[Air-L] CFP: MOOCs, Flipping the Classroom, and Transformation of Higher Education: Building Bridges from the Academy (of Management) to the Academy

[June Ahn]

*MOOCs, Flipping the Classroom, and Transformation of Higher Education: 
**Building Bridges from the Academy (of Management) to the Academy *

Online and August 10, 2013
(prior to the Academy of Management Annual Meeting)
Lake Buena Vista (Orlando), FL USA//
//
/Call for Participation/
Recent innovations have generated considerable discussion about the 
transformation of higher education. Massively open online courses 
(MOOCs) run by entrepreneurial startups using social media to provide 
educational experiences for thousands of students. Open courseware 
repositories and learning platforms for "flipping the classroom", moving 
exposition online and experiential, group activities into the classroom. 
Market and social pressures driving traditional educational institutions 
to simultaneously increase scale, reduce costs, and continually 
innovate. Seemingly constant change, presents unknown consequences for 
the work, practices, positions, and identity of faculty, staff, and 
students. Waves of technological, pedagogical, and institutional 
innovation are either fundamental transformations or distracting fads.

These forces affect us in many ways.As faculty, changes in higher 
education directly affect our work, professional identity, and personal 
well-being. As educators, new technologies and institutional 
arrangements create new opportunities and constraints for working with 
students. As leaders, changing competitive environments affect the 
viability and health of our institutions and the choices we make about 
regulatory structures, joint-ventures, personnel, and investments.

At the same time, researchers have studied exactly the kinds of issues 
we are observing in higher education, but in other settings. Disruptive 
technologies; implications and development of knowledge and information 
repositories; institutional and inter-organizational competitive 
dynamics; individual, group, organizational, and population learning; 
the strengths and limitations of virtual teams; the dual nature of 
structure and routines; tensions between immediate adaptation and 
long-term viability; and the nature of work practices in 
knowledge-intensive organizations. These are just a few areas in which 
we have conducted research relevant for understanding and managing the 
ongoing transformation of higher education.

Although there is an extensive body of relevant knowledge, collectively 
we rarely make critical connections back to the ongoing discussions 
about the nature and future of higher education. In spite of this, 
discussions about higher education transformations are often based on 
anecdotes, opinion, and isolated experience of commentators, activists, 
and pundits --leaving faculty, students, administrators, and 
policymakers even more confused about what they should expect and 
prepare for in the future.

*A2A Workshop Objectives and Deliverables *

The purpose of the Academy (of Management) to Academy Workshop (A2A) is 
to build connections between state-of-the-art management, organization 
studies, and information systems research and the policy, institutional, 
and professional discussions prompted by the ongoing transformation of 
higher education. By making these connections more explicit we seek to:

·Help participants better understand and explain the trends affecting 
their organizations

·Provide high-value entry points into the management research literature 
for leaders grappling with organizational, institutional, and 
technological changes in higher education

·Identify opportunities for advancing the study of institutional, 
strategic, and technological change in knowledge-intensive environments 
by highlighting issues in higher education that are not well addressed 
by existing theory or empirical work

To achieve these objectives, the A2A Workshop will focus on the 
development of a set of 1-2 page briefs that build strategic connections 
between issues in higher education and current management, organization, 
and information systems research. Each brief will consider a specific 
issue or trend (e.g. the implications of online education for faculty 
work-life balance; the strategic implications of MOOCs for state 
universities; etc.); identify 3-4 published studies that provide 
theoretical and empirical bases for understanding and addressing the 
issue; and provide a short statement of how that work can be used to 
understand, explain, and respond to the focal issue.

The completed briefs and a summary of directions for new research will 
be made publically available through the website of the Center of the 
Advanced Study of Communities and Information (CASCI) 
<http://casci.umd.edu/> at the University of Maryland.Other publication 
outlets (conference paper, journals, etc.) will be pursued based on the 
interest workshop participants.

*Applying for and Participating in the A2A Workshop *

To apply for the A2A Workshop, prepare a short (1-2 page) position paper 
describing a specific issue in higher education, why it is important, 
and how management, organizational, and/or information systems 
scholarship is relevant for that issue.For full consideration please 
submit your position paper to the A2A co-coordinator by (Brian Butler) 
at bsbutler at umd.edu by May 10th, 2013.

All applicants will be invited to participate in the A2A blog. This 
blog/wiki will contain regular posts that highlight current issues in 
higher education and relevant management research.

Selected applicants will be invited to join a ½ day Professional 
Development Workshop (PDW) session on August 10^th from 8am -- 12pm 
(prior to the Academy of Management Annual Meeting 
<http://aom.org/annualmeeting/>).At this session we will work in groups 
to refine the focal issue statements, select the relevant 
theories/concepts/papers, collaboratively create initial drafts, and 
engage in comment and on-the-spot revision of the briefs.

While the specific issues considered will emerge from the submitted 
position papers and online discussions, possible topics include (but are 
not limited to):

?Change management and leadership in academic centers and departments

?Mentoring at a distance

?Intrapreneurship and autonomy in publically funded institutions

?Virtual teams and organizations for research

?Design of learning management systems to support learning analytics

?Differential competitive dynamics in heterogeneous/homogeneous 
organizational fields

?Disruptive technologies in public organizations

?Educational institutions as a site of knowledge work

?Practice theories of technology and innovation

?Organizational and community learning about MOOCs

?Team and individual performance and behavior in turbulent environments

?Learning analytics and continuous improvement

?Identity and innovation in small colleges

?Sociomateriality and educational institutions

?Dynamics of groups and communities in open learning environments

?Professional identity and "alternative" employment arrangements

?Bureaucracy, institutions, innovation and identity in state universities

For more information about the A2A Workshop please contact the A2A 
Workshop Coordinators, Brian Butler (bsbutler at umd.edu 
<mailto:bsbutler at umd.edu>), June Ahn (juneahn at umd.edu 
<mailto:juneahn at umd.edu>), and Susan Winter (sjwinter at umd.edu 
<mailto:sjwinter at umd.edu>) or check out the materials available at: 
http://casci.umd.edu/a2a2013/.
The Academy (of Management) to Academy Workshop is supported by the 
Center of the Advanced Study of Communities and Information (CASCI) 
<http://casci.umd.edu/>at the University of Maryland iSchool 
<http://ischool.umd.edu/>.



-- 
June Ahn
Assistant Professor
University of Maryland, College Park
College of Information Studies and College of Education
juneahn at umd.edu