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RESEARCHER'S CORNER
RESEARCHER'S CORNER
Researcher’s Corner shines the spotlight on three research studies that have been published in the special issue of the Journal of Innovation in Polytechnic Education (JIPE) in 2022. From exploring the ways innovation capabilities can be sustained to examining the importance of innovation leadership to analyzing the impact of the pandemic on teaching methods, these research studies address the timely subject of responding to challenges in innovative and sustainable ways.
Read on to learn more about the research studies and the researchers behind them.
Sustaining Innovation Capabilities Beyond COVID: A New & Distinctive Role for Polytechnics
A research study by Tom Carey, PhD., and Janet Zlotnik explores how innovation capabilities can be sustained beyond the pandemic
Abstract: In responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Canadian workplaces have experienced a surge of employee engagement with innovation. Maintaining this momentum can help the country to achieve its “Build Back Better” goals post-pandemic, as well as to address some of Canada’s longstanding innovation challenges. In this time of change, Canada’s polytechnic institutions are afforded an opportunity to make a distinctive contribution: equipping graduates with the innovation capabilities they need to navigate the future of work. Drawing on Breznitz’s work, we begin by noting a key factor for Canada’s longstanding innovation challenge, specifically its insufficient attention to the role of the individual as an Agent of Innovation. Then the case for employee-led workplace innovation is made, with reference to research and work underway globally, and mention of both the links to and differences from entrepreneurship (with which innovation capabilities are often equated). Having established the value of employee-led workplace innovation, the authors propose polytechnic institutions as the optimal venue for advancing this work in Canada. The paper concludes with a discussion of the opportunities that employee-led workplace innovation can bring to polytechnic institutions, specifically in terms of instructional development, collaboration with workplace partners, and potential for leadership in North American higher education.
Read the full article: Sustaining Innovation Capabilities Beyond COVID: A New & Distinctive Role for Polytechnics
https://jipe.ca/index.php/jipe/issue/view/5/6/45
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS RESEARCH TOPIC?
Tom and Janet: In a sense, this research topic chose us! We have to thank Dr. Tom Roemer, British Columbia Institute of Technology’s (BCIT) Vice President, Academic, who connected Janet with Tom Carey on a project related to polytechnic epistemologies in Industry 4.0+, which in turn provided the preliminary work for our research. By way of background, Dr. Thomas Carey is Co-Principal Catalyst for the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada and formerly served as an Executive-in-Residence for the B.C. Association of Institutes and Universities, Professor and Associate Vice-President at the University of Waterloo and Senior Research Director with the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.
As a project lead at BCIT, Janet is inspired by the possibilities for polytechnic education, yet cognizant of assumptions and resulting practices that hinder its potential. She views the convergence of employee-led workplace innovation with polytechnic education as key in preparing job-capable graduates in the Future of Work. Last year, with the pandemic providing both the context and momentum for the exploration, Tom and Janet jumped in with both feet!
WHAT NEXT? WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE IMPACT OF THIS RESEARCH STUDY?
Tom and Janet: Tom is currently co-leading a pan-Canadian research project funded by the Government of Canada's Future Skills Centre: Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work (with which Humber has been invited to collaborate). As part of that larger project, Janet and Tom are working with Steve Wilson of BCIT’s Centre for Digital Transformation to engage with regional employers in the Vancouver area on employeeled workplace innovation to support Digital Transformation. This September, we are bringing together an expert panel of researchers with industry partners to share cuttingedge research and to discuss adaptation to advance employee-led workplace innovation with their own workforces.
WHAT IS/ARE YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK(S)?
Janet’s favourite books of the past year: Exhalation by Ted Chiang; Encircling trilogy by Carl Frode Tiller; Anxious People by Fredrik Backman; Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. Janet also highly recommends a book related to her research, Innovation in Real Places: Strategies for Prosperity in an Unforgiving World by Dan Breznitz.
Tom's favourite books this year include: Saving Us – A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe; Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light by Leonard Shlain; This Strange Visible Air by Sharon Butala; An Atlas of Extinct Countries by Gideon Defoe.
ABOUT
Thomas Carey
Thomas Carey is Principal Catalyst with the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, a B.C.-based not-for-profit building academicworkplace partnerships to advance Employee-led Workplace Innovation in Canada. Tom’s past leadership roles in Canada include Associate Vice President at the University of Waterloo, Senior Research Director for the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, and Executive-in-Residence for the B.C. Association of Institutes and Universities.
In the U.S., Tom’s leadership roles have included Chief Learning Officer for a network of 18 higher education systems led by the California State University, Visiting Scholar for the California Community Colleges Success Network and the Los Angeles Community College District, and Senior Partner for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He is also currently Executive-in-Residence for Teaching and Learning Innovation at Monash University in Australia.
Tom’s past work as a faculty member has received awards for excellence in teaching and learning, research on user experience design and interactive technologies, collaboration across academic institutions and industry-university cooperative projects.
