What we talk about when we talk about change : a study of change practice and change agency in higher education

This thesis is concerned with change practice, particularly in one specific higher education institution. The thesis examines theoretical perspectives of change practice and presents five empirical studies that, in different ways, contribute to our understanding of how universities and its members engage around and view opportunities for change. The thesis borrows insights from organisational theory, theory of change agency and also theory and the practice of academic development. The thesis views change practice as a predominantly socio-cultural endeavour. The focus of the five empirical studies has been on the meso, departmental or networked level of a higher education institution. Each of the studies is closely connected to the practice of academic development and is thought to enhance the practice that academic developers engage in. At the same time, the focal point is on the academic staff members of the universities. Study I explores how teachers perceive opportunities and challenges that are afforded in the wake of capacity building initiatives at the university. Studies II and V explore collegial leaders at middle management level practice of working with change practice. These studies look more closely at the particular practice of bringing about change, but also study collegial leaders use of theory in their practice. Study II identifies leaders, both informal and formal leaders who lack leadership training. Study V identifies collegial leaders who have had some training. Study III studies different stakeholders’ conceptions of a change initiative. Study IV explores how a group of teachers take on and bring about changes in their practice. The findings, when taken together suggest that the university and its individual members may have difficulty dealing with the contemporaneousness and the many aspects of capacity building and change practice. The findings suggest that many individuals who attend continued professional development training do not readily see how they can translate their training into practice. It also shows that training, per se, offers them a sense of enthusiasm around the work of teaching. Further they show that when change initiatives come around, the many stakeholders share a nomenclature of change that is potentially incompatible. The findings show how groups of teachers take command of their own practice when working with assessing students’ work. Moreover, the findings suggest that collegial leaders often lack systematic and theory-driven approaches to change practice. As a counter-measure to using theory or models of change the collegial leaders rely on dialogue in the context of a consensus seeking collegial culture as a way of bringing about change

Educating Public Health Professionals for an Unknown Future: Insights from a New Bachelor Programme Linking Health Promotion and Sustainable Development

This paper aims to provide a description of the new bachelor programme “Health Promotion through Sustainable Development”, which started in autumn 2016 at the University of Gävle, Faculty of Health and Working Life. The programme was built integrating public health and biology through a thread of health promotion and sustainable development across the three years of study. In the era of sustainable development and more complex health threats, future public health professionals need to be equipped with the right knowledge and skills that will enable them to promote a sustainable population health

MOOC learners' engagement with two variants of virtual patients : a randomised trial

Introduction: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are an increasingly popular form of education in health professional education. VPs have been introduced in MOOCs to increase interactivity. There is a lack of research in understanding the reasons behind high dropout rates in MOOCs. We explored how learners interact with VPs and compared the significance of different VP designs on dropout rates. Methods: RCT of 378 participants split into two groups to interact with two VPs using different design: branching and linear. Data on node progression and VP attempts was analysed using descriptive and quantitative analysis. Results: Eight groups of learner interaction patterns were identified. The majority of learners completed the VP in a linear path in one attempt. A significant number either completed the case in a loop path in one attempt, completed in a linear path in multiple attempts or dropped out without attempting the case. VP design has a significant effect on dropout rates of learners. There is a higher dropout rate from a branched VP compared to linear VP. Discussion: Prior research showed that branched VPs are more engaging and promote greater learning compared to linear VPs. However, our results indicate that branched VPs had greater dropout compared to VPs that require less time to be solved. Conclusions: We conclude that branching had a negative effect on completion of the VP activity in the MOOC. Moreover, we believe that more complex VPs require more effort on task and this might not be a design that facilitates the interaction in a MOOC audience, where the participants might wish to acquire the basic medical knowledge offered by the course

Virtual patients in a behavioral medicine massive open online course (MOOC) : a case-based analysis of technical capacity and user navigation pathways

