Revealing the digital transformation, uncovering hidden process dimensions of education

Abstract

Purpose

This study explores the consequences of digitalization in the field of education, particularly in relation to teachers’ course processes in higher education institutions. It emphasizes the importance of understanding how information systems (IS) support not only individual tasks but also processes as a whole. The results reveal that process practices have not been considered comprehensively and even core processes may be unseen.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematic literature review was conducted to explore the extent to which teachers’ processes are discussed in the literature. A qualitative case study was then conducted at a Finnish higher education institution to identify course processes and their relationships to IS.

Findings

Teachers’ processes have scarcely been discussed in the literature, and the process support provided by ISs is remarkably limited. It seems that course processes, which are core to education, are a blind spot in education digitalization. To support evaluating the level of support by IS, novel course process indicators were introduced.

Practical implications

Developing core processes, teachers’ course processes and thesis processes in education field, supports improving service quality. In all industries, organizations should consider whether processes are properly recognized and whether IS support not only individual tasks but also processes as a whole. We recommend recognizing and applying business process management practices to better support teachers’ work and to improve overall efficiency in education.

Originality/value

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first education sector study that attends to teacher’s work as a comprehensive process.

Citation

Tsupari, K., Lagstedt, A. and Kauppinen, R. (2024), "Revealing the digital transformation, uncovering hidden process dimensions of education", Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 30 No. 8, pp. 260-283. https://doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-09-2023-0748

1. Introduction

Due to Industry 4.0, digitalization has played a key role in the development of all business areas (Borg et al., 2018, 2020; Drath and Horch, 2014; Szelągowski and Berniak-Woźny, 2024). It characterizes the way in which organizations are changing their processes and practices to comply with the requirements of the new era. Although a process-based approach to digitalization is generally considered a good way to make operations more efficient, process thinking is applied in different ways at different levels in various industries. Moreover, differences in organizational culture affect the facilitation of digital capabilities in industries (Distel et al., 2023).

One example of a tradition-based industry is the education sector. Teachers’ adaptations to technological development and the use of software such as different applications and information systems (IS) in teaching situations have been studied extensively, and several different models have been developed to support teachers’ capacity building (see Falloon, 2020; Koh et al., 2017; Koh and Divaharan, 2013; Mishra and Koehler, 2006; Thomas et al., 2013). In this study, the terms application and IS are used as follows: Applications are designed to perform specific tasks or functions based on user requests. ISs encompass a broader set of technologies and processes that manage data, support decision-making, and facilitate business operations. Software is used as a general term to refer to both IS and application. Digitalization in education is seen as highly lecture oriented and the focus of existing studies seems to be determining how teachers could come to see IS as useful pedagogical software (Kauppinen et al., 2020; Koh et al., 2017; Koh and Divaharan, 2013; Setyaningsih et al., 2020).

Digitalization refers to comprehensive organizational development and process support (Almeida et al., 2020; Borg et al., 2018; Bouwman et al., 2019; Hammer, 1990). Thus, it does not simply entail automating existing practices, digitizing information, or using IS to change the nature of specific tasks (e.g. lectures). Digitalization also entails significant changes in business models, processes, and work practices (Borg et al., 2018; Bouwman et al., 2019). Thus, a serious discussion of education digitalization must consider a broader perspective than merely the lecture level (Kauppinen and Lagstedt, 2021).

However, concentrating only on the lecture level can lead to suboptimization, as solutions that might help or change lecturing in an interesting way might also cause problems at the process or organizational level. For example, while some ISs or applications used in lectures may help motivate students’ learning, due to a lack of integration with the student register or evaluation system, such software may also require considerable extra manual work by the teacher, which may come at the cost of teaching or planning. This, in turn, could result in a decline in teaching quality and an overall negative impact of the software. Therefore, a comprehensive perspective is needed, with digitalization being implemented in educational institutions at the process level rather than the task (i.e. lecture) level.

In teaching, two rather common end-to-end processes are constantly repeated by teachers: the guidance process (e.g. thesis advising) and the course process. An end-to-end course process refers to all activities and tasks related to a teacher’s work when designing a course from start to finish—that is, not only the lectures held in a classroom but also planning the courses, cooperating with colleagues, scheduling course implementations, managing care of enrollments, evaluating students, writing reports, and handling other administrative tasks. Teachers may be involved in shared teaching, education development groups, and curriculum updates and must be able to schedule these in addition to their other work. Therefore, it is important that education digitalization produces helpful and easy-to-use ISs that support all the different levels, stakeholders and processes involved, not only some discrete, individual tasks.

The education digitalization literature seems to primarily focus on the task level (i.e. lecturing and teachers’ ability to use technology). For example, recent educational technology research in the context of higher education has provided insights into interaction, engagement, and cognitive load in learning (Stenalt and Mathiasen, 2024). However, digitalization is typically considered a broad, comprehensive method of process development (Kauppinen et al., 2022; Rachinger et al., 2019). Thus, it should have a process-oriented perspective that may be largely neglected in the education digitalization literature. Therefore, we identified a need for further examination of the education process digitalization from a literary and practical perspective and formulated the following research questions:

RQ1.

