategy of involving user groups, school visits, and seminars well demonstrates the merits recognized from user participation in the SAMS development. The pooling of experience from schools has much to contribute and also generates commitment and support.
One System for All The SAMS project team decided that there should be only one SAMS for both primary and secondary schools of any type, with dual language (English and Chinese) capabilities. The value of having one system for all schools, instead of two separate systems, respectively, for the primary and the secondary sector, is cost-effectiveness in system maintenance, enhancement, support, and training. The drawback, however, is that the current SAMS is rather complicated, and quite clumsy to use. For example, some data items not required by primary schools appear on the standard screen display, and vice versa for secondary schools. Users are thus presented with quite a number of irrelevant data fields which they must omit in input and output. No attempt was made in the design to automatically filter out unnecessary items for different types of users.
Prototype and Piloting This is perhaps the part of the intended strategy that has been put into actual practice most poorly. Prototypes of the SAMS modules were very nearly end products when they were given to the user group to test for user acceptance. Minimal revisions were made in the prototypes before the modules were given to the ten pilot schools for field-testing. Similarly, the piloting was not formally evaluated and the same version of SAMS was disseminated shortly afterwards to other schools. The piloting can be considered more appropriately as first phase implementation in ten schools. It did help in some way for ED to gain experience, for example, in implementation procedures such as site preparation in schools, data conversion, and training. The piloting, strictly speaking, was not related much to system design and development.
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Standardization versus Flexibility Data standardization is an important issue in the SAMS project. The strategy used in SAMS is to identify first the standard set of core data items required for both ED and schools in future electronic transfers. Second, data items that schools individually might require are provided as "free-entry" fields. The structure of the data files are then designed and fixed and the input of core data is controlled using three kinds of codified tables. The merit of this strategy is the provision of flexibility together with standardization. However, because the system has to cater for all types of schools, a large number of codified tables has to be maintained. Housekeeping for the system is therefore quite a tedious business for the school users. Because of this, perhaps, and to avoid complexity in design and programming, schools are not given further flexibility to add user defined data fields. For security reasons, SAMS is designed to be a closed system, i.e., users are not permitted to write their own programs to input data into SAMS even if they have the skills needed to program in FoxPro. This limitation is understandable since ED is responsible for maintenance and support of the system. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to support different school users writing individual add-on programs (possibly with bugs). An alternative way to provide users with some flexibility is to allow extraction of partial data from SAMS into a user enhancement area for self-developed programs and to provide schools with the FoxPro programming tool. The strategy employed certainly has merits in giving flexibility to schools while at the same time satisfying ~equirements for standardization. Furthermore, it is in line with what Fung (1991) has recommended to solve the dilemma of standardization versus flexibility.
The Evolutionary Approach In addition to the user group, ED has gone one step further and set up a user enhancement group for the purpose of pooling expertise from school users interested in program development. Teachers are encouraged to develop enhancement programs on their own and contribute such programs to be shared among schools. Such self-developed programs are made available to other users initially from a bulletin board system. There is also the intention to select the good ones from this pool for future incorporation into SAMS. The user enhancement group was later changed formally into an Add-on Programme Section (APS) within ED. Although the work of APS is only peripheral and separated from the main SAMS development by ITSD, this change indicates clearly the evolutionary development strategy adopted by ED. Perhaps it is a recognition that SAMS could not be developed as a one-shot package that would satisfy different user needs. The merit of this evolutionary strategy in design and development is that the system gets continual improvement and can conform with new user requirements as time changes. In practice, the outcome of the main development work in SAMS is also rapidly changing. One major demerit of this strategy is that the implementation of a fast-changing system in schools could be interpreted as immature development by some users. In fact, a majority of schools are taking a "wait-and-see" attitude and are not yet fully committed to using the SAMS currently installed. The evolutionary development strategy therefore has a "back-wash" effect on implementation. Moreover, it is also demanding for the SAMS project team to attend to revision, development, and implementation at the same time.
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Looking back at the intended design and development strategy and what has been done in practice, it may be difficult to understand why the SAMS system, even with user participation in the design and development process, is still far from a user-friendly system. Two major causes are most probable - - the political factor and the lack of a fundamental approach in system design.
The Political Factor In the issue of user involvement and participation, the SAMS case has raised interesting questions: (1) Who is the genuine user? and (2) Is the involvement genuine, i.e., does the user have a real say? In the SAMS project, ED is technically supported by ITSD. Because ITSD oversees all IT-services in Hong Kong government departments, its roles in SAMS thus include the "expert in control", on the one hand, and the "service provider", on the other. Although SAMS is intended to be an administration and management system for school use, ITSD considers the ED as their client and user, not the schools (Fung, Teather, Visscher, Wild, & Selwood, 1995). The idea of taking both ED and the schools as genuine users was simply missing from ITSD. Although there is a group of user-representatives from schools, formed under the ED to advise on the system development of SAMS, no such member is found on the Project Board. System requirements are therefore not directly obtained from nor negotiated with schools by ITSD, but instead through ED. The "user set", using King and Cleland's (1987) term, is thus differently interpreted by ITSD and by the schools, which consider themselves naturally as the primary users. This omission of "stakeholder analysis" (Lyytinen, 1987) could be a major cause of the currently unsatisfactory implementation of several SAMS-modules already installed in schools. The second question, whether user involvement is genuine or not, has no easy answer. In the SAMS case, although ED is the sponsor of the project, the straight jacket government policy of ITSD taking both roles of "expert" and "service provider" simultaneously has apparently given rise to more problems than it has solved. There are conflicts of interests and politics in system development. How seriously the ITSD considers suggestions and requirements from the ED and the user representative group has always been a problem. Much time and effort were spent on negotiations, but feedback through informal discussions between the author and the user representatives indicates strong dissatisfaction with the system requirements finally specified. Perhaps this was the major reason why ED had to adopt the evolutionary strategy in the design and development of SAMS. From the above, one can conclude that a formal strategy is one thing; how that strategy is applied is another.
