The digitalization of universities from a students’ perspective

The digitalization of higher education institutions is progressing significantly. Though the use of digital assets enhances the students’ learning experience and offers new opportunities for administration, there are no uniform standards for the use of digital media in teaching and student services. As educational service providers, universities are dependent on students being able to cope with the structures offered. Thus it is essential to ascertain students’ attitudes of the technologies used. We asked students from three blended learning courses about their perceptions. We further asked the students what should be done and by whom. Our results show that students see structural changes occurring not only in themselves but also at the level of the university management. Our research contributes to the actual discussion about the digitalization of higher education by offering suggestions for development from a students’ view. The results are valuable for lecturers and faculty managers who want to advance the digitalization of services and learning.Brink, H.; Packmohr, S.; Vogelsang, K. (2020). The digitalization of universities from a students’ perspective. En 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (30-05-2020):967-974. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd20.2020.11181OCS96797430-05-202

Comparing Pre- and Intra-Covid-19 students’ perception of the digitalization of higher education institutions

[EN] Higher education institutions (HEIs) are significantly progressing, especially to external affordances caused by Covid-19. Digital assets are an opportunity during the pandemic to secure social distance and enhance the students’ learning experience at the same time. Also, student administration might benefit from new digitally-enhanced opportunities. There is no uniform procedure for the use of digital media in teaching and student services. Thus, HEIs need to ascertain students’ attitudes toward the technologies used. To compare attitudes before and during the pandemic, we surveyed students about their perceptions. The first round of surveys was completed in a blended learning setting in fall 2019 before the global pandemic of Covid-19. The second round was conducted in an online learning setting in February 2021 after nearly one year of higher education under Covid-19. Our results show that students’ perceptions toward digitalization at HEIs differ in many aspects due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Students during the pandemic are more critical of the effects on their learning success. The study indicates that the adoption has taken place more quickly in services. Still, teaching concepts and the learning culture are lagging.Packmohr, S.; Brink, H. (2021). Comparing Pre- and Intra-Covid-19 students’ perception of the digitalization of higher education institutions. En 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 719-726. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd21.2021.13044OCS71972

El impacto económico y las posturas de los actores principales en un ámbito universitario digitalizado

Substantial insecurity about the future of eLearning and particularly about the future impact of digitalization on the educational sector prevails at present. Those, who were enthusiastic at the beginning are now more sceptical about the future development of teaching with digital media, others maintain their positive attitude and are looking for ways to promote and implement their use in universities. Numerous institutions have published or are publishing forecasts and time frames about the relevance of the upcoming innovations. Less discussed are the economic implications that digitization may have on the universities‘ stakeholders and their decision making. In the field of online and distance education a descriptive approach of the costs and benefits has been so far predominant. Instead we will raise some points to initiate a discussion about the economics of digital educational resources and the possible reactions of and impact on teachers, students and institutions. We will also point out some of the long-term effects that digitalization of education might have on a global level.Concluding that digitization followed a continuous development pulsed especially by universities of distance education and that phenomena such as MOOCs are not as "disruptive" as some claim. Instead, national policies, economic sustainability and the impact of digitization on different stakeholders will determine the future form of the "Digital University" in case such a university exists.Actualmente predomina una sustancial inseguridad sobre el futuro del eLearning, y en particular sobre el impacto de la digitalización en el sector educativo. Muchos que al inicio se mostraron entusiastas ahora son más escépticos sobre el futuro desarrollo de la enseñanza mediada por tecnología, mientras que algunos mantuvieron su actitud positiva y siguen buscando formas de promover e implementar su uso en las universidades. Menos discutidas son las implicaciones económicas que la digitalización puede tener sobre las partes interesadas de las universidades y su toma de decisiones; mientras que, en el campo de la educación a distancia en línea, un enfoque descriptivo de los costos y beneficios ha predominado hasta ahora.Partiendo de la crítica sobre el criterio metodológico empleado en algunos estudios, se discutirá el posible impacto de la digitalización en una futura universidad digital desde tres ángulos diferentes: una perspectiva histórica, una perspectiva económica, y las actitudes de los actores y sus características. En el pasado el análisis descriptivo de costos y beneficios de los cursos en línea era la forma predominante para analizar la eficiencia comparativa de diferentes sistemas de educación. Al contrario, queremos focalizar algunos puntos claves para incentivar un debate sobre la economía de recursos digitales y sus efectos sobre los respectivos actores principales (stakeholders). Además, trataremos perspectivas a largo plazo respecto a los efectos de la digitalización de contenidos educativos en un mundo global.Concluyendo que la digitalización siguió un desarrollo continuo impulsado particularmente por las universidades de educación a distancia; y que fenómenos como los MOOC no son tan "disruptivos" como algunos pretenden. En su lugar, las políticas nacionales, la sostenibilidad económica y el impacto de la digitalización en las diferentes partes interesadas, determinarán la forma futura de la "Universidad Digital", en caso de que tal universidad existiera