How are teachers’ processes recognized in the recent digitalization literature?

RQ2.

How do existing software support teachers’ processes?

To answer the first question, we conducted a systematic literature review of the recent education digitalization literature. To answer the second question, we conducted a qualitative case study at a large Finnish university of applied sciences, investigating how well existing software, i.e. ISs and applications support teachers’ processes. In the discussion and conclusion of this article, we synthesize our findings and make recommendations on how to improve the current situation and suggest avenues for future research.

The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents a theoretical background for the study. The research methodologies for the literature review and case study are outlined in Section 3. We present our findings in Section 4, followed by a discussion of their implications in Section 5. Finally, Section 6 summarizes the findings, identifies limitations, and considers future research directions.

2. Background

2.1 Process development

Although education is not, at least in all cases, a business, teachers’ processes can still be considered business processes. According to Trkman (2010), “a business process is a complete, dynamically coordinated set of activities or logically related tasks that must be performed to deliver value to customers or to fulfill other strategic goals.” There have been different perspectives on business process development, and when business processes are developed, it is crucial to understand the different aspects and elements related to them (Denner et al., 2018; Rosemann and vom Brocke, 2010; Trkman, 2010).

In 1990, Michael Hammer and Thomas Davenport developed the concept of business process re-engineering (BPR; Davenport and Short, 1990; Hammer, 1990). According to BPR, companies should not just automate their existing processes but rather redesign them (from scratch). This kind of “destructive” re-engineering has risks and is an episodic rather than an ongoing effort (Hammer, 2010). Due to BPR’s limitations, the concept was expanded, and a wider perspective on the continuous process of development management and diagnosis was achieved in the form of business process management (BPM; van der Aalst et al., 2003). BPM is a young and still evolving framework. One rather widely applied approach to it is Rosemann and vom Brocke’s (2010). They identified six core elements of BPM—strategic alignment, governance, methods, information technology, people, and culture—each with five capability areas (Rosemann and vom Brocke, 2010). Trkman (2010), in turn, proposed a theoretical basis for BPM by combining three theories: contingency theory, dynamic capabilities theory, and task–technology fit (Trkman, 2010). These BPM perspectives are broad, complex, and require a good understanding of the process and its environment.

Although information technology (IT) is generally considered part of process management, in BPM discussions, ISs are often considered to be ready-made software designed to help process development (e.g. for process design and modeling) or control, manage, and improve existing processes (Rosemann and vom Brocke, 2010). IT has a dual role—matching the current state of the processes and enabling dynamic capabilities (Trkman, 2010)—and some models explain how digitalization can be used in process improvements (see Denner et al., 2018). However, there is little discussion about how to combine IS development and business process development projects or how, for example, requirement engineering should proceed in different process development contexts. In addition, BPM use varies considerably from organization to organization (Rosemann, 2010).

Maddern et al. (2014) argued that there is a clear need to “manage processes from a horizontal rather than a vertical perspective,” so the end-to-end perspective on processes is important. Concentrating on and optimizing specific tasks or subprocesses is insufficient. The whole end-to-end process and its dimensions (boundary, sequence flow, control, resources, input–output transformation, interrelationships, and orientation; Maddern et al., 2014) and perspectives (behavioral, functional, organizational, operational, and informational; Denner et al., 2018) must be understood and managed when processes are developed (Denner et al., 2018; Maddern et al., 2014). In education, this means that optimizing only teachers’ classroom activities is insufficient; the whole process must be understood and the effects on other teacher processes and tasks must be considered (see Figure 2). As Maddern et al. (2014) pointed out, a shift toward end-to-end process management requires reconceptualizing the understanding of processes, which is crucial in process development but also a significant barrier to overcome (Maddern et al., 2014). To reconceptualize and understand processes in a sustainable way, there must be ownership of processes. Process owners must have a holistic view of processes and organizations, and they should have “end-to-end responsibility for a process and its performance, results, incremental improvement and innovation” (Danilova, 2019).

2.2 Digitalization of expert work

Digitalization is an efficient way to develop processes. However, not all business processes can be digitalized in the same way. Some processes consist of rather mechanical work without major variations, while other processes, such as course processes in education, have to be reactive and agile, and onsite process decisions are based on the judgment of experts (e.g. lecturers; Davenport, 2010; Schoenfeld, 1999). According to Davenport (2010), even in expert-oriented knowledge work, processes can be managed, but this requires different approaches than traditional routine work.

To digitalize processes for knowledge work, four steps based on the theories of business process, IS development, and change management can be identified: initiation (Cooper and Zmud, 1990; Davenport, 2010; Davenport and Short, 1990; Kotter, 1995), process re-engineering (Davenport, 2010; Davenport and Short, 1990; Davis et al., 1989; Kotter, 1995; Lagstedt and Dahlberg, 2018; Venkatraman, 1994), IS development (Davenport, 2010; Davenport and Short, 1990; Kotter, 1995; Theocharis et al., 2015) and stabilization (Cooper and Zmud, 1990; Davenport, 2010; Kotter, 1995; Theocharis et al., 2015). One implementation of this model is expert-oriented digitalization (EXOD), which balances expert autonomy and process harmonization (Lagstedt et al., 2020).

