Abstract
This qualitative case study explored the broad issue of how to successfully bring about large-scale technological change, and more specifically it examined the factors involved in technological change adoption. The research question was “What are the factors that enabled or impeded the wide-scale implementation of a student information system in a large, complex urban school district?” The setting for this case study was the educational sites of the Vancouver Board of Education. The case involved the implementation of an electronic student information system called the British Columbia enterprise Student Information System or BCeSIS. Participants in this study included four key members of the change implementation team and 186 people who were directly impacted by the change initiative. From the data, the following six findings emerged of which the first four factors enabled a technological change and the last two factors hindered the change: 1) an independent implementation team, 2) distributed leadership, 3) pilot/phased implementation schedule, 4) a customized training system, 5) lack of technological infrastructure/readiness, and 6) lack of comprehensive/cohesive messaging and communications. From the findings, four key conclusions were drawn: 1) a change implementation plan should be of a heuristic iterative design, 2) a prototype implementation model be used, 3) leadership density be created, and 4) change initiatives and strategies work best when they are institution specific.
