Came across this link today from the Educause site, detailing their National Learning Infrastructure Initiative.
The focus of this group is on the things they call the learning infrastructure – including course management systems, learning objects, assessment etc ?? but with a concern for the impact of these on cultural and organisational change. As it says on the site… ??… it is virtually impossible to change teaching and learning without involving academic affairs??.
Another comment I liked on the site…

??Another challenge is to help ourselves??and our institutions??better understand and respond to the new generation of students entering our campuses. They adopt technologies that are not part of our traditional arsenal (e.g., wikipediae, blogs, IM, social networking sites, etc.) and they use them in ways that are detached from the processes of the academy. We provide little if no constructive context for them to use these technologies to improve learning, and so they use them to amuse themselves. They have a na??ve understanding of intellectual property and academic integrity, and they learn in a multi-tasking, experiential fashion. We need to understand these phenomena so that we can better serve and educate today??s learners.??

There’s a powerpoint presentation that can be downloaded which is based on the group’s strategic planning meeting in August this year. It’s worth a look at – particularly from the perspective of how the Learner is being placed at the centre of all the thinking and infrastructure design – very similar to the “networked learner” notion that underpins what is happening in NZ.