Almere is a green city where the greenery extends into the centre through a framework of nature, forests, parks and canals. With this green environment, Almere fulfils an important condition for a liveable city, where it is pleasant to live and work. An important goal for the municipality is to challenge its residents to develop a healthy lifestyle by using that green framework.But what really motivates Almeerders to go outside to exercise, enjoy the surroundings and meet each other? Are there sufficient green meeting or sports facilities nearby? Could the routes that connect the living and working environment with the larger parks or forests be better designed? And can those routes simultaneously contribute to climate adaptation?With the Green Escape Challenge, we invited students and young professionals to work on these assignments together.
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In honours programmes, teachers face the task of designing courses in which students feel challenged and learn from accomplishing demanding assignments. The aim of this study was to investigate students’ and teachers’ perceptions of challenge and learning in an honours programme. From 2016 to 2019, students and teachers rated the learning activities during the programme and explained their ratings. The results showed that in the first two years, teachers estimated challenge and learning significantly higher than the students did. However, both students and teachers viewed the tasks as the factor with the strongest impact on challenge and learning. In the first year, students also identified group dynamics as challenging and a source for learning. Enhancing task complexity and supporting group dynamics are the main factors to adjust the level of challenge in an honours programme. Monitoring students’ and teachers’ perceptions can help to adapt the programme to improve students’ learning.
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Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is a politically guided and stakeholder-driven process involving a range of actors (i.e., planners, stakeholders, scientists, and citizens). Theories of boundary objects offer a lens to understand how actors, in the context of decision and policy-making in organizations, can coordinate without consensus. This seems particularly relevant when institutions and communities are relatively young, and the body of knowledge is fragmented and fluid, such as in the case of MSP. A key question is whether, and how boundary objects can be intentionally designed and used to facilitate social and policy learning in such communities. In this research, the focus is on the use of the MSP Challenge serious games as a boundary object to facilitate learning in ‘Communities of Practice’ (CoP) around MSP. Data were collected through questionnaires of 62 MSP Challenge workshops between 2016 and 2020 with more than 1100 participants. Additionally, 33 interviews with key stakeholders were conducted. The findings show that the MSP Challenge is widely used for various goals and in various settings and that they are interpreted differently by different users. The success of the MSP Challenge relies on the boundary space in which it is implemented, taking into account discrepancies in learning due to variations in the backgrounds and attitudes of the participants towards the object, the activity, and the setting in which it is deployed.
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Background: The full potential of social entrepreneurship remains challenging to achieve, despite continuous efforts in various economies, including South-East Asia. Several obstacles need to be addressed, such as the scarcity of skilled employees, limited business understanding among founders, difficulties accessing funding and infrastructure, and the absence of proper social impact measurement. Higher education institutions (HEIs) often face constraints in engaging and supporting early entrepreneurial activities, exacerbating the imbalance in the social entrepreneurship landscape. This imbalance has been observed in both Thailand and Myanmar. Research objectives: The Erasmus+ funded project, STEPup, running from 2020 to 2023, recognized an opportunity to foster innovative social entrepreneurship practices tailored for disruptive business settings in these two countries. By applying the challenge-based learning approach through interactive case challenge proceedings involving social entrepreneurs, faculty mentors and students, the development of the entrepreneurial mindset of the latter group was studied. Research design and methods: To accomplish this, a multi-method research design was chosen, which involved a case-challenge experience within the framework of 6 universities, a questionnaire-based survey conducted among the student population which took part in the case-challenge experience and desk research. Results: The study revealed the necessity for a self-organizing and organic support system for social entrepreneurship. The objective of this paper is to present recommendations and strategic guidelines to enhance access and opportunities for existing social enterprises and social entrepreneurs seeking to establish and sustain a social enterprise ecosystem. The proposed framework leverages the support, expertise, and structure of existing higher education institutions. Conclusions: Higher Education Institutions can serve as excellent cases demonstrating how to design and develop resource hubs for social enterprise practitioners and engage stakeholders from all sectors to address social issues and promote awareness.
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The Kuyichi teaching case will challenge students to think about how circular business models can contribute to sustainability and dives into the challenges of setting up a resale business model in the context of sustainable fashion. The case provides an engaging real-world example to aid students in their learning journey and is accompanied by an extensive teaching note (including supplementary material). The case is part of the educational output from the CIE - CONESU project, funded by taskforce for Applied Research SIA.