In education, lecturers have substantial autonomy in how they organize their teaching and react to learners having problems or other exceptional situations. Therefore, education is one of the business areas in which expertise is emphasized, and in the digitalization of education processes, the expert point of view should be considered. The EXOD model provides a general guideline on how to proceed with digitalization. It has four main steps: (1) initiation, (2) process re-engineering emphasis, (3) IS development emphasis, and (4) stabilization with the idea that process re-engineering and IS development are done in a synchronized way, for example, by utilizing agile approach. However, being a rather general model, EXOD does not give any specific details on the digitalization of education processes (Lagstedt et al., 2020).

As Kauppinen and Lagstedt (2021) stated, the focus of education is easily seen rather narrowly, and the wider perspective is neglected. It seems that the course process is not considered in the same way as end-to-end processes; rather, teachers’ work is seen only as either teachers’ classroom activities (see Early et al., 2017; Misfeldt et al., 2019; Slot et al., 2017) or through students’ learning processes (see Liu et al., 2020). In both cases, the course process is not at the center; instead, specific tasks and teachers’ individual-level capabilities are.

When digitalization is considered in a teaching context, the main concern seems to be how teachers’ digital competencies are connected to their other competencies (Mishra and Koehler, 2006). Mishra and Kohler (2006), when proposing a conceptual framework for educational technology, stress that teachers’ professional knowledge consists of content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge. As shown in Figure 1, these knowledge areas overlap somewhat, and the optimal knowledge area for efficient teaching—technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)—is where all three areas intersect. Thus, the TPACK model concentrates on the teachers’ knowledge areas, and TPACK model-based evaluation software (see Valtonen et al., 2015) can be used to evaluate teachers knowledge on these areas and set individual-level goals.

Although Mishra and Kohler (2006) consider the need for educational process change and state that “merely introducing technology to the education process is not enough,” they do not discuss end-to-end course processes or teachers’ knowledge needs related to processes at all. If teachers do not understand the environment, dynamic capabilities, and fit between the tasks of the process and supporting ISs of their processes, there is a risk of suboptimization (Trkman, 2010). For example, some tasks in the classroom will be optimized at the expense of other tasks, which can require significant extra work outside the classroom. In the long run, this kind of process digitalization is unsustainable. Over time, teachers get tired of the extra work that results from education digitalization, and there is a risk that teachers may return to old, lighter practices, even if the new practices could have been better for students’ learning.

When there seems to be little guidance on the development of the course process, it is worth looking at what is generally known about teachers and teaching processes and how well the course process and thesis guidance process have been identified and implemented in existing IS teachers use in their daily work.

2.3 Teachers’ work

As already mentioned, teachers’ work is typically only associated with classroom work and the student learning process. However, teachers’ work also includes tasks such as planning, development, administration, management, evaluation, and reporting. These tasks are easily ignored because they can be invisible to students and management. The problem is that even if the work is invisible, it is neither insignificant nor less burdensome. At worst, this invisible work can be so stressful that the visible part of the work (classroom work and teaching) suffers. Therefore, we consider it important to understand teachers’ work as a whole process rather than individual visible tasks.

Teaching and learning process. The teaching and learning processes are currently widely seen as a focal point in learning. In practice, these processes are entangled with each other. Of these, the teaching process only recently emerged to focus on academic discussions following the wide adoption of ISs and applications. Traditionally, the processes related to learning have been seen having their roots in didactics. The learning process has been described as an interaction between teacher, student, and content to be learned (Kansanen and Meri, 1999). For decades, academia has focused mainly on the interaction between students and teachers, and the communication in the interaction has been seen as an instructional process consisting of different teacher actions, such as talking and asking questions (Lagstedt et al., 2020). Also, phenomena such as interaction, engagement, and cognitive load have been considered as principles for designing teaching technologies (Stenalt and Mathiasen, 2024).

In previous research, there are different interpretations of the teaching process. It has been described as an individual process for each teacher and seen as a personal development target (Alava and Martinez, 2019). The focus is often on the learning process, so the teaching process is seen as a tool for improving learning and quality development for educational institutions (Vagarinho and Llamas-Nistal, 2020). Teaching processes are also described to be entangled in human growth with accurate and disciplined practice-oriented processes (Craig et al., 2017). Recently, the need for additional teaching process research has arisen from the development of distance learning, and learning platforms used for it often gather data that can be used in related research and development (Liu et al., 2020).

In recent years, the use of ISs and IT in teaching has increased significantly. Their role in teaching is profound because pedagogical objectives should be fulfilled via teaching and learning processes supported by fitting ISs and IT (Nikolić et al., 2019). IT has significant potential to improve the quality of teaching and learning via flexibility (Lawrence and Tar, 2018). Engagement and communication at the individual, group, and societal levels can be improved with ISs (Lawrence and Tar, 2018). However, an overview of teachers’ processes and their digitalization seems to be missing.

