The new participation model for higher education institutions brings multi-professional expertise to Digivisio

The Digivisio 2030 programme has undergone a reorganisation at the turn of 2023. The reorganisation process has aimed to improve cooperation between different areas and to ensure the participation and influence of higher education institutions in the development of services and operating models built in Digivisio.

The work of the programme office has been reorganised around new competence areas, and the former work package-based higher education institution participation model has been replaced by new theme groups. The operative contact persons, the lawyer group, the financial officers, and contact persons for data protection and communications established in the work package structure will continue working alongside the theme groups. The change coordinator and pilot coordinator networks will also continue their work.

The higher education institutions appointed their representatives to the theme groups in January, and the work of the groups was kicked off in a joint meeting on 17 February 2023. The theme groups will meet 4–6 times per year, and their collaboration will be coordinated at the Digivisio Day organised 3–4 times a year.

The theme groups are organised around four designated themes: data, guidance, educational offering, and enrolment, application and payment. The purpose of the theme groups is to increase understanding and identify current problem areas in relation to the technical solutions and services developed in the Digivisio programme from the perspective of higher education institutions and learners. The perspectives common to all four themes on the development work carried out in the programme, such as the development of digital pedagogy, common rules on the tray, and data protection and information security issues, are discussed in the theme groups.

“The theme groups enable a multi-professional approach to the solutions developed in Digivisio better than the work package-based model. When experts from higher education institutions working on different fields get together to discuss the different themes in a more versatile manner, we avoid the silo effect and are better able to take different perspectives into account on a wider scale. With this model, we aim to ensure that HEIs are as close as possible to the development work at all times,” says Hanna Nordlund, Programme Director.

The programme office has also moved from a work package-based structure to the new model. The office staff has organised their work around five competence areas:

• administration, agreements, and support services
• supporting the digital transformation of higher education institutions and digital pedagogy
• technical solutions and information security
• architecture and operating environment
• communications and engagement

Alongside the competence areas, process areas have been established with the aim of ensuring the smooth transition from one phase of service development to another and facilitating the efficient operation of the teams. Process areas include operational planning and enterprise architecture, design, development, pilots and deployments, and service production and management.

The roles of the steering group and the General Assembly remain unchanged, i.e. the General Assembly will continue to exercise the highest decision-making power in the programme, and the steering group will steer the project based on the framework provided by the General Assembly.

Read more about the theme groups’ tasks: download the material.

Read more about the organisation model of the programme office: download the material.