CTF in collaboration with companies develops new online courses

Four new web-based courses, which will contribute to competence development, faster dissemination and use of research results, increased educational quality and development of IT tools. These are the goals of the use.it project, which is carried out by Karlstad University in collaboration with TeliaSonera, Effect Management and Standard Soltions Group with the support of the KK Foundation. The project is now halfway through and the first course opportunities will be launched this autumn.

"We mostly focus on the technology and pedagogy working well together and supporting the interaction between course participants and course participants and teachers," says project manager Jörg Pareigis - lecturer in business administration and researcher within CTF. 

The School of Economics at Karlstad University and the Center for Business Research (CTF) currently have a close collaboration at undergraduate and advanced level. A large part of the teaching takes place on campus and full-time. But the use.it project is aimed at professionals with a need for flexibility in time and space. 

The project also aims to encourage lifelong learning. The courses are designed for professionals with an interest in business development, customer experience, marketing, business model development and service innovation. Their working hours will correspond to between six and eight hours a week, about 20 percent speed. 

"We believe that it is realistic and it is also the usual scope for so-called MOOCs, massive online courses," says Jörg Pareigis.

Technology and pedagogy for better learning

More than half the project time has passed and the course planning has been completed. Production of short video films with lectures is now underway, which are being developed together with the Interactive Institute. The project also includes an international expert from the E-learning center in Hannover, who acts as an advisor for the design of the courses. 

"For example, we work with Moodle - a learning platform that we do not work with here in Karlstad yet. It has an open source code, allows open courses or course parts and is very large internationally," says Jörg Pareigis.

A clear goal of the project is to combine technology and pedagogy in a way that enhances learning and strengthens the quality of the courses. It is about, for example, that the students must collect the best articles in a certain subject area, assess them and justify why they selected these in particular. 

"It could, for example, be about customer experience, or some other area in the course. The fact that they also get to justify their choices means that the students also reflect and value the content in a more active way. In the project, we put the most effort into ensuring that pedagogy and technology work well together. The purpose of the technology is to support the interaction between students and teachers and between students".

Soon part of the regular course offering

The courses, which will be completed shortly, are Making Sense of Serviec Logic, Understanding Customer Experience, Mastering Service Innovation and Crafting and Executing Service Strategies. The companies included in the project are TeliaSonera, Effect Management and Standard Soltions Group, but the courses are open to everyone from the first course round. From next year, the courses are included in the School of Economics' regular course offering.

"The working method and tools can be used relatively easily in our current programs and courses. For example, the films we produce within the project can easily be used in a marketing course where you want to apply the so-called 'flipped classroom'. For interactive seminars on the web, we use Adobe Connect, something that is already done within, for example, the master's program in project management. The project will end in the spring of 2015, but we will use the experience in the continued development of course offerings and educational quality," sums up Jörg Pareigis.

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Text: Christina Knowles (Karlstad University)