Technology as Quality Work? Educational Leaders and Teachers’ Use of Digital Technology

In January 2017, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research launched the white paper ‘Culture for Quality in Higher Education’, in which they underlined the need for a cultural shift to promote quality in higher education. The white paper outlined five main strategies and a series of actions to enhance institutional ‘quality work’, and identified the use of digital technology as a key driver to stimulate the provision of innovative teaching and learning processes. Leaders and teachers within Norwegian universities and university colleges are expected to enhance their use of digital technology as part of their quality work. This could include innovative teaching and learning methods and student-centered learning perspectives and practices. However, it appears to be a mismatch between national ambitions and the take-up of digital technology within institutional practices in higher educational institutions. In this chapter, we illuminate this inconsistency through the lenses of translational theory and concepts of ‘conflicting logics’ and ‘translational costs’ within higher education institutions. Based on findings from the Quality of Norwegian Higher Education: Pathways, Practices and Performances (QNHE) research project, we analyse how Norwegian higher education institutions have responded to governmental policies on digital technology usage in their quality work

Refugee migration, lifelong education and forms of integration

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Quality in Norwegian Higher Education: A review of research on aspects affecting student learning

This report is produced in the framework of the project “Quality of Norwegian Higher Education: Pathways, Practices and Performances”, funded through the program Research and Innovation in the Educational Sector (FINNUT), Research Council Norway (RCN). The focus of the study is on exploring quality issues related to the educational provision of higher education. The overarching questions in the project are: What factors and mechanisms are important for realizing the aims of quality work in Norwegian higher education? What is the relationship between structural/systemic and institutional conditions, and educational practices? In this first report from the project, the aim is to position the study with respect to the international research-based literature in this area, and to identify factors and mechanisms indicated by the relevant literature as important contributors to the enhancement of quality in higher education. A second aim is to identify knowledge gaps in the existing literature