Janet Zlotnik
Janet Zlotnik is Project Lead, Academic Support Planning at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. With experience in teaching, action research, and leadership, Janet possesses both strategic perspective and operational know-how. She designs and guides special projects that yield innovative yet achievable solutions.
In her research, Janet is driven to find what will work in specific real-world situations and will 'stick' once a project ends. Her experience shows that it is critical that participants develop a sense of ownership for change and that operational details are factored into solutions. For this reason, she applies her knowledge of change management and her experience in the post-secondary system in BC to her project work.
Janet has also held instructional and leadership roles at Vancouver Community College, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and UBC. In addition to holding two Master’s degrees, she is certified in adult education, higher education leadership, and change management.
Home-Based Learning (HBL) in Higher Education Post- COVID: An Analysis from Staff and Student Perspectives
A research study by Neil Connon, PhD., and Elliot Pirie, PhD., analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on teaching methods
Abstract: The purpose of this work is to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on teaching methods, focusing on the Home-Based Learning approaches (HBL) utilized at short notice to support students at the Robert Gordon University in Scotland. Building on the themes developed by Tay et al. (2021), this paper focuses on: Student engagement; Software applications and Communications; Staff; and Self-directed skills to better understand the teaching decisions taken by staff at the onset of the pandemic and the impact this had on students’ learning. The aim is to then use this data to support how best to go forward in our teaching practices in a post-COVID world. To achieve this, qualitative research is undertaken using an exploratory approach looking at the key areas and antecedents drawn from the literature; it utilizes the views of staff and students to better understand how the post-pandemic use of technology in education can be designed to be fit for purpose. The paper outlines that when addressing the issues described above, the views of staff and students need to be analyzed to better plan for the post-pandemic use of technology in higher education.
Read the full article: Home-Based Learning (HBL) in Higher Education Post-COVID: An Analysis from Staff and Student Perspectives
https://jipe.ca/index.php/jipe/article/view/107/51
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS RESEARCH TOPIC?
Neil and Elliot: Digital transformation impacts all of us and will likely continue to do so. In the world of teaching, never was this impact felt so fundamentally or quickly as [with] the move from traditional teaching to HBL [Home- Based Learning] at the start of the pandemic in 2020. As staff endeavoured to come to terms with the new way of working imposed upon them it quickly became apparent that some approaches were favoured by students more than others, and certain approaches gleaned better results than others. This imposed crash course in online teaching has led to the revaluation of technology in traditional teaching whilst accelerating the acceptance of technology in general. The aim of the work was to gain insight from staff and students as to what had worked for them and where the main changes for the better had occurred. The hope was that this would inform practices and how technology is used in education going forward.
WHAT NEXT? WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE IMPACT OF THIS RESEARCH STUDY?
Neil and Elliot: Leading on from the study, we have been exploring ways to embed the lessons and positive outcomes of HBL into our future curriculum delivery. Supporting the findings of the study there has been a concerted effort to identify which of the various tools should be adopted more widely to minimize students’ confusion when faced with the plethora of options. Despite a return to a predominantly on campus delivery, the continued use of MS Teams has been of benefit to our students and our own delivery, for group work and supervisory activity. These communications tools have improved group work projects, acting as a ‘hub’ for group activities, whilst the immediacy of a Teams chat has resulted in greater engagement for supervision of theses/dissertations.
WHAT IS/ARE YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK(S)?
Neil: Sapiens (Harari, 2011), jaw droppingly good!
Elliot: I should say something like 1984 presumably (which is brilliant) but being honest I would have to say Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
ABOUT
Neil Connon, PhD.
Neil Connon, PhD., works in the School for Creative and Cultural Business at the Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen, Scotland. Neil has worked at RGU for more than 20 years and is a senior lecturer. In addition to normal teaching duties, Neil is involved with the university’s associate school in Lucerne, Switzerland. Neil is also in charge of study abroad programme which welcomes students from around the world to RGU, as well as send the students to one of its many excellent partner institutions, including Humber College. Neil’s teaching and research issues are mainly around the areas of technology and ethics, and as digital transformation develops apace, increasingly the two disciplines together.
Elliot Pirie, PhD.
Elliot Pirie, PhD., works in the School of Creative and Cultural Business at Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen, Scotland. Elliot has been with the University for 15 years and is now an Academic Strategic Lead. Elliot led the development and validation of the BA (Hons) in Digital Marketing and is also involved with one of the university’s associate schools in Zurich, Switzerland. Elliot’s teaching delivery is predominantly within consumer marketing and research, with research interests focusing on e-retail, specifically within the musical instrument trade, and more broadly in consumer psychology and online pedagogy.
