ISSN 1479-4403 85 ��Academic Conferences Ltd Reference this paper as: Fiedler, S and V��ljataga, T. (2010) ���Interventions for Second-Order Change in Higher Education: Challenges and Barriers��� Electronic Journal of e-Learning Volume 8 Issue 2 2010, (pp85 - 92), available online at www.ejel.org Interventions for Second-Order Change in Higher Education: Challenges and Barriers Sebastian Fiedler1 and Terje V��ljataga2 1Centre for Social Innovation, Vienna, Austria 2Tallinn University/Tampere University of Technology, Estonia/Finland fiedler@zsi.at terje.valjataga@tlu.ee Abstract: From 2005 to 2008 the international research and development project iCamp carried out a series of targeted educational interventions into existing teaching and studying practices within a cluster of European universities. These interventions were meant to establish educational experiences that would correspond with key features of international, distributed and technologically mediated work settings. The main educational objective was the advancement of important dispositions (skills, knowledge, attitudes and orientations) for collaborating with others and for self-directing intentional learning projects in such settings. The large-scale, homogenous and centrally administered landscapes of tools and services commonly provided in institutions of higher education proved to be conceptually and technologically incompatible with iCamp���s overall intervention perspective. Instead, iCamp fostered the systematic use of loosely-coupled, networked tools and services in the realm of social media and social software (such as Wikis, Weblogs, Webfeeds, etc.) to augment personal and distributed learning environments. The conceptual and technological shift provoked by iCamp challenged institutional representatives, facilitators, and students alike. This paper focuses on the description and interpretation of some key challenges, tensions, and barriers experienced by the research and intervention team in the context of the final field study carried out within the project. The paper finally suggests that the reported challenges and barriers represent re-occurring problems in educational research and argues for the need to develop an adequate conceptual framework for educational intervention that focuses on second-order change. Keywords: educational intervention, social media, higher education, system change 1. The iCamp project iCamp was a research and development project that was funded under the IST programme of the European Commission in the 6th Framework Programme. From 2005 to 2008 it designed and carried out a series of targeted interventions into existing teaching and studying practices within clusters of selected European universities. These interventions tried to challenge established routines in teaching and studying in a systematic and structural manner. The main educational objective of the project was the creation of opportunities to advance existing dispositions (knowledge, skills, orientations) for successful action in areas that are characteristic for distributed, mediated work settings. The areas of challenge that were of particular interest in iCamp were described as self-directing intentional learning projects, collaborating with others, and social-networking (Fiedler & Kieslinger 2006 Fiedler et al. 2009). iCamp assumed that domain-specific teaching can be (re-)organised, (re-)structured and (re- )mediated (Engestr��m 1999) in a way that makes the advancement of dispositions for successful action in the specified areas possible. In addition, iCamp carried out its interventions within specific formal higher-educational settings in which actors were distributed over geographic locations, institutions, disciplines, language communities, and national educational systems. Communication and (inter-)action in these settings were technologically mediated making use of increasingly diverse landscapes of networked tools and services. Our remaining description and analysis in this paper draws on data from the third and final iCamp field study. 1.1 Institutional and curricular context of iCamp���s final field study iCamp���s third intervention field study was carried out as an international, distance, postgraduate course titled elearning in the spring semester 2008 (March ��� June). This course was part of the accredited, international Master���s program Interactive Media and Knowledge Environments (http://imke.tlu.ee/) that is taught in English at Tallinn University (http://www.tlu.ee), Estonia. The course was also offered under the EMIM (European Masters in Interactive Multimedia http://www.valnet-emim.eu) program. The EMIM consortium consists of six European Higher Learning Institutions (HEIs) that offer postgraduate courses free of charge to students enrolled in one of their partner institutions. For the third iCamp intervention field study, Tallinn University opened up the course e-learning (free of charge) to students of iCamp partner institutions and to several ���associated��� partner institutions that had been invited to take part in the field study. Altogether 77 students and ten

Electronic Journal of e-Learning Volume 8 Issue 2 2010, (85 - 92) facilitators from seven different European countries (Estonia, Finland, Spain, Croatia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Poland) took part in the study. 1.2 Focus of intervention The particular focus of intervention in iCamp���s third field study was the creation of opportunities for advancing dispositions in the area of self-directing intentional learning projects. Thus, the teaching and studying practices had to be re-organised accordingly. To allow for the expression and actualisation of self-direction in education one generally has to gradually increase the degrees of freedom of all actors involved. This requires a shift of control and a re-distribution of responsibilities in relation to core aspects of formal educational settings such as: setting objectives selecting and executing appropriate actions and activities selecting, combining, and integrating resources and technological tools and services and defining criteria and procedures of evaluation. For a more detailed description of how this shift of control and re-distribution of responsibilities was carried out in the field study, we need to refer the interested reader to the following project reports (Fiedler et al. 2009 Nguyen-Ngoc & Law 2009). 2. Challenges and barriers for educational intervention In the remaining paper we attempt to extract and present an exemplary summary of concrete challenges, barriers and contradictions that occurred in the context of iCamp���s third intervention field study. These will be presented from the perspective of the interventionist/researcher while drawing on observational data elicited from the main groups of actors: institutional representatives, facilitators and students. The following descriptions were extracted through a qualitative content analysis (Wolcott 1994) of several data sources such as e-mail exchanges, interviews with 9 facilitators, material found in the records of their video-audio meetings, the facilitators��� personal Weblog posts, and traces in their Web- based workspace, student interview transcripts, students��� personal Weblog posts, and digital traces in various Web-based tools and services they had used during the course. All quotations from the original materials are kept unedited throughout the paper regardless of grammatical mistakes. 2.1 Working with institutional representatives Since iCamp���s intervention studies intentionally crossed institutional boundaries, we had to directly or in-directly work with various institutional representatives who were in charge of study programmes and enrolment, work contracts, time schedules, grading schemes and certificates, and landscapes of tools and services. Working with a whole cluster of institutions and their various representatives regularly produced challenges and contradictions for the intervention team. The following descriptions provide a few prominent examples of what type of problems had to be addressed and resolved to support our educational intervention efforts. 2.1.1 Enrolment and fees Implementing a cross-institutional educational experience and field study in European higher education immediately triggered issues around enrolment and fees. iCamp anchored its final study at Tallinn University, Estonia. However, usually students who are not enrolled at Tallinn University have to pay a tuition fee for taking courses. Thus an explicit agreement had to be reached between Tallinn University and the educational intervention team to waive the tuition fees for students of participating institutions. Nevertheless, some of the representatives of these institutions initially expected a bi- lateral agreement with Tallinn University. This turned out to be a rather difficult and time-consuming requirement and was only dropped after several rounds of negotiation. 2.1.2 Facilitators��� work contracts In addition to the students��� enrolment and fee topic the monetary compensations for facilitators became an issue. Usually institutions that employ facilitators provide their salaries. However, in the field study work contracts had to be signed with all the facilitators to compensate them for the additional workload. The administrative task of issuing valid employment contracts for facilitators from a range of European countries turned out to be a challenging and time-consuming affair for both the facilitators and the intervention team because of the administrative barriers set up by local tax officers and employers. www.ejel.org 86 ��Academic Conferences Ltd