Course process. The course process is scarcely discussed in the previous research. However, there are different perspectives that cover some areas of it in the few studies on teachers’ processes that have been conducted (Glogger-Frey et al., 2018; Lawrence and Tar, 2018; Schoenfeld, 1999; Vieluf and Göbel, 2019). Schoenfeld (1999) introduced a single-lesson teaching process model. The teacher’s decisions, actions, decision-making and objectives are recognized as parts of the process. In the model, the teacher’s knowledge, goals, and beliefs affect decision-making. To make a lesson plan for a lesson process, the teacher has a lesson image, which represents the overall picture of the lesson beforehand (Schoenfeld, 1999).

Another perspective is a combination of knowledge structures and pedagogical situations. In this recent orientation, assessment and judgment processes are included. Instructional competence is recognized as a part of the process, and assessment competence is recognized as another part (Glogger-Frey et al., 2018). These aspects are combined as a fluent teaching process in the proposed model.

IT adoption has been highlighted in recent research on teachers’ work. Although software have a significant potential capacity to support teachers’ work in modern education (Mishra and Koehler, 2006), there has been some discussion about the factors that positively or negatively affect the adoption of ISs or applications for teaching. Lawrence and Tar (2018) suggest that teacher-level, technological, and institutional-level factors affect IT adoption for and integration with teachers’ work. Teachers’ attitudes, IT knowledge, and accessibility to software affect their adoption. Institutional factors are upper-level organizational issues that affect adoption, such as benefits or obstacles to IS use (Lawrence and Tar, 2018). Teachers’ positive attitudes toward software require organizational technological arrangements—i.e. processes that support teaching and learning in e-learning environments.

3. Research gap

The course process is one of the most important core educational processes since it should link teachers’ work tasks and teaching and learning process. In Figure 2, the course process is visualized based on the previous literature as an input–tasks–output process. This describes teachers’ process in the sense of carrying out one implementation of a course from start to finish. The key tasks as well as several factors affecting the course process (appearing around the course process in Figure 2) are recognized in the literature, but their connections seem not to be clearly defined in the literature. Also, the relationship and connections between the course process and the teaching and learning process seem to be undefined.

Furthermore, based on the previous literature, the implications of teachers’ processes are not considered as a whole in relation to the software. Instead, they appear as ISs or applications and are seen as a factor among the others (as illustrated in Figure 2). Thus, it seems that while applications may support the performance of individual tasks, it may not support the course process and teaching and learning process as a whole. If the process nature of teachers’ work is not considered as a whole, the responsibility for executing the different related tasks (pre-course tasks, teaching tasks, management tasks, administrative tasks, evaluation tasks, and post-course tasks; see Figure 2) is fully assigned to an individual teacher. In this case, because the teachers’ processes are not seen, there is no means to effectively support the work in a harmonized way, for example, with institutional level ISs and applications. To further study this, we formulated the research questions mentioned in Section 1, namely how are teachers’ processes recognized in the recent digitalization literature (RQ1) and how do existing software support teachers’ processes (RQ2).

4. Methodology

The first part in this study was to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR). An SLR summarizes existing knowledge and identifies research gaps (Kitchenham, 2004). The objective was to verify the existence of the proposed research gap by summarizing the recent discussion about education digitalization and the related processes. The second part of the study consisted of a qualitative case study at a Finnish higher educational institution (HEI), at typical university of applied sciences (UAS).

First part: SLR. In the SLR, we followed the advice of Kitchenham (2004) and formulated a written research protocol to guide the SLR. A research protocol was developed to guarantee that the research was conducted consistently. The first step in formulating a research protocol was conceptualization: to identify what is already known, the key terms, and good potential sources of data (vom Brocke et al., 2009).

The conceptualization was done by reading some seminal texts (e.g. Davenport, 2010; Lagstedt et al., 2020; Mishra and Koehler, 2006). Next, as Kitchenham (2004) suggests, preliminary searches were carried out in the ProQuest and Google Scholar databases to estimate publication volumes and types and to design useful search term strings and limitations. In the preliminary search, different combinations of search terms related to education digitalization and teaching processes were used. Although concentrating only on leading journals and top conferences (if conferences are included at all; vom Brocke et al., 2009; Webster and Watson, 2002) is often suggested, our preliminary search revealed rather few articles related to education digitalization and teaching processes, so lower-level journals and conferences were included. In addition, although conference proceedings often have a lower valuation (vom Brocke et al., 2009), they are important for identifying research gaps and forthcoming research. Since the purpose here was to review recent discussions about education digitalization and teachers’ processes, the conferences were considered important forums.

To avoid publication bias, Kitchenham et al. (2009) recommend scanning gray literature and conference proceedings. Consequently, instead of selecting a handful of top journals from selected disciplines (which might avoid subjects somewhat outside of their scope), different kinds of databases with a multidisciplinary approach and wide coverage of journals and conferences were selected. Three different types of databases were used in the literature search: information system science -specific and computer science -specific (ACM Digital Library), multidisciplinary (SAGE, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, and Academic Search Premier EBSCO), and a reference database (Web of Science).

The literature search was conducted in the autumn of 2021. It was conducted database by database because databases have different search practices (e.g. allowed search operators and operator combinations differ). The search strings are shown in Table 1.

