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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The value and role of the ‘public’ in criminology and criminal justice have been constructed and reconstructed over the decades, experiencing a number of discursive shifts across different subdisciplines in criminology. Narratives about public voices change according to the context in which they are told. Depending on the researcher’s vantage point and inclination, it appears that the voice and role of the public in criminology tends to be narrated either as a ‘malevolent public’, which speaks for an unspecified entity of people who are most of the time misinformed, punitive and in need of expeditious education, or a ‘benevolent public’, representing a more inclusive, but also romanticised, vision of citizens in the public sphere. In this chapter, examples of various perspectives on the role and value of lay people in criminology are discussed to emonstrate how these narratives are interpreted and framed to align with the pre-conceived perception of either the ‘benevolent’ or the malevolent’ public agenda. This development, as well as the dominant application of quantitative methodologies to research public attitudes, has silenced the magnitude of different and sometimes elusive communities, whose access to the public sphere and media representation is limited. Thus, there is a need not only to shift away from the dichotomous division between liberal vs. punitive public views, but also to address the heterogeneity of people’s views and roles vertically (individual, collective), horizontally (in different networks/publics/target groups). Moreover, the publics as we knew them some decades ago, when the most frequently cited attitudinal research was conducted, are now different publics that function in both the online and offline public spheres simultaneously – the impact of which is yet to be captured in criminology.
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This paper investigates how management accounting and control systems (operationalized by using Simons’ (1995a) levers of control framework) can be used as devices to support public value creation and as such it contributes to the literature on public value accounting. Using a mixed methods case study approach, including documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, we found diverging uses of control systems in the Dutch university of applied sciences we investigated. While belief and interactive control systems are used intensively for strategy change and implementation, diagnostic controls were used mainly at the decentral level and seen as devices to make sure that operational and financial boundaries were not crossed. Therefore, belief and interactive control systems lay the foundation for the implementation of a new strategy, in which concepts of public value play a large role, using diagnostic controls to constrain actions at the operational level. We also found that whereas the institution wanted to have interaction with the external stakeholders, in daily practice this takes place only at the phase of strategy formulation, but not in the phase of intermediate strategy evaluation.
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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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Currently, various higher education (HE) institutes develop flexible curricula for various reasons, including promoting accessibility of HE, the societal need for more self-regulated professionals who engage in life-long learning, and the desire to increase motivation of students. Increasing flexibility in curricula allows students to choose for example what they learn, when they learn, how they learn, where they learn, and/or with whom. However, HE institutes raise the question of what preferences and needs different stakeholders have with regard to flexibility, so that suitable choices can be made in the design of policies, curricula, and student support programs. In this workshop, we focus on student preferences and share recent insights from research on HE students' preferences regarding flexible education. Moreover, we use participants’ expertise to identify new (research) questions to further explore what students’ needs imply for several domains, namely curriculum-design, student support that is provided by educators/staff, policy, management, and the professional field. Firstly, a conceptual framework on flexible education and student’s preferences will be presented. Secondly, participants reflect in groups on student personas. Then, discussion groups have a Delphi-based discussion to collect new ideas for research. Finally, participants share the outcomes on a ‘willing wall’ and a ‘wailing wall’.
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How to create personas to improve designs for behaviour change strategies in the public domain? Three recent cases illustrate lessons learnt and challenges encountered during persona development in the public domain. Personas were helpful to gain insight into diversity within a target group, to create empathy for its members, and to have a shared understanding when communicating about them. The main challenges encountered were 1) capturing complex behaviour with personas, as the behaviours involved were variable over time, the (legislative) environment in motion, and the target groups diverse; 2) finding the right balance between intuitive vs. evidence-based decision-making, a process we coined “taking a responsible leap of faith”; and 3) transferring personas to third parties, as free sharing of insights and tools is common in the public domain. Validation plays an important role in personas’ transferability. We call for all involved researchers to share experiences with using the persona methodology in the public domain, in order to tackle the challenges, and to create a more standardised way of developing personas.
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Over the past decade, the maker movement and in its slipstream maker education have attained worldwide popularity among educators, politicians, and the media. Makers’ enthusiasm for creative design and construction, using old and new tools has proven contagious, and is worth exploration and critical reflection by the community of engineering and technology education (ETE). This chapter describes what has been said about “making” by philosophers and educators; what maker education is, and what is new and not so new about it; why it has gained momentum; what the evidence is about its effectiveness and its possible weaknesses; and how mainstream technology education may benefit from maker education. This chapter concludes with ideas for a research agenda.
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In this policy brief we recommend that in order to face numerous societal challenges such as migration and climate change, regional governments should create a culture of innovation by opening up themselves and stimulate active citizenship by supporting so called Public Sector Innovation (PSI) labs. These labs bring together different types of stakeholders that will explore new solutions for societalchallenges and come up with new policies to tackle them. This method has been developed and tested in a large EU funded research project.
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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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AimTo discuss the actual public image of nurses and other factors that influence the development of nurses' self-concept and professional identity.BackgroundNurses have become healthcare professionals in their own right who possess a great deal of knowledge. However, the public does not always value the skills and competences nurses have acquired through education and innovation.DesignDiscussion paper.Data sourcesWe identified 1216 relevant studies by searching MEDLINE, CINAHL and PsycINFO databases in the period 1997–2010. Finally, 18 studies met our inclusion criteria.DiscussionThe included studies show that the actual public image of nursing is diverse and incongruous. This image is partly self-created by nurses due to their invisibility and their lack of public discourse. Nurses derive their self-concept and professional identity from their public image, work environment, work values, education and traditional social and cultural values.Implications for nursingNurses should work harder to communicate their professionalism to the public. Social media like the Internet and YouTube can be used to show the public what they really do.ConclusionTo improve their public image and to obtain a stronger position in healthcare organizations, nurses need to increase their visibility. This could be realized by ongoing education and a challenging work environment that encourages nurses to stand up for themselves. Furthermore, nurses should make better use of strategic positions, such as case manager, nurse educator or clinical nurse specialist and use their professionalism to show the public what their work really entails.
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