Abstract:

In order to respond to the challenges posed by networked and complex digital service constellations, new competence and methods that can be used to facilitate digital service design are required. The service design and agile approaches have been rapidly adapted among designers. The service design methods and tools have proven to be very effective in bringing users experience into the focus of design process, while agile methods seem to complement the service design approach by providing tools and procedures for iterative designing and testing of digital services.

The existing international student exchange financial instruments requires a relatively long exchange time. On the other hand, applicants for the master’s degree programs in digital service design (at UAS) must have a suitable bachelor's or master's degree completed, and at least three years of work experience acquired after date of graduation. This implies that master’s degree students are mainly full-time employees, and therefore the commitment to the financial conditions of the existing international student exchange instruments may be challenging for them. Consequently, there are lack of international cooperation programs for higher education that support flexible short-term exchanges and mobility, and are widely targeted to several countries.

Together these have resulted in the need for:
(1) developing the content and practices in digital service design studies, and
(2) novel short-term international student exchange for master’s degree students in the field of digital service design.

Purpose of this paper is to find out how service design approach could benefit from the agile development methods in digital service design studies. The aim of the paper is to develop a new concept for short-term international students exchange for master’s degree students in digital service design. The short-term exchange pilot is a part of a project called Finnish Design Academy, which focuses on developing a new kind of collaboration model that aim to strengthen the role of higher education in design at the Finnish innovation ecosystem as well as to promote the internationalization of the design education.

This paper describes an international student exchange pilot that was conducted as a joint project by Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Laurea) and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) during spring 2019. Laurea provided the pilot with service design approach and UAB engineering view for agile software prototyping.

The objectives of the pilot were:
(1) to provide students with competence to use diverse development methods and tools flexible at all stages of the service design process in digital context; and
(2) to line out a new concept for short-term international students exchange for master’s degree students in digital service design.

The pilot extended understanding of new digital service design competences based on service design approach and the agile development methods. Based on that understanding a new concept for short-term international students exchange for higher education students in digital service design was created. The results also indicates that the competences from Laurea and UAB are complementary to each other. The main contribution of this paper is the new concept for short-term international students exchange for higher education students with the aim of providing the students with the ability to design digital services with agile methods.

Keywords:

Service design, agile methods, digital service, higher education.