Because the selected keywords and phrases were used in a range of articles, the articles (498 in the “Found” column in Table 2) were evaluated and filtered in several phases to assess their relevance. During the filtering, a positive dropping policy was used; in every assessment phase, only articles that were clearly outside the scope of this research were excluded. All unsure cases were moved to the next assessment phase. In the assessment of found articles, the following inclusion criteria were used: (1) the article addresses education digitalization from a teacher process point of view, (2) it is available in at least one of the selected scientific databases, (3) it is peer-reviewed, (4) the full text is available, (5) it is written in English, and (6) it was published between 2016 and 2021. The results of the search and filtering are presented in Table 2.

After filtering, the included literature was analyzed in a workshop based on the material’s content (Table 3). The final results of the analysis of the included literature are presented in Tables 2 and 3 Six published papers were included in the final SLR results (Table 3).

Second part: Case Study. As background, according to recent European Commission (2018, 2022) reports on digitalization in general, Finland is one of the leading countries enabling digital transformation. In addition, it seems that in Finland, facilities are of high quality and attitudes toward education digitalization are positive (European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, 2019). Thus, we considered a Finnish university to be an ideal case study location. The target educational institution, as a large educational organization, is a typical Finnish UAS that has actively invested in digitalization in recent years (Kauppinen et al., 2020; Lagstedt et al., 2020). The authors believe that typical (and some advanced) teaching-supporting software are used at the university and thus that it is representative of Finnish universities.

Case study research is a good method for observing contemporary circumstances (Wohlin et al., 2003; Yin, 2018), so it was chosen to help understand the current status of typical software in HEIs and their level of support for teachers’ processes. A case study is also a natural choice for researching a phenomenon that occurs within a specific time range, and a selected sample can be considered to present the current status of the phenomenon (Wohlin et al., 2003).

The data were collected using a single case study (Yin, 2018) from participating UAS IS and applications related to teachers’ work. Data collection and analysis were carried out by the authors in workshops. Workshops are considered an appropriate research method for case studies, especially when seeking to understand technology supporting work processes (Ørngreen and Levinsen, 2017). Data were collected in the form of notes taken during the workshops based on the analysis of physical artifacts (Yin, 2018)—in this case, the software used at participating UAS. The data analysis method was pattern matching (Yin, 2018), in which relationships between the state of reality and the reasons for it are analyzed.

Total of three workshops were conducted for this study. First workshop was related to SLR, and the two others were related to the case study. There were the same three participants in all the workshops who were chosen based on their seniority in comprehensive educational working roles (20 years, 20 years, and 15 years). All the participants had substantial experience in using different software at the institution and digitalization projects in the education sector. All the participants had also experience in process development (20 years, 10 years, and 8 years). First, in a four-hour workshop, based on the SLR, categories were created for the classification of the data analysis in the case study workshops (Table 4). Then, in a two-hour workshop, participants had a reflective discussion in which they decided which software were relevant for this study in the organization (Table 5). Additionally, IS and application categories and subcategories were created (Table 5). To prepare for the final, four-hour workshop, participants individually evaluated the software to form their personal understanding about the indicators in relation to each IT system or application. Finally, in the final workshop, participants had a reflective discussion in which they created shared understanding about the indicators of the software (Table 5). The relatively small group of participants allowed us to thoroughly consider all the experts’ perspectives and reach a consensus in the workshops.

5. Results

The final results of the SLR are introduced as a form of general task and process related items (Table 4) to compare them with results of the case study process research (Table 5). Indicators were considered on a scale of 0 (for not referred at all) – 1 (referred partially or to some extent) – 2 (referred).

Two of the papers, Bauwens et al. (2020) and Tokel et al. (2019), address issues related to the research gap from a management point of view; however, they do not see the need for a stronger process approach. Misfeldt et al. (2019) concentrate on the use of curricula, and the rest of the papers (Gugino, 2018; Limongelli et al., 2016; Zhao et al., 2020) concentrate on teachers’ digital capabilities or classroom work with IS and applications but do not adopt a broader process perspective.

To summarize the results of the final analysis of the SLR (Table 4) completed in the first workshop, we did not find any research report that introduced process support for the entire teachers’ course process. Although some of the process stages or features are covered in the reports, full coverage is lacking.

In the two other workshops covering the case study, the IT systems and applications that support teachers’ work in general and that are used in educational organizations were identified. Next, the category of each software was defined in the workshop since a previous taxonomy for classification was not found. Although some classifications have been published (Bobryts’ka and Prots’ka, 2018), there were not suitable for this case study.

Eight categories (Table 5) from the teachers’ work perspectives were identified: (1) study and student management systems, (2) generic learning management systems, (3) case-specific learning management systems, (4) reporting applications, (5) communication and sharing systems, (6) virtual meeting applications, (7) teaching activity-specific applications, and (8) subject-specific applications.