IT Leadership in Transition - The Impact of Digitalization on Finnish Organizations

Digitalization is transforming business models across industries. As information technology (IT) is becoming embedded in products and services, IT leadership has an increasingly dualistic role in supporting the organization and also serving its customers' changing needs. The ACIO research program studied how Finnish industry and public sector organizations utilize information technology in developing and managing critical business capabilities. The focus was on understanding and analyzing contemporary approaches to IT leadership. This research report summarizes some of the key research findings, providing scholars and practitioners with insights into and understanding of digitalization and changes in IT leadership in Finnish informationintensive organizations

Smart Healthcare solutions in China and Europe, an international business perspective

The thesis is part of the Marie Curie Fellowship project addressing health related challenges with IoT solutions. The author tries to address the challenge for the implementation of telehealth solutions by finding out the demand of the telehealth solution in selected European economies and in China (chapter 1), analyzing the emerging business models for telehealth solution ecosystems in China (chapter 2), how to integrate telehealth solutions with institutional stakeholders (chapter 3) and why are elderly users willing to use telehealth solutions in China. Chapter 1 and chapter 2 form the theoretical background for empirical work in chapter 3 and chapter 4. The thesis addressed four research questions, namely “Which societal and social-economics unmet needs that Internet of Healthcare Things can help to resolve?”, “What are the business model innovation for tech companies in China for the smart health industry?”, “What are the facilitators and hurdles for implementing telehealth solutions”, “Are elderly users willing to use telehealth solutions in China?”. Both qualitative study and quantitative analysis has been made based on data collected by in depth interviews with stakeholders, focus group study work with urban and rural residents in China. The digital platform framework was used in chapter 2 as the theoretical framework where as the stakeholder power mapping framework was used in chapter 3. The discretion choice experiment was used in chapter 4 to design questionnaire study while ordered logit regression was used to analyze the data. Telehealth solutions have great potential to fill in the gap for lack of community healthcare and ensuring health continuity between home care setting, community healthcare and hospitals. There is strong demand for such solutions if they can prove the medical value in managing chronic disease by raising health awareness and lowering health risks by changing the patients’ lifestyle. Analyzing how to realize the value for preventive healthcare by proving the health-economic value of digital health solutions (telehealth solutions) is the focus of research. There remain hurdles to build trust for telehealth solutions and the use of AI in healthcare. Next step of research can also be extended to addressing such challenges by analyzing how to improve the transparency of algorithms by disclosing the data source, and how the algorithms were built. Further research can be done on data interoperability between the EHR systems and telehealth solutions. The medical value of telehealth solutions can improve if doctors could interpret data collected from telehealth solutions; furthermore, if doctors could make diagnosis and provide treatment, adjust healthcare management plans based on such data, telehealth solutions then can be included in insurance packages, making them more accessible

