The Educational Strategy for 2011-2015

If you want to be the best at cooperating with working life, it is not enough to send students on work placements. And if you want to be the best at e-learning, you have to dare to challenge old notions.

The Education Strategy for 2011-2015 states that Mid Sweden University will be national leaders both in cooperation with working life and in e-learning. But what does it really mean to be successful at cooperating with working life?

– Among other things, it means that we are not content to just send our students on work placements, but we also focus on other activities, such as field trips, business councils and internships. We work systematically to be the best, but also to raise the lowest level, says Robert Pettersson, the process leader for cooperation with working life.

A tool that we use is Arbetslivskompassen (Working Life Compass) that measures where we are today and how we can develop. Another tool is Kompetenskontraktet ( Competence Contract), which is an agreement between the university and a specific programme that determines who is expected to do what.

When it comes e-learning, Mid Sweden University has always been cutting-edge. Earlier, there was more talk about flexible education, focusing on distance education, but now the campuses are also getting on track.

Ola Lindberg is the process leader for e-learning and he’s working on developing the technical support for the programmes and courses. Among other things, an entirely new learning platform for the whole university has been developed. On the learning platform, you can find around 70 per cent of the university’s programmes and courses.

– We have also run a couple of model projects that challenge the notions about how programmes and courses should be carried out, one about mobile learning and one about blended learning (combined distance and on-campus studies). We constantly want to try what is most encouraging – and let the pedagogy rule the technology and not the other way around, says Ola.