As study and student management systems, Peppi and Timetable systems were analyzed. As a generic leaning management system, Moodle was considered because it is widely used in Finnish universities of applied science. Wihi (Konto), a thesis-process IS, was analyzed as an example of a case-specific learning management system. Repotronic and course feedback systems were analyzed as examples of reporting applications. As a communication and sharing IS, Teams was used in the analysis. In the analysis, Zoom was considered a virtual meeting application. In the analysis, teaching activity-specific applications were Kaltura (local video service), Padlet (visual digital note board), Miro (whiteboard application) and Socrative (on-the-fly assessment application). Viope was analyzed as a subject-specific application. Basic office tools (e.g. Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Google Docs, and email) were not assessed here because they were not originally designed as supporting processes despite being widely used. In addition, personnel management systems (e.g. Sympa) were excluded from the analysis because they offer no recognized direct support for teachers’ processes and work.

Although an appropriate course process model was not found in the literature, general process models were used where applicable. Course process indicators were defined in the workshop based on the general process models: (1) starting point, (2) teaching, (3) reporting, (4) integration, (5) process control, (6) target level, (7) end point, and (8) performance support (as a general indicator for the whole process). In addition, subcategories for some indicators were identified. The starting point can be divided into the pre-phase and enrolling. Teaching can be divided into communication, material sharing, and assignments and activities. Reporting can be divided into feedback and progress. By the process control indicator, process building is indicated as automatically generated, having a possibility for building the process, or as not being possible to build the process with the help of an IS or application. The target level indicates whether it is possible to operate the IS at a higher level (process level) or a lower level (task level). The performance support indicator describes the ability of the IS to reduce the cognitive load of the users related to the process. The recognized indicators were applied as a methodological tool in this study, but as they were in line with general process theories, they can also be applied in other studies related to teaching processes.

All the indicators were analyzed in the workshops by the authors on a scale from 0 to 2, where 0 indicated no applicability to the IS or application at all, 1 indicated some applicability, and 2 indicated good applicability.

We found that most of the software used by teachers did not have built-in process support. The only IS with the necessary process model built in was the thesis management system Wihi; however, even its process support could have been better. Although the learning management system Moodle can be used as a process-supporting IS, it does not have any kind of built-in process model. It is up to each teacher to build the process model or not, so the IS or application does not automatically support the process or minimize teachers’ mental loads. No other IS or application had direct process support. One clearly missed opportunity was the reporting application Repotronics, which teachers use to keep hourly records; it did not have any kind of process support.

6. Discussions

Based on the SLR, it seems that the process perspective on teachers’ work is rare. The main emphasis is on students’ learning processes and teachers’ classroom tasks. The discussion in the literature seems to be scattered. ISs are seen only through individual tasks in the classroom, not as support for a process. This is problematic because although classroom activities play an important role in students’ learning, concentrating on them increases the risk of suboptimization. In the worst case, if the course process is not understood, optimizing classroom actions creates so much extra work outside the classroom that the teacher becomes incapable of completing even the classroom tasks properly (Bauwens et al., 2020). In such situations, developing additional interesting and inspiring applications for use in the classroom is unhelpful; on the contrary, it may only exacerbate teachers’ workloads.

This raises an important question: Why are teachers’ processes so invisible? Is it because teachers are so autonomous or because this has been the situation for centuries, and schools (as organizations) are based on a functional organizational paradigm (Burrell and Morgan, 1979), or has this just been a blind spot because all attention is on the development of pedagogical approaches? Maybe in the traditional educational industry, process orientation is not recognized due to organizational culture (see, e.g. Distel et al., 2023). Whatever the reason, if we want to make the most of the digitalization of education, the process approach must also be emphasized. When considering digitalization in education, mainly teachers’ pedagogical subject and technological competence are stressed (Mishra and Koehler, 2006); teachers’ process skills seem to be a blind spot. In addition, technological skills are expected to be studied before starting one’s career, during teacher training, or independently later in one’s career (Zhao et al., 2020).

Since the education process approach was so rare in the literature, it was unsurprising that the software used in the case university provided limited support for the course process. We cannot say that any of the ISs used fully or optimally supported teacher processes. The only IS with a process model inside that really reduced the mental load of teachers was the thesis management system Wihi. The system was developed in together with thesis-process development, the process perspective was stressed, and users played a significant role in its development.

Another IS that supported teachers’ processes was the learning management system Moodle; however, unlike Wihi, it did not have an internal process model, and the necessary integrations (e.g. with the student register) were limited. In addition, it did not minimize the mental stress of teachers; it was up to individual teachers how they used it. The course templates did not provide much teacher process support; however, by harmonizing the visual elements of courses, they eased the learning process for students. When teachers use learning management systems in their own ways, the outcomes can be confusing from students’ perspectives. Because this has a clear connection to the quality of education, further research should explore how this variance course processes affects students’ learning outcomes.

All the other software was more or less task or classroom specific. Although they might have helped teachers in specific situations, they did not provide any process support. There is a risk of suboptimization if such software are overused, as teachers’ cognitive loads may increase (Bauwens et al., 2020). Additionally, students’ cognitive loads may increase if IS or applications are used excessively during the teaching and learning process. Thus, from the perspective of cognitive load, Wihi (as an IS) aims to diminish both students’ and teachers’ cognitive loads, while Moodle accomplishes the same for teachers. The other ISs do not diminish cognitive loads.

