Abstract
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rarely apply the methods of service design in developing their businesses. In part; this arises from the shortage of available service design expertise. Universities of applied sciences (UASs) have acknowledged the need for service design education; but do not yet have enough experience and practical knowledge to include the studies into curricula.
The PALI project (Competitive Advantage through Service Design) facilitates co-learning of service design amongst UASs. The project is a collaborative effort of HUMAK; Novia; Oulu and Savonia UASs; which form an interdisciplinary environment with several educational fields; tourism; cultural management; design and business administration. Co-learning in the project is based on real-world service development cases implemented in co-creation teams of UAS staff; UAS students and SME representatives.
This paper looks at how the co-learning environment has been constructed throughout the project. The most crucial question turned out to be knowledge transfer; which has been based on an iterative cycle consisting of three phases; progressing; learning by doing and reflecting. The challenge of integrating teaching and research has been addressed by creating a Broker model in which each UAS has a service design expert acting as a project generator between the UAS and SMEs.
Keywords
Service design; case study; learning; knowledge transfer; interdisciplinary
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2012.29
Citation
Aro, P., Heinonen, M., Parkkola, T., Vironmäki, E., Ahola, H., Iso-Aho, J., Järvelä, M., Kerola, R., Reijonen, K.,and Vuorela, T.(2012) Co-Learning Service Design within the PALI Project, in Tossavainen, P. J., Harjula, M., & Holmlid, S. (eds.), ServDes 2012: Co-Creating Services, 8–10 February, Espoo, Finland. https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2012.29
Creative Commons License
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Conference Track
Research Papers
Co-Learning Service Design within the PALI Project
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rarely apply the methods of service design in developing their businesses. In part; this arises from the shortage of available service design expertise. Universities of applied sciences (UASs) have acknowledged the need for service design education; but do not yet have enough experience and practical knowledge to include the studies into curricula.
The PALI project (Competitive Advantage through Service Design) facilitates co-learning of service design amongst UASs. The project is a collaborative effort of HUMAK; Novia; Oulu and Savonia UASs; which form an interdisciplinary environment with several educational fields; tourism; cultural management; design and business administration. Co-learning in the project is based on real-world service development cases implemented in co-creation teams of UAS staff; UAS students and SME representatives.
This paper looks at how the co-learning environment has been constructed throughout the project. The most crucial question turned out to be knowledge transfer; which has been based on an iterative cycle consisting of three phases; progressing; learning by doing and reflecting. The challenge of integrating teaching and research has been addressed by creating a Broker model in which each UAS has a service design expert acting as a project generator between the UAS and SMEs.