Innovation is crucial for higher education to ensure high-quality curricula that address the changing needs of students, labor markets, and society as a whole. Substantial amounts of resources and enthusiasm are devoted to innovations, but often they do not yield the desired changes. This may be due to unworkable goals, too much complexity, and a lack of resources to institutionalize the innovation. In many cases, innovations end up being less sustainable than expected or hoped for. In the long term, the disappointing revenues of innovations hamper the ability of higher education to remain future proof. Against the background of this need to increase the success of educational innovations, our colleague Klaartje van Genugten has explored the literature on innovations to reveal mechanisms that contribute to the sustainability of innovations. Her findings are synthesized in this report. They are particularly meaningful for directors of education programs, curriculum committees, educational consultants, and policy makers, who are generally in charge of defining the scope and set up of innovations. Her report offers a comprehensive view and provides food for thought on how we can strive for future-proof and sustainable innovations. I therefore recommend reading this report.
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More than 25!years after Moore’s first introduction of the public value concept in 995, the concept is now widely used, but its operationalization is still considered difficult. This paper presents the empirical results of a study analyzing the application of the public value concept in Higher Education Institutions, thereby focusing on how to account for public value. The paper shows how Dutch universities of applied sciences operationalize the concept ‘public value’, and how they report on the outcome achievements. The official strategy plans and annual reports for FY2016 through FY2018 of the ten largest institutions were used. While we find that all the institutions selected aim to deliver public value, they still use performance indicators that have a more narrow orientation, and are primarily focused on processes, outputs, and service delivery quality. However, we also observe that they use narratives to show the public value they created. In this way this paper contributes to the literature on public value accounting.
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In Dutch higher education institutions, IT outsourcing (ITO) is becoming more common. New applications nowadays are executed from the ‘cloud’. But what to do with on premise applications? Can they also be outsourced? If so, what factors does a higher education institution have to consider when making the ITO decision of their on-premise applications? This research starts with finding the factors that are already known in existing ITO literature (in different contexts). Then, these decision factors are validated in four explorative interviews before surveying the factors within a higher education context. In total, fourteen factors are deemed to be important for Dutch higher education institutions. Based upon the survey responses by Dutch IT decision makers, a hierarchy exist in these fourteen factors. Also, this research suggest a relationship between outsourcing decision factors and the sourcing models. Additionally, outsourcing objectives seem to influence this relationship.
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Over the last two decades, institutions for higher education such as universities and colleges have rapidly expanded and as a result have experienced profound changes in processes of research and organization. However, the rapid expansion and change has fuelled concerns about issues such as educators' technology professional development. Despite the educational value of emerging technologies in schools, the introduction has not yet enjoyed much success. Effective use of information and communication technologies requires a substantial change in pedagogical practice. Traditional training and learning approaches cannot cope with the rising demand on educators to make use of innovative technologies in their teaching. As a result, educational institutions as well as the public are more and more aware of the need for adequate technology professional development. The focus of this paper is to look at action research as a qualitative research methodology for studying technology professional development in HE in order to improve teaching and learning with ICTs at the tertiary level. The data discussed in this paper have been drawn from a cross institutional setting at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. The data were collected and analysed according to a qualitative approach.
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A survey conducted in 2012 among publicly financed higher education institutions in the Netherlands revealed a growing awareness of the strategic relevance of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Education. However, hardly any policy or strategy related to OER and Open Education had been formulated by any of the higher education institutions involved. At the same time, most of the institutions expressed a need for a strategic approach of OER and Open Education. To meet this need, SURF, the collaborative organisation for ICT in Dutch higher education and research, and more particularly its Special Interest Group on OER, gave ten Dutch higher education institutions the opportunity to assist in developing a strategic approach of OER and Open Education, organising strategy workshops. Every workshop was tailored to the specific needs and problems of the institution concerned. To be able to do so, an approach had been formulated which started with a semi-structured interview. The objective of this interview was to find out why the institution had decided to participate in the workshop and what it wanted to achieve, and to identify the driving forces within the institutions for conducting the workshop. The next step was to design the workshop. This was done in close cooperation with the institution concerned. The third part of the process was conducting the actual workshop. In the last phase, findings and conclusions were formulated. Almost all participating Dutch higher education institutions were inclined to formulate a strategic view on OER and Open Education. The workshops have provided detailed insights into the perceptions and expectations of Dutch higher education institutions involved with regard to OER, MOOCs and Open Education. One such insight is that although most participants are aware of the existence of OER, MOOCs and other forms of Open Education and feel some sense of urgency, many of them do not have any idea how to apply these concepts in their own institutions, let alone know where to start. Another insight is that many of the people who attended the workshops did so because they felt that their institution should develop MOOCs. In most cases it turned out that by discussing the pros and cons of MOOCs as well as the (in)appropriateness of other forms of Open Education for their institutions, the participants developed a broader view of Open Education. In this article the process and approach followed will be presented, as well as lessons learned and conclusions drawn. We conclude that the strategic workshops can be considered a success, thanks to the effectiveness of a tailor-made programme embedded within a fixed process framework. The positive attitude and willingness to share knowledge on the part of the participants contributed greatly to the results. One prerequisite for success is that various sections from the institution participate in the workshop, and that a range of perspectives be presented. The importance of a neutral platform as a basis for an open discussion must not be underestimated.
