Part 4: The change brought about by Digivisio is made in the image of its higher education institution

In the blog series “What changes with Digivisio?”, Project Manager Eeva-Leena Forma shares her thoughts along the journey of transformation. Eeva-Leena led the transformation program from 2022 to 2024.

The Digivisio project has promoted the development of digital transformation as one of the front lines of higher education. Higher education institutions have integrated development of the Digivisio goal into their own processes, moving towards the services enabled by Digivisio in accordance with their own plan.

Adoption of the first Digivisio service, Opin.fi, will be done in three groups. Two of these groups, comprising 29 higher education institutions, have brought their study offerings to the service, which will be launched in spring 2025.

This is not just a question of transferring study offerings. Before this can happen, a lot of work has gone into Opin.fi as well as the different support services of higher education institutions and in the academic field in matters such as pedagogical and quality issues, communications, and decision-making and management, which are the starting points for everything.

Higher education organizations have set their own goals for their digital transformation with Digivisio. Important discussions have been held on, for example, digital environments and classroom teaching with respect to what the new service will solve and how it should be regarded at the higher education institution.

“However, we must look to the future and seek alternatives – no one has been very successful in forecasting so far, but preparedness is indeed rewarded. The most important thing is to make choices and act decisively based on these choices. A challenge universities always face is that getting the entire community to commit to choices will not happen without thorough discussion and subjectivity. There is also no guarantee of satisfaction with the decisions made. Nevertheless, I contend that there is great wisdom in being prepared, when we understand why phenomena, such as digitalisation, should never do more than serve our needs. “
Tapio Koivu. Digitaalisuus – hyvä renkikö? Tulevaisuuden kolme vaihtoehtoa.

Change needs words and deeds – we identified successes and pitfalls

Right now, I am thinking in particular about two pieces of feedback I received from the change coordinators, which I want to share while they are still fresh in mind:

“The change programme was started too early, and we had to wait too long for anything concrete to actually start happening.”

The feedback is referring to the fact that 29 higher education institutions are now using the Opin.fi service and the beta stage has shown what it can do. The service is becoming a reality.

One of the challenges of change management is verbalising change, which concretely transforms change into action. There can be quite a distance between strategic-level objectives and the concrete realisation of development work, and it has also been found that some of our goal timelines vary at different higher education institutions.

With respect to the challenging nature of change work, I think that we should also not forget the preparations that were needed in a higher education institution before a change could be put into permanent practice and given momentum for further development. Preparation is enabling work that can now be made into a visible practice.

The second piece of feedback stated:

“I appreciate the fact that I have been able to participate in this kind of joint national project for higher education institutions. Not everyone has had the opportunity to do something like this.”

This is easy to get behind and, indeed, many change coordinators seemed to do just that. If someone were to ask me if I would do it again knowing what was coming, that’s a no-brainer: in a heartbeat.

One important factor in successful change is experiencing appreciation and the meaningfulness of work. Another is management, and there are suddenly a wide variety of things connected to it, as has been evident from the successes experienced in change management.

Modification isn’t rocket science, even though it’s not always easy

During the preparation phase of the change programme, Digivisio had co-implementers from the University of Turku, Haaga-Helia, Lapland University of Applied Sciences and Satakunta University of Applied Sciences. At that time, we did reports on research and change processes at higher education institutions. These reports interfaced with the Digivisio change programme.

The aim was to find people behind successful major changes that broadly affect personnel, and the context of higher education was also interesting in this case. A change could be directly related to digital transformation, pedagogical work or, for example, organisational structure.

In the materials, we separately identified the factors that support success and the pitfalls encountered. In discussing the successes and possible obstacles encountered along the way in the change programme, we always find ourselves returning to the factors that foster successes or pitfalls. So again, it is really worth recognising the impact that these factors also have on this change work.

Successes in change management

• A clear, articulated vision and strategy, along with the ability to measure results
• Recognizing the overall impact of change: awareness of the organization’s readiness and capability for change
• Senior and middle management: interaction and shared commitment. Change is driven by a group with top management’s support
• Applying change management methods that consider the starting points
• Investing in employee collaboration. An inclusive and coaching leadership approach throughout the change process
• Feeling valued
• A sense of ownership over one’s work. An organizational culture that supports psychological safety and trust
• Accessibility of support
• Timely and concrete change communication
• Employees understand what the change means for their work

Challenges experienced in change management

• Articulating change. Assuming change is linear rather than recognizing its process-like nature
• Clear responsibilities
• Planning and integrating it into a timeline
• Self-assessment of competence may be overly optimistic and not aligned with actual skill levels
• Trust in leadership actions
• Shared goals: the academic tradition and perception of knowledge in higher education can act as a gatekeeping mechanism, preventing the use of even relevant sources and knowledge providers
• Communication
• Temporary nature of development experiments and co-creation

Potential challenges have been tackled and there have been some successes. It is important to acknowledge that both the project and higher education institutions have done great work for continuous learning and learners, and it has been a pleasure to be able to bring about change together with higher education institutions and actors in the Digivisio project.

There is still need for change management. We will re-evaluate our course and consider the measures to be taken when we get the analytics data and experience data on the functionality of the Opin.fi service from higher education institutions. However, it is with great anticipation and confidence that we head towards spring and the launch of the Opin.fi service for learners and higher education institutions.

Eeva-Leena Forma
Project Manager
Support for operational change and change management