ICT-based challenges of repurposing a single-campus course to multi-campus settings: a pragmatic case study

Abstract

Studies show that the integration of ICT in education is suffering from some barriers at student, teacher, and university level. This also holds for multi-campus education, as ICT is one of the main ingredients for sharing education among campuses. In this study, through a pragmatic case study at the context of a Scandinavian multi-campus university and with the help of activity theory, we examined the challenges of offering a single-campus course to students at multiple campuses by using ICT for lecture sharing, without further adjustments. Data for this study is collected from different sources (teachers, teaching assistants, and students) through interviews and observations and from an online questionnaire. Our findings suggest that repurposing a single-campus course to a multi-campus one without having clear and pre-defined rules poses some challenges for the different stockholders and influences their relations, resulting in negative impacts on teaching and learning processes and teacher and students’ satisfaction. Therefore, we conclude that there should be careful planning with a clear set of rules, including technology training and preparation for teaching staff, students, and technical staff. Staff structure may also need to be modified to accommodate the additional needs for technical support.