BACKGROUND: Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been criticized for focusing on presentation of short video clip lectures and asking theoretical multiple-choice questions. A potential way of vitalizing these educational activities in the health sciences is to introduce virtual patients. Experiences from such extensions in MOOCs have not previously been reported in the literature. OBJECTIVE: This study analyzes technical challenges and solutions for offering virtual patients in health-related MOOCs and describes patterns of virtual patient use in one such course. Our aims are to reduce the technical uncertainty related to these extensions, point to aspects that could be optimized for a better learner experience, and raise prospective research questions by describing indicators of virtual patient use on a massive scale. METHODS: The Behavioral Medicine MOOC was offered by Karolinska Institutet, a medical university, on the EdX platform in the autumn of 2014. Course content was enhanced by two virtual patient scenarios presented in the OpenLabyrinth system and hosted on the VPH-Share cloud infrastructure. We analyzed web server and session logs and a participant satisfaction survey. Navigation pathways were summarized using a visual analytics tool developed for the purpose of this study. RESULTS: The number of course enrollments reached 19,236. At the official closing date, 2317 participants (12.1% of total enrollment) had declared completing the first virtual patient assignment and 1640 (8.5%) participants confirmed completion of the second virtual patient assignment. Peak activity involved 359 user sessions per day. The OpenLabyrinth system, deployed on four virtual servers, coped well with the workload. Participant survey respondents (n=479) regarded the activity as a helpful exercise in the course (83.1%). Technical challenges reported involved poor or restricted access to videos in certain areas of the world and occasional problems with lost sessions. The visual analyses of user pathways display the parts of virtual patient scenarios that elicited less interest and may have been perceived as nonchallenging options. Analyzing the user navigation pathways allowed us to detect indications of both surface and deep approaches to the content material among the MOOC participants. CONCLUSIONS: This study reported on first inclusion of virtual patients in a MOOC. It adds to the body of knowledge by demonstrating how a biomedical cloud provider service can ensure technical capacity and flexible design of a virtual patient platform on a massive scale. The study also presents a new way of analyzing the use of branched virtual patients by visualization of user navigation pathways. Suggestions are offered on improvements to the design of virtual patients in MOOCs

Responsible learning analytics: creating just, ethical, and caring

Ethical considerations and the values embedded in the design, development, deployment, and use of Learning Analytics (LA) systems have received considerable attention in recent years. Ethical frameworks, design guidelines, principles, checklists, and a code of practice have contributed a conceptual basis for focused discussions on ethics in LA. However, relatively little is known about how these different conceptual understandings of ethics work in practice. This half-day interactive workshop aims to provide participants with a space for information, dialogue, and collaboration around Responsible LA. The workshop will begin with a brief overview of Responsible LA. After that, the participants will present their cases drawing attention to the ethical considerations covered and not covered in LA practices. Following this, participants in groups will discuss the cases illustrating ethical tensions and create semantic categories to document such edge cases. The collected edge cases will be shared in a wiki or database. The workshop outcomes will help inform LA practitioners on ethical tensions that need to be discussed with care while highlighting places where more research work is required

Perceptions of health and wellbeing among employees in a work integration social enterprise in Sweden

Background: Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) constitute an important vehiclefor providing employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups.Objective: The goal of this qualitative case study is to explore perceptions of health andwellbeing among employees working in a WISE located in the Gävleborg region, in eastcentral Sweden.Methods: Data were gathered using 16 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with thesocial enterprise employees.Results: Findings were categorized into three main categories: the importance of financialindependence and societal benefits; team spirit and a sense of belonging; and improvedquality of life and wellbeing.Conclusion: The participants perceived that working in the WISE gave them a feeling offreedom and increased their self-esteem because of the possibility to earn an income.Also, they were satisfied with their job (e.g., with regard to work quality and flexibility)and believed that their work contributed to society. Moreover, through working in a WISE,the participants felt a sense of belonging and togetherness through interaction with coworkersand managers, and an improved quality of life for themselves and their families

When good intentions may not be good enough : Reflections on a case study of collaborative development of digital open educational resources in bioethics in the Nordic region

This reflective article sets out to illustrate some of the difficulties involved in developing capacity in Nordic collaboration. The project involves the development of digital open educational resources (OER) focused on bioethics in the Nordic region through a close collaboration between five universities. The article presents a case study and details the rationale for the development of the digital OER, describing how they were developed, tested and implemented. The article uses a framework of change management to identify current shortcomings, challenges and critical areas for further development