A System to Structure, Measure, and Improve Student Development
Munir Mandviwalla, David Schuff, Laurel Miller, Manoj Chacko
Abstract
In this paper, we develop and evaluate a novel system and computing platform to structure, measure, and improve student development using points. We define student development broadly as the achievement of learning to do, know, live together, and be. The system leverages individual agency, social influences, content generation and sharing, institutional requirements, and gamification as development mechanisms. We apply complex adaptive systems theory as a design concept to integrate the development mechanisms. The paper expands student development theory, justifies the key design mechanisms embedded into the platform, documents an extensive evaluation process, proposes generalizable design principles, and discusses the role of points as a direct measure of student development.
IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, Volume: 16, Issue: 6, December 2023, 1001 – 1013.
Reimagining the Higher Education Experience as a Socially-Enabled Complex Adaptive System
Munir Mandviwalla and David Schuff
Abstract
Higher education faces challenges on many fronts, including new learning models such as MOOCs, new forms of credentialing that question the value of a diploma, and a generation of students raised on socially-enabled technologies that view creating and sharing information differently. Clearly change must occur, but existing siloed models are well-ingrained into the culture. In this paper, we use complex adaptive systems theory to go inside the “black box” of higher education to envision how socially-enabled technologies can transform processes, roles, and behaviors of key internal and external agents. We describe two new models: (1) Continuous Development, which places students in direct control of their own professional development and (2) Co-Creation, which makes students an integral part of knowledge generation and dissemination. We analyze the changes in traditional structures and interactions these models bring, and propose design principles that guide the design IT systems that enable these changes.
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, January 6-9, 2014. Nominated for Best Paper.
Is That All There Is? Taking Education to New Levels in the Social Media Era
Munir Mandviwalla, David Schuff, Manoj Chacko, and Laurel Miller
Abstract
Higher education in the United States faces major challenges: increased competition from non-traditional players, online programs that are eroding regional monopolies, shifting demographics, the perceived irrelevance of some degrees, and the development of low-cost certification alternatives to those degrees. In other industries, information technology (IT) has played a major role in responding to the challenges of change by creating new products and services, consolidating operations, and innovating. Yet in higher education, IT has been used largely to automate isolated processes (e.g., a new recruiting system) or to produce small, localized wins (e.g., using Twitter inside a class). So we ask ourselves, in the words of Peggy Lee, “Is that all there is?” In this article, we show how social media-enabled platforms can enable transformation in educational experiences and outcomes and illustrate our ideas by describing the community platform of the Department of Management Information Systems in Temple University’s Fox School of Business.
Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning. Vol. 45-5, pp-51-58. 2013.