Use Your Own Device (UYOD) guidelines as a mechanism to enable sustainable mobile learning in a higher education institution

Despite significant research activity around mobile technologies and growing awareness of the potential of the mobile technologies for education, higher education institutions have not seen mobile learning happen on a large scale and in a sustainable manner. There is no guidance on how to create an environment that enables the use of personally owned devices in learning contexts to enable innovation in teaching practices in higher education institutions. There are many frameworks to guide the implementation of mobile learning initiatives in higher education institutions and evaluate the success of such initiatives. However, none of these frameworks or models provides a roadmap that considers all the processes systems, infrastructure and the people involved to incorporate a Use Your Own Device(UYOD) approach, which then helps to create an ecosystem where the use of mobile technologies to support learning and teaching is enabled. The frameworks also do not take into account the rapidly evolving nature of mobile device capability and the impacts of this on affordances that may be harnessed in learning and teaching contexts. This research aimed to determine how capacity for mobile learning can be created or enabled within an organisation such as a higher education institution in a manner that mitigates risks and creates the capacity to capitalize on the affordances of the technologies as organisations takes advantage of students bringing and using their own devices. The thesis presents guidelines for enabling a Use Your Own Device (UYOD) approach to creating a mobile learning enabled environment within an organisation such as a higher education institution. The guidelines proposed are the result of three cycles of Design-Based Research (DBR) based on Roger’s theory of Diffusion Of Innovation(DOI), while also taking into consideration issues around organisational culture as they influence the progression of innovation in using mobile devices and technologies. The Design-Based Research(DBR) approach (also known as design science research) took iterative steps to build the guidelines through three cycles which investigated the questions: •What are the obstacles around “Use Your Own Device” (UYOD) in learning and teaching •How can policy and practice in an institutional context for UYOD respond to these obstacles? •What leadership requirements would be adequate to implement helpful policy and practice to enable UYOD for mobile learning? The proposed guidelines present a novel approach, leveraging the integration of individually owned devices to enabling mobile technologies for learning and teaching in how it considers the organisational culture alongside the process of creating the enabling systems and processes for facilitating innovation with mobile technologies. The contribution from this research is of value to technology leadership, policy influencers and learning technologists in higher education institutions, who are interested in enabling sustainable mobile learning initiatives. The guidelines proposed give strategic direction, which can be customised at a local level to suit the conditions of a particular organisatio