Abstract:

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, countries moved to online education using digital means. However, this transition seems to fail achieving satisfactory the desired goal, several factors shaping the complexity of the education service: infrastructure availability, lack of resources, plethora of actors within the education service, misinterpretation of the surrounding context.

The main problem is always the communication of different actors across a multi-contextual environment. Even if the whole society is facing the same problem (COVID-19), its individual perception is different, depending on the mindset of each stakeholder. This mindset can be represented as the way of categorizing objects and what relations among the objects are found important. The compatibility of categorizations in different contexts is crucial for understanding the problem complexity, and to be opened to multidisciplinary learning.

We discuss the education service resilience from a multi contextual perspective. We apply the service system [1] lens to the the education system, viewed as a service system composed of multiple actors working together to achieve a common goal, resilience. The main objects' categories (Resources, Actors, Networks, Interactions, Outcomes, Evaluation, Institutions and institutional arrangement, and ecology) are identified based on service-dominant logic [4] and Service Science [1], focusing on three frameworks: Service Science Canvas [5], Service System Framework [6], and Multi-Layer Service System Framework [7]. We use the four diamonds-of-context model for complex service design (4DocMod) framework [2], that integrates Stanicek’s Diamond Path Framework [3], to understand the main objects and their categories for a complex educational service design. We analyze the relations between objects belonging to these categories and the logic governing these multi-contextual relations.

Our main findings support decision-makers, managers, education organizations, understanding the education service system’s complexity, its multi-contextual environment, to create a common language fulfilling the goal of a resilient service for education. The paper identifies a roadmap to investigate the application of this preliminary analysis, advancing validation with other use-cases.

References:
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[2] M. Drăgoicea, L. Walletzký, L. Carrubbo, N.G. Badr, A.M.Toli, F. Romanovska, M. Ge, "Service design for resilience: A multi-contextual modeling perspective", IEEE Access 8, pp. 185526 – 185543, 2020.
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[7] R.B. Frost, M. Cheng, K. Lyons, "A multilayer framework for service system analysis.", In Handbook of Service Science, Vol.II, pp. 285-306, Springer, 2019.

Keywords:

Complex service, education service, resilience, multi-contextual modelling.