The Lack of a Fundamental Approach in System Design A fundamental approach to the design of school information systems, according to Visscher and Spuck (1991), is one in which designers are aware that the first step is to draw a picture of the needs of the entire schoolin terms of informationflowsand informationdemands.Oncethis pictureis availableand whenthe mutual
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relationships between information elements are clear, it then is possible to define the architecture of the entire system, resulting in an information system framework. Subsequently, individual modules from the system framework are developed in a stepwise manner (p. 156).
The SAMS project team did not carry out any detailed feasibility study when the system was being designed and developed. As far as the author can see, the recommendations of an external consultancy feasibility study (KPMG, Peat Marwick, 1992) was a kind of blueprint for SAMS design and development. There was no evidence of a fundamental approach in the SAMS system design and development as defined by Visscher and Spuck. In the SCHOLIS project in the Netherlands (Visscher, 1991), for example, about two years of research on school information requirements was conducted before system development began. In contrast, programming for the SAMS had already begun within three months after the project was initiated. This was done so that something could be produced and rolled-out to schools within a year - - to meet deadlines laid down by the government. No effort was spent by ITSD in schools for detailed study and analysis of organizational information requirements. Instead, user representatives and officers of ED provided the major input in these areas. Davis (1987) has pointed out that "asking users for information requirements may not yield a complete correct set" (p. 237) - - the SAMS-case reflects exactly such an unfortunate situation. In the special issue "An International Analysis on Computer-assisted School Administration and Management", Visscher and Spuck (1991) observed that "the fundamental approach to system design is not yet widespread. On the contrary, the majority of countries have not achieved this level of system development, and those who have are really exceptions" (p. 156). The SAMS case has demonstrated that a system design and development strategy affects directly the quality of the system produced, and therefore, has strong implications for the implementation process. Moreover, high quality systems cannot be developed with a strategy that ignores detailed studies of school organizational information requirements. In other words, high quality systems cannot be developed without using a fundamental approach. References Davis, G. B. (1987). Strategies for information requirements determination. In R. Galliers (Ed.) Information analysis: Selected readings. Sydney: Addison-Wesley Publishers. Fung, A. C. W. (1991). Computer assisted school administration in Hong Kong. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 24(1), 41-61. Fung, A. C. W., Teather, D. C. B., Visscher, A. J., Wild, P., & Selwood, I. (1995). SAMS preliminary study report. Unpublished report submitted to the Research Committee, Hong Kong Baptist University. Hsu, S. H. (1995). Case study of the information systems stratgegy (ISS) of the Hong Kong Education Department. In B. Z. Barta, M. Telem & Y. Gev (Eds.), Information technology in educational management. London: Chapman & Hall. Ives, B. & Olson, M. H. 0984). User involvement and MIS success: A review of research. Management Science, 30, 586-608. Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Ives, B. (1991). Executive involvement and participation in the management of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 15(2), 229-242. Kettelhut, M. C. (1993). JAD methodology and group dynamics. Information Systems Management, 10(1), 46-53. King, W. R., & Cleland, D. I. (1987). The design of management information systems: An information system analysis approach. In R. Galliers (Ed.), Information analysis: Selected readings. Sydney: Addison-Wesley Publishers. KPMG, Peat Marwick, (1992). A study of the information needs of the schools education programme of the Hong Kong government - - Annex 4: User functional requirements for school based systems to support the implementation of the School Management Initiative. Unpublished report submitted to the Hong Kong government. Lyytinen, K. (1987). A taxonomic perspective of information systems development: Theoretical constructs and recommendations. In R. J. Boland Jr. & R. A. Hirschheim (Eds.), Critical issues in information systems research. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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Mumford, E., & Weir, M. (1979). Computer systems in work design - - the ETHICS method. New York:Wiley. Mumford, E. (1983). Designing human systems. Manchester:ManchesterBusiness School. Visscher, A. J. (1991). Computer-assistedschool administration - - the Dutch experience. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 24(1), 91-106. Visscher,A. J., & Spuck,D. W. (1991). Computer-assistedschooladministrationand management:The stateof the art in seven nations. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 24(1), 146-167. Wood, J., & Silver, D. (1989). Joint application design. New York:Wiley Press.
Biography Alex C. W. Fung received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Education, University of London, and is a senior lecturer at the Department of Education Studies of Hong Kong Baptist University. His special research interests are in the areas of management of educational change and information technology in education. He has been an Advisor for the School Administration & Management System project of the Hong Kong Education Department since 1993 when the government launched the computerization scheme for all schools in Hong Kong. He is currently also the Director of the SAMS Training & Research Unit at the Hong Kong Baptist University.