Publikationer

This article presents a theoretical approach to examining professional knowledge practices on online platforms, employing the concept of epistemic objects and their incompleteness, and analysing how objects are actively produced and negotiated through interactions among users and the platform. We illustrate this approach by conducting an interaction analysis of two threads from Stack Overflow, a prominent online platform where millions of software developers ask and answer programming-related questions. The findings demonstrate that the incompleteness of epistemic objects is central to understanding how professionals collectively engage with and produce knowledge online. They also highlight the role of specific technical features of platforms and the embeddedness of objects – and, thereby, the platforms themselves – in the broader professional domain. The article discusses the potential of the theoretical approach for investigating online platforms as sites for professional learning and calls for educational programs and platform designs that support professionals’ engagements with epistemic objects.

ABSTRACT The paper emphasises the need to consider the social, political, and economic contexts within which educational systems operate and use Artificial Intelligence (AI). Focused on Swedish compulsory education, this study explores whether the use of AI envisioned by national authorities and educational technology companies contributes to unfairness. Through qualitative content analysis of Swedish policy documents and educational company reports, the study employs the concept of Relevant Social Groups to assess how diverse stakeholders perceive the risks and benefits of using AI in education regarding fairness. Three distinct groups are identified, each prioritising different forms of “efficiency” as a key value—economic, pedagogical, and accessibility-related. In conclusion, this study sheds light on the intricate interplay between fairness and the use of AI in the Swedish educational system. It also questions the concept of fairness revolving around formal equality of opportunities that separates fairness from the broader context of social justice.

Purpose Designing digital artifacts is not a linear, straightforward process. This is particularly true when applying a user-centered design approach, or co-design, with users who are unable to participate in the design process. Although the reduced participation of a particular user group may harm the end result, the literature on solving this issue is sparse. In this article, proxy design is outlined as a method for involving a user group as proxy users to speak on behalf of a group that is difficult to reach. The article investigates the following research question: How can roleplaying be embedded in co-design to engage users as proxies on behalf of those who are unable to represent themselves? Design/methodology/approach The article presents a design ethnography spanning three years at a cancer rehabilitation clinic, where digital artifacts were designed to be used collaboratively by nurses and patients. The empirical data were analyzed using content analysis and consisted of 20 observation days at the clinic, six proxy design workshops, 21 telephone consultations between patients and nurses, and log data from the digital artifact. Findings The article shows that simulated consultations, with nurses roleplaying as proxies for patients ignited and initiated the design process and enabled an efficient in-depth understanding of patients. Moreover, the article reveals how proxy design as a method further expanded the design. The study findings illustrate: (1) proxy design as a method for initiating design, (2) proxy design as an embedded element in co-design and (3) six design guidelines that should be considered when engaging in proxy design. Originality/value The main contribution is the conceptualization of proxy design as a method that can ignite and initiate the co-design process when important users are unreachable, vulnerable or unable to represent themselves in the co-design process. More specifically, based on the empirical findings from a design ethnography that involved nurses as proxy users speaking on behalf of patients, the article shows that roleplaying in proxy design is a fitting way of initiating the design process, outlining proxy design as an embedded element of co-design.

ABSTRACT This paper critically explores how teachers’ everyday work is reconfigured through work on and around different digital platforms. In particular, it demonstrates teacher experiences of workload and work intensification and the different workarounds and adaptions to platforms done by teachers, conditioned by demands of performativity, e.g. discourses of optimising work, making visible and caring for school performances as part of a market-competitive and increasingly digitalised school system. By ethnographically tracing the digital work of six teachers in public and private upper-secondary schools through logs, follow-up interviews, observations and digital ‘go-alongs’, we show how central tasks, administration, communication and teaching are reconfigured through the distribution of work onto local-domestic and global platforms and relatively local school and national regulations. Our contribution to the discussion on platforms in education is how platforms and aligning devices and procedures reinforce performativity demands in teacher work. This reconfiguration produces tensions, interruptions and intensity peaks, often seen as work-time conflicts, but which nonetheless relate to wider, critical issues of the changing nature of teacher digital work being established in relation to the marketised and highly digitalised school.

ABSTRACT Higher education is already profoundly digitalised. Students, academics, and university administrators routinely use digital technologies, many of which rely on data, including artificial intelligence. Universities aim to operate as data-powered organisations to support institutional efficiency and the personalisation of learning and student experience. These developments are occurring against the backdrop of university digital infrastructure moving to the cloud and the increasing role of ‘Big Tech’ in the sector. However, there are many unknowns about the aggregate impact of digitalisation on the sector, and hence, questions about potential risks and harms remain unanswered. Our approach in this collective piece is to reflect on particularly relevant and impactful dynamics of higher education digitalisation. We first identify assetisation as an emergent mode of governance linked to the digitalisation of HE, which brings new temporal, relational, and lock-in challenges for universities and their constituents. Second, we examine the macro-level structural transformation of higher education with the increasing role of Big Tech and Big EdTech. We conclude by discussing the consequences of the identified macro power dynamics.

Abstract In this study, we explore the current practices of experienced instructors in developing scenarios for maritime simulator training and assessment. Scenario design is fundamental to effective simulator-based training but remains underexplored in extant literature. Through a series of semi-structured interviews ( n = 16), we identify the core concerns of instructors designing scenarios; (1) realism, authenticity, and fidelity; (2) designing for students’ requirements; (3) the importance of clear learning objectives. Based on the results, we propose that functional congruence is a more fitting term than realism, authenticity, and fidelity in this context, as effective simulator training requires a balance between a simulator realistic enough for immersive learning experiences, and a focus on clear learning objectives. In consideration of the need to train students to function as part of a team of competent experts, moreover, we propose the introduction of an established instructional design model into the scenario design process. The proposed model has proven successful in simulator-based training in the similarly high-risk and safety-critical field of healthcare and has the potential to both complement the current practices of experienced instructors and act as a valuable resource for those newer to the role in designing training transferrable to professional practice.