The course implementation process is illustrated in Figure 3, which is modeled from the teacher’s viewpoint, so learners’ process details are omitted, but the messaging between teachers and individual learners is shown. From the teacher’s viewpoint, the course implementation has three phases, and the process starts when a course is scheduled for a teacher. Before the contact (classroom) teaching starts, there are the preparation and planning phases. Finally, there is the post-course phase, which wraps up and finalizes the course implementation.

From a core functionality viewpoint, the pre-course preparation and planning phase focuses on preparing the course materials and activities, while the teaching phase focuses on implementing the course with the learners utilizing the course materials and activities. Similarly, the post-course phase focuses on evaluation of learning and wrapping up the course and possibly updating the materials and activities for the future or at least planning for future updates. IS-wise, for these tasks, learning management systems and course-specific applications are used, and the results of the teacher’s work are mostly visible to both teachers and learners.

All three phases contain administrative and management tasks. Administrative tasks, such as maintaining the schedule, managing enrollments, and registering grades, are typically visible for the organization’s management in addition to the teacher and learners, because they are done using management systems such as study and student management systems. Management tasks, such as reporting progress and working hours, are typically visible to the organization’s management and the teacher.

Overall, the administrative and management tasks create a noteworthy overhead for teachers’ work that is often neglected when teaching-related processes and functions are considered. In addition, a low level of integration between the related ISs resulted in partial duplication of the work content. Examples of this include manually updating the schedule and results of the course in several ISs (management system and learning management system) and having the same tasks of preparing, utilizing, and updating the course materials across several ISs and applications (learning management systems and course-specific applications), thus distributing the materials and activities into separate software.

Based on the results, teachers’ work should be considered more broadly rather than just digitalizing the teaching and learning tasks. The process approach should be widely applied to be more effective and genuinely support teachers. This should also be considered in the use of the TPACK model, as it requires new process-oriented views due to the digitalization of education. An organizational environment with efficient processes could support teachers and reduce cognitive load for teachers and learners. Harmonizing processes for ISs and individual applications usage could improve teachers’ experiences and students’ learning experiences to some extent. ISs should be process-supporting software that decrease mental load, increase motivation, and in turn improve the quality and efficiency of education (Tokel et al., 2019). Previous authors have recognized new organization- or industry-specific approaches in process digitalization (Szelągowski and Berniak-Woźny, 2024). Additionally, teachers' knowledge-based work, which is affected by digitalization, should be considered in organizational processes in a modern way. This study offers tools for designing digitalized processes to support teachers' knowledge work.

The contributions of this study are to post-secondary education because the case study was conducted at a higher education institution. Based on the literature review, teachers’ processes have not been researched at any educational level. Still, the results of this study are applicable at any educational level (see Kauppinen et al., 2020).

7. Conclusions

Certain industries, such as education, are very traditionally organized. The risks with such industries are that the traditions are strictly adhered to, and even though administrative or support processes may be digitalized, the core processes (protected by tradition) will remain a blind spot throughout the organization’s development. In situations in which a core process is not even recognized, it is very hard or impossible to develop process-supporting ISs. In the worst case, ISs cause more harm than benefit for users. Paradoxically, it seems as though the education sector, which is responsible for teaching the principles of process-based development, as well as digitalization, is simultaneously incapable of properly seeing and digitalizing its own core processes.

As for theoretical contributions, this paper offers new approaches to education processes research: how educational processes should be seen as a whole (see Figure 3) and how the educational ISs supporting processes and tasks should be indicated and categorized (see Table 5). Based on the SLR, it seems that the process perspective is largely neglected in education digitalization research, so these contributions are a remarkable step toward more holistic education digitalization models and theories. The theoretical approaches presented here are also applicable to other industries.

Recommendations for researchers. Our recommendation is for researchers to use more education process-stressing approaches in studies and to develop models that take the process approach and related skills into account. For example, a good starting point could be to enlarge the TPACK model into a new model that considers a teacher’s course or, more broadly, their work-related processes. Additionally, we suggest that the first versions of indicators for a course process should be tested and challenged in future studies. During our study, we noticed that previous researchers have scarcely studied IS classifications (see Rosemann and vom Brocke, 2010). In addition, in the future, work classifications should be further explored via case studies so that their results can be compared with ours. Since both indicators are classifications and are loosely based on the background literature, further exploration is needed. If a model can be identified as universal in different organizations, its usefulness can be tested as a (course) process development tool. We consider these to be important topics and approaches for future studies. As for practical recommendations, we suggest developing practices in organizations to support educational organization process development and IS design to support processes.

This study concentrated on the course process from the teacher’s point of view and explored the process structure for a single course. The focus of teachers’ work is on learning, so the learners’ side should be explored from different theoretical learning perspectives, such as cognitive and socioemotional processes (Kreijns et al., 2003) or collaborative learning (Jeong and Hmelo-Silver, 2016). From the learners’ side of the process, we suggest exploring further contextual factors affecting user experience in IS usage (learning experience in an educational context; Korhonen et al., 2010).

