When good intentions may not be good enough

Abstract

This reflective article sets out to illustrate some of the difficulties involved in developing capacity in Nordic collaboration. The project involves the development of digital open educational resources (OER) focused on bioethics in the Nordic region through a close collaboration between five universities. The article presents a case study and details the rationale for the development of the digital OER, describing how they were developed, tested and implemented. The article uses a framework of change management to identify current shortcomings, challenges and critical areas for further development. can be said to come internally from local cultures, but also through structural inertia brought through path dependency. This article identifies the development of digital open educational resources (OER) as a way to enhance capacity and collaboration in the Nordic region, and focuses on a case study of a project of collaborative development of digital OER in bioethics by a consortium of five Nordic HEIs. This article has two main aims: i) to describe how the project was designed and developed to promote organisational change and educational development by means of virtual mobility and internationalisation-at-home; and ii) to discuss and reflect critically on the shortcomings of the project from an organisational change perspective. As such, the article aims to offer insights into how such capacity-building endeavours may be more successful at translating ideas into implementation. The article uses a modified form of a descriptive case study (Yin, 2009), and presents a) a rationale for the project, b) a descrip-tion of the development of the different elements of the project, and c) reflections on the process so far. The article begins with a brief overview of elements of organisational change as a driving force for sustainable educational development. It then addresses some key internationalisation concepts and values that may be seen as adding additional value to digital interventions. Virtual mobility is introduced as a way to identify a possibility for students to take part in other participating institutions’ cultures and educational offerings, but from their current physical location. The article then outlines how an open educational resource was developed in a collaborative setting and how the same resource was tested.