Book review: Managing change in higher education: a learning environment architecture / by Peter Ford and others. - Buckingham : Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press, 1996. - ISBN 0-335-19791-4

Abstract

This composite review is intended to give readers a number of different perspectives on an important book. The technique, which was used in an earlier ALT-J review (in Volume 4 Number 2, 1996, pages 61-72), is a development of what Spiro et al (1988) call 'traversing the terrain'. Each reader will bring to a book bis or her own perspective, each of which may be a legitimate way of making sense of the ideas and arguments it contains. In order to give ALT-J readers a sense of others' views, we asked three different reviewers to consider the book, each from a different standpoint. Betty Collis, who has written extensively on educational innovation and new media has taken a pedagogical point of view. Gabriel Jacobs, Editor of ALT-J and a prolific writer on educational media, has taken a technical view. Bridget Somekh, recently appointed as Dean of Education at Huddersfield University and an internationally known educational researcher and writer on evaluation methodology, has taken a general philosophical view. Each of these views - pedagogical, technical and philosophical - represents one way of reading Managing Change in Higher Education: there are of course other ways, and readers will have their own points of view. To complete the multiple perspective, the Editor of the book, Tom King from the Interactive Learning group at ICL, was asked to respond to the reviewers' comments. His role was not to be so much to rebut others' remarks but to give a fresh impetus to the initial arguments in the book.