Recommendations for practitioners. Our recommendation for practitioners is to avoid suboptimization with task-specific teaching-supporting applications and to determine all of the teacher processes (e.g. the course process) and all tasks included in IS. Without a comprehensive view, there is a risk that the software that help students learn may cause so much overload for teachers that their quality of teaching decreases. At its worst, there is tool chaos, where different teachers use different applications in different situations, and even students find it difficult to keep up. Operative activities should be considered processes so that invisible work is more easily recognized. It is not enough to recognize teachers’ processes, such as course processes; there must also be process ownership to guarantee comprehensive and long-lasting development and digital support for the process. The organizational usage of ISs and applications should not be the teacher’s responsibility alone.

Although this study focused on the education sector, the findings are also applicable to other sectors. We also formulated several general-level recommendations for business development (see Table 6).

The validity of the study was ensured by using a multimethod approach (Seaman, 1999). The results from SLR were analyzed in relation to case study data. To improve the validity of the single case study, a literature review was conducted beforehand; hence, the research was triangulated using multiple sources (Yin, 2018). Additionally, the triangulation in data analysis for both methods used in the study was pursued with careful reflective discussions with authors in the SLR analysis workshop and case study workshops. The case university was representative (see Seaman, 1999) of higher education institutions in Finland. The reliability of this study was ensured by using systematic categorization instead of numerical values to indicate the meanings or suitability in different stages of the research process, particularly in workshops where objectivity was created via multi-person discussions (Seaman, 1999).

As this was a single case study, the generalizability of the results is low. In principle, the case study shows that the phenomenon, unseen teaching processes, exists, but it does not reveal how common it is. However, according to the SLR, it seems that course processes are rarely noticed in research, so we can assume that unseen teaching processes are a widespread phenomenon. Apart from the limitation on the generalizability, we see no further limitations for this study. Ethics approval for the study was not needed since the study focused on ISs and no personal or sensitive data were collected from individuals and the research design concentrated only on process-level (Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK), 2019).

Figures

Figure 1

Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) model

Figure 2

Course process

Figure 3

Course implementation process

Table 1

Search strings

Search string (proquest, Web of science, SAGE)	(“digital*” AND “teacher* process*”) OR (“system*” AND “teacher* process*”) OR (“digital*” AND “teacher* work*”) OR (“system*” AND “teacher* work*”)
Search string (Science direct)	(“digital” AND “teacher process”) OR (“system” AND “teacher process”) OR (“digital” AND “teacher work”) OR (“system” AND “teacher work”)
Search string (EBSCO)	(“digital” AND “teacher process”) OR (“system” AND “teacher process”) OR (“digital” AND “teacher work”) OR (“system” AND “teacher work”)
Search string (ACM)	[[Title: digital*] AND [Title: “teacher* process*”]] OR [[Title: system*] AND [Title: “teacher* process*”]] OR [[Title: digital*] AND [Title: “teacher* work*”]] OR [[Title: system*] AND [Title: “teacher* work*”]] OR [[Abstract: digital*] AND [Abstract: “teacher* process*”]] OR [[Abstract: system*] AND [Abstract: “teacher* process*”]] OR [[Abstract: digital*] AND [Abstract: “teacher* work*”]] OR [[Abstract: system*] AND [Abstract: “teacher* work*”]] AND [Publication Date: (01/01/2016 TO *)]
Restrictions	title –abstract, conference papers, journal articles, language English, peer-reviewed, from year 2016–2021

Table 2

Results of the searches and filtering

	Found	Filter 1 title	Filter 2 abstract	Filter 3 Skimming + duplicate cleaning	Filter 4 read through, selected for review
Academic search premier (EBSCO)	2	0	0	0	0
ACM – Association for computing machinery	2	2	2	1	1
ProQuest	10	9	6	1	0
Web of science	473	96	14	4	2
Science direct	10	8	7	2	2
SAGE journals	1	1	1	1	1
Total	498	116	30	9	6

Table 3

Final SLR search results and initial content analysis

Literature included in workshop	Included in final results	Excluded from final results	Features
Zhao et al. (2020)	✓		• Learning process in classroom central idea • Teachers’ digital and technological competences and their relation to learning • No organizational connections, task-level thinking (no processes)
Gugino (2018)	✓		• Elementary school teachers’ training: curriculum-level portfolio application • Supporting learners’ processes
Bauwens et al. (2020)	✓		• Emphasizes the teachers’ well-being at work • The dark side of technology acceptance • Managerial implications, solutions to work-related problems via management and restrictions • Organizational/managerial/human resources level (not processes)
Tokel et al. (2019)	✓		• Technology has a great impact on learning • Technology may support management • Supervisors’ roles creating positive culture in organizations, supervisory work may lead to solving problems created by digitalization • Organizational work atmosphere and management (not processes)
Misfeldt et al. (2019)	✓		• National-level instructions implemented to teaching work with the help of the application Goal Arrow • IS supporting teachers’ work but do not consider the teaching process • Enables teachers to share and collaborate on teaching sequences, collections, and resources • Administrative process level (not process level for a teacher)
Zaliwski and Kelsey (2019)		✓	• Teaching situation • Not relevant
Limongelli et al. (2016)	