Exploring the impact of digital technology on women’s employment in Saudi Arabia

Digital technology is revolutionising employment, creating new job opportunities while disrupting traditional occupations. Few studies, however, have examined the impact of technology on women’s employment in developing countries. There is a scarcity of literature on employment opportunities arising from the digitalization of economies for women in Arab countries, especially in Saudi Arabia, from the leadership perspective. Hence, the aim of this study is to focus on exploring the impact of digital technologies on the employment opportunities in digital technologies for women of Saudi Arabia, where the unique political, social and economic characteristics of the state compound may contribute to employment opportunities and barriers against the successful participation of Saudi women in the labour market. This study explores the perspectives of leaders working in the government, businesses and the academic institutions about the employment opportunities created by digital technologies in the Saudi labour market for women.This study has adopted a methodology based on the structuration theory to explore the complexity involved in the subject matter which warranted the selection of participants from three key social structures: government, businesses and academic institutions and the results of semi-structured interviews with 40 participants (13-14 participants from each group) guided the researcher to derive important findings presented in this study. The afore-mentioned three groups were selected based on their overwhelming role in shaping and implementing the digital technologies in the emerging Saudi economy. Additionally, participants at leadership positions from the respective groups including both men and women were included as participants in this study, so that an in-depth insight into employment opportunities for Saudi women could be gained to highlight not only the employment opportunities but also the potential barriers in the ways of Saudi women in exploiting the employment opportunities if they do exist as a result of digitalization of Saudi economy. Importantly, leaderships from the included three groups included in this study are supposed to decide whether Saudi women need to be integrated in the labour market, which justifies the selection of participants occupying the leadership positions in business, academia and government and involved in digitalization of Saudi society and economy were included in this study. Thematic analysis was adopted to analyse the qualitative data, while the interpretation of data was done using the theoretical insights from the structuration theory.Based on the data presented in this study, the social structures of the Saudi society were theorized to play an important role in enhancing or hindering the Saudi women’s participation in the labour market created by digital technologies. Participants believed that there are employment opportunities for Saudi women in different areas of digital technologies such as graphics, entrepreneurships, online businesses, e-marketing, robotics and artificial intelligence. It was found that Saudi government has introduced several affirmative action programmes for women in collaboration with academic institutions and businesses for training and educating Saudi women in digital technologies. This study found evidence supporting the widespread use of social media as a marketing tool for home-based businesses, which could enable employment indigital technologies. The academic institutions in collaboration with businesses were found to be engaged in training women in digital technologies at vocational level, so that participation of Saudi women in digital technologies-assisted labour market could be made successful. The result showed some of the socio-cultural and structural levels barriers for a successful participation of Saudi women in the digital technologies-mediatedlabour market in Saudi Arabia. Among other obstacles that were identified involved the inadequacy of the educational curriculum for girls, particularly in science and engineering and technology-related disciplines. The finding of this study also revealed that career options were limited; family and community pressures and stereotypical attitude towards Saudi women’s employment in digital technologies. The lack of separate working environment, childcare facilities at organizations could limit participation of Saudi women in the labour market created by digital technologies. Moreover, the lack of transport facilities for female workers were identified to be some other barriers.This study has implications for governmental bodies endeavouring to foster the equal employment, education and training opportunities for Saudi women. The outcomes of this study could inform government of the potential socio-cultural and structural issues which could prevent the successful participation of Saudi women in the national economy and society productively. The results of study contributed to the practice by presenting the Women-Employment in Digital Technologies Promoting Structuration (WEDTPS) theory which was informed by the findings of this study.The data from this study did not show the views of women aspiring to participate in the labour market generated by digital technologies, which may provide some additional insight into the women’s positions on the utility of current training and skills programs arranged by social structures in terms of increasing the employment opportunities for women. This study does not specify or focus on particular type(s) of digital technologies; variations in terms of implementation and emphasis of industries on different digital technologies may affect the employment opportunities for Saudi women in different ways. This may limit the generalizability of outcomes of this study to a particular digital technology

The CDIO Syllabus 3.0 - An Updated Statement of Goals

The CDIO Initiative is going through a process of reconsidering and updating the CDIO approach for engineering education development. Previous work resulted in substantial updates of the twelve CDIO standards and the introduction of “optional” CDIO standards. This paper reports on a similar review and update of the CDIO Syllabus to version 3.0. It has been developed by a working group consisting of four sub-groups and iterated and refined guided by feedback from the whole CDIO community. There are mainly three external drivers that motivate the changes: sustainability, digitalization, and acceleration. There is also an internal driver in the form of lessons learned within the CDIO community, from using the Syllabus in curriculum and course development. Approximately 70 updates are proposed, amongst them three additions on the X.X level, namely 1.4 Knowledge of Social Sciences and Humanities, 3.1 Teamwork and Collaboration, and 5.3 Research

The CDIO Syllabus 3.0 - An Updated Statement of Goals

The CDIO Initiative is going through a process of reconsidering and updating the CDIO approach for engineering education development. Previous work resulted in substantial updates of the twelve CDIO standards and the introduction of “optional” CDIO standards. This paper reports on a similar review and update of the CDIO Syllabus to version 3.0. It has been developed by a working group consisting of four sub-groups and iterated and refined guided by feedback from the whole CDIO community. There are mainly three external drivers that motivate the changes: sustainability, digitalization, and acceleration. There is also an internal driver in the form of lessons learned within the CDIO community, from using the Syllabus in curriculum and course development. Approximately 70 updates are proposed, amongst them three additions on the X.X level, namely 1.4 Knowledge of Social Sciences and Humanities, 3.1 Teamwork and Collaboration, and 5.3 Research