Innovation Leadership in Polytechnics Beyond COVID: Sensemaking and Transformation in an Age of Uncertainty
A research study by Steve Wilson examines the role of innovation leadership in polytechnics beyond COVID
Abstract: The COVID pandemic has and continues to affect us all. It is the all-encompassing catastrophe that has forced us to face uncertainty and question our values and face our challenges in every aspect of society, including academia. It has also been the commonality that binds us all together, our shared experience in an age of uncertainty. For Polytechnics overall, it has also been a call-to-action and has clearly demonstrated our ability to innovate, adapt and overcome. Whether it has been the transitioning to an online, remote workforce or the accelerated use of new technological advances in education, Polytechnics have embraced these challenges and pivoted to meet the needs of students, faculty and industry. As such, Polytechnics have continued to emerge, now well positioned to prepare Canada for a prosperous future and growth through insights learned during the pandemic and innovative new educational program offerings and formats.
This paper discusses the critically important role of innovation leadership in Polytechnics beyond COVID. Starting with an example of innovation, I will introduce the new interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Transformation (C4DT) at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. This centre brings people together from across various distinct communities of practise and expertise to confront complex modern challenges through a process of communication, collaboration and sensemaking. Then merging significant literature review, I will examine recent success stories and practise transformations that shine light on Polytechnics innovation leadership role beyond COVID. Finally, I will examine the future of Polytechnics in an age of uncertainty and challenge readers to reflect upon what they have learned over the past year and consider the question, How can their own Polytechnics embrace these insights through sensemaking and transformation to embrace innovation leadership beyond COVID?
Read the full article: Innovation Leadership in Polytechnics Beyond COVID: Sensemaking and Transformation in an Age of Uncertainty
https://jipe.ca/index.php/jipe/article/view/112/46
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS RESEARCH TOPIC?
Steve: I have always been interested in innovation leadership and exploring organizational transformation through the lens of sensemaking. My research also correlates directly with the concept of interdisciplinary centers of competence created by Dr. Tom Roemer, VP Academic for the British Columbia Institute of Technology. These centres, or platforms, were designed to leverage knowledge that reside in multiple disciplines and encourages discourse and exchange. As such, these centres have become the vehicle for my exploration into organizational transformation over the past few years.
WHAT NEXT? WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE IMPACT OF THIS RESEARCH STUDY?
Steve: My research will continue for the next couple of years, and I will be further exploring organizational transformation through the lens of sensemaking. I am also interested in evaluating how behavioural insight solutions can be used as part of organizational transformation. This research will also include the design and elements of a new hybrid environment or framework called “common ground” in which innovation and entrepreneurship are encouraged and supported. I anticipate that my research will provide a framework/guide which can be used as part of a continuous organizational transformation process. This will enable organizations to successfully adapt during this age of uncertainty—futureproof.
WHAT IS/ARE YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK(S)?
Steve: I honestly find value in every book that I read. As quoted by Theodore Roosevelt—“I am a part of everything that I have read.” Over the past summer I had the opportunity to read several books including, Beachcombing at Miramar by Richard Bode, The Shock Doctrine – The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, The Future of Workplace Fear – How Human Reflex Stands in the Way of Digital Transformation by Steve Prentice, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, Effective Organizational Change – Leading Through Sensemaking by Einar Iveroth and Jacob Hallencreutz and The Connected Company by Dave Gray.
ABOUT
Steve Wilson
As an alumnus and the third generation of his family to attend the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Steve Wilson is honoured to be part of the new Centre for Digital Transformation at BCIT. With over 30 years of industry experience in the information and communications technology ecosystem, Steve is passionate about helping people and organizations with their digital transformation journey and strategic innovation goals.
Combined with a number of professional and academic certifications (MBA, BTech, CFE, CFCI), Steve epitomizes industry best practices within the field of information and communication technology, providing strategic insights for successful outcomes. Some of his past clients come from a variety of industries including financial services, law enforcement, oil and gas, retail, legal services, government, transportation, education, and non-profit.
Being an advocate of innovation and lifelong learning, Steve is also currently pursuing his PhD. in the field of public sector innovation management, information governance, and international public policy issues related to the internet and universal access. Steve also continues to assist in the development of post-secondary training opportunities, online learning initiatives, innovation leadership and provides engaging presentations at industry events and conferences, both in person and in our new virtual/hybrid world. Contact Steve to learn more about the new Centre for Digital Transformation and some of the exciting strategic initiatives including the BCIT Smart Campus Initiative.
CONNECT WITH US
Does your work focus on the scholarship of teaching & learning? Did you work closely with an industry or community partner? Was it applied research? Was it a social innovation research project? Did you conduct experiments at centres of innovation and/or research labs? Whatever it may be, we want to hear about it.
The Journal of Innovation in Polytechnic Education (JIPE) welcomes research stories and manuscripts from seasoned and emerging researchers from across the polytechnic and community college sectors, both within and outside Canada. Students/research assistants are also encouraged and invited to submit in collaboration with a faculty member/researcher. JIPE publishes original research papers, review articles, brief reports, book reviews and our “micro-dissemination” options, innovation spotlights and more.
Share your research on JIPE.ca.