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The institutional adoption of learning analytics in the Netherlands is still low. This chapter presents a study on the challenges that Dutch higher educational institutions encounter when adopting learning analytics. The literature describes possible challenges regarding assets, data governance, data literacy, data quality, organizational culture, pedagogical grounding, privacy and ethics, and technical issues. Eight interviews with practitioners from four universities verified that all these challenges are causing problems for Dutch institutions as well. The practitioners provided recommendations on how to overcome these adoption challenges. Higher educational institutions need to demonstrate the value of learning analytics, provide users with training, clearly identify users' needs, and establish a ‘one-stop-shop' that acts as a single contact point within the organization. Combined with recommendations already present in the literature, this helps accelerate the successful adoption of learning analytics by Dutch higher educational institutions.
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Public higher education institutions (PHEIs) have widely acknowledged a positive relationship between internationalization and their institutional competitive advantage enhancement. Although some concerns have been raised by practitioners and researchers about whether institutional competitive advantage can be enhanced given the current ways of pursuing internationalisation, surprisingly this relationship has not yet been investigated. This study aims to define this relationship with the empirical data collected through 73 interviews at 16 Dutch PHEIs. This research contributes to the current education literature in three areas. First, this study provides evidence that internationalisation has been seen by the majority of interviewees as the means by which universities gain a competitive advantage and enhance their overall performance in the local and global competition. Second, three foundations have been identified upon which this relationship is established. Third, the data analysis along the sector and job functions gives new insights into how research universities and universities of applied sciences view this relationship differently, and where the gap is between the senior management level and faculty level in enhancing their competitive advantage through internationalisation.
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Recently, there has been an increased interest in the well-being of students in higher education. Despite the widespread consensus on the importance of student well-being, a clear definition continues to be lacking. This study qualitatively examined the student perspective on the topic through semi-structured interviews at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands (n = 27). A major recurring theme was well-being as a balance in the interplay between efforts directed towards studies and life beyond studies. This method of perceiving well- being deviates from theoretical definitions. Students mentioned various factors that influence their well-being. Responses ranged from personal and university related factors to external factors beyond their educational institution. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on the well-being of students in higher education and provides suggestions for educational institutions, such as incorporating a holistic perspective on students and learning; and focus points for the development of policies and practices.
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This article examines how collaborative design practices in higher education are reshaped through postdigital entanglement with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). We collectively explore how co-design, an inclusive, iterative, and relational approach to educational design and transformation, expands in meaning, practice, and ontology when GenAI is approached as a collaborator. The article brings together 19 authors and three open reviewers to engage with postdigital inquiry, structured in three parts: (1) a review of literature on co-design, GenAI, and postdigital theory; (2) 11 situated contributions from educators, researchers, and designers worldwide, each offering practice-based accounts of co-design with GenAI; and (3) an explorative discussion of implications for higher education designs and futures. Across these sections, we show how GenAI unsettles assumptions of collaboration, knowing, and agency, foregrounding co-design as a site of ongoing material, ethical, and epistemic negotiation. We argue that postdigital co-design with GenAI reframes educational design as a collective practice of imagining, contesting, and shaping futures that extend beyond human knowing.
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To find out what is needed to speed up the adoption of open sharing and reuse of learning materials and open online courses in publicly funded Dutch institutions of Higher Education, a qualitative research study was conducted in fall 2016. This study examined issues of willingness of educators and management, barriers and enablers of adoption, and the role of institutional and national policy in the adoption of open sharing and reuse of learning materials and online courses. Fifty-five stakeholders (educators, board members, and support staff) in 10 Dutch Higher Education Institutions were interviewed. The main findings of this study are: motivation for sharing and reuse of learning materials for educators and managers is directly related to the ambition to achieve better education for students; sharing and reuse of learning materials is common practice, very diverse and not open accessible for the whole world, and important barriers include lack of awareness of opportunities for open sharing and reuse and lack of time. Based on the findings from the interviews, the last section of this paper presents conclusions and recommendations regarding how Dutch institutions for Higher Education can formulate effective policies to raise awareness, organize adequate support and provide time to experiment.
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