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Decisions are used by organizations to manage and execute their coordinated, value-adding decision-making and are thereby among an organization’s most important assets. To be able to manage deci-sions and underlying business rules, Decision Management (DM) and Business Rules Management (BRM) are increasingly being applied at organisations. One of the latest developments related to the domain of DM and BRM is the introduction of the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) in September 2015 by the Object Management Group (OMG). The goal of this technical paper is to provide students with a case to practice the specification, verification, validation, deployment, execution, monitoring and governance of business rules in practice.
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Closed loop or ‘circular’ production systems known as Circular Economy and Cradle to Cradle represent a unique opportunity to radically revise the currently wasteful system of production. One of the challenges of such systems is that circular products need to be both produced locally with minimum environmental footprint and simultaneously satisfy demand of global consumers. This article presents a literature review that describes the application of circular methodologies to education for sustainability, which has been slow to adopt circular systems to the curriculum. This article discusses how Bachelor and Master-level students apply their understanding of these frameworks to corporate case studies. Two assignment-related case studies are summarized, both of which analyze products that claim to be 'circular'. The students' research shows that the first case, which describes the impact of a hybrid material soda bottle, does not meet circularity criteria. The second case study, which describes products and applications of a mushroom-based material, is more sustainable. However, the students' research shows that the manufacturers have omitted transport from the environmental impact assessment and therefore the mushroom materials may not be as sustainable as the manufacturers claim. As these particular examples showed students how green advertising can be misleading, applying “ideal” circularity principles as part of experiential learning could strengthen the curriculum. Additionally, this article recommends that sustainable business curriculum should also focus on de-growth and steady-state economy, with these radical alternatives to production becoming a central focus of education of responsible citizens. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.02.005 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Abstract Despite the numerous business benefits of data science, the number of data science models in production is limited. Data science model deployment presents many challenges and many organisations have little model deployment knowledge. This research studied five model deployments in a Dutch government organisation. The study revealed that as a result of model deployment a data science subprocess is added into the target business process, the model itself can be adapted, model maintenance is incorporated in the model development process and a feedback loop is established between the target business process and the model development process. These model deployment effects and the related deployment challenges are different in strategic and operational target business processes. Based on these findings, guidelines are formulated which can form a basis for future principles how to successfully deploy data science models. Organisations can use these guidelines as suggestions to solve their own model deployment challenges.
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Detecting practical problems of persons with dementia (PwD) experience at home, and advising them on solutions to facilitate aging in place are complex and challenging tasks for nurses and case managers. In this two group randomized, controlled laboratory experiment, the efficacy of a decision support application aiming to increase nurses' and case managers' confidence in clinical judgment and decision-making was tested. The participants (N = 67) assessed a case of a PwD within the problem domains: self-reliance, safety and informal care, and provided suggestions for possible solutions. Participants used either their regular procedure with (intervention group) or without the App (control group) to conduct these tasks. No statistically significant difference was found on the primary outcome measure, the overall level of confidence. However, nurses and case managers highly recommended use of the App in practice. To explain these results, more research on the potential added value of the App is needed.
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Background: Advanced media technologies have become an integral part of people's daily lives, providing them with new tools and environments for the formation and enactment of their identities. To date, the literature acknowledges that media technologies, such as social networking sites, are used to form and enact online identities, and that these platforms can simultaneously pose challenges to individuals' identity work. However, we know little about the precise online identity work strategies that individuals employ in response to the challenges they face over time. Objective: This paper examines the online identity work dynamics of Instagram micro-influencers, for whom social network sites enable and guide them in forming and enacting their online identities on a daily basis. The study was guided by the following research question: what are the challenges that Instagram micro-influencers perceive online and what are the online identity work strategies that they employ in response to these challenges over time? Methods: This study employs an extreme case approach to rigorously explore the lives of seven micro-influencers on Instagram. We combine in-depth data from narrative interviews, longitudinal data from online autobiographical narratives revealed through the participants' Instagram timelines, and follow-up interviews. Results: Our analysis revealed three main themes that highlight the challenges that Instagram micro-influencers face online: (1) amplified social expectations, (2) feelings of inauthenticity, and, as a result thereof, (3) psychological distress. We found that these challenges were viewed as catalysts for their online identity work processes. We identified three key online identity work strategies that the Instagram micro-influencers employed in response over time: (1) experimenting with their online identities, followed by either (2) segmenting between their online and offline identities, or (3) adding identities through online multiplicity. Conclusion: Our research provides new insights into how individuals may respond to the challenge of managing their online identities over time by engaging in different online identity work strategies. This study highlights the importance of designing online media technologies that enable individuals to cope with online challenges. We emphasize the need to design online spaces for (1) the expression of authentic identities, (2) community building, and (3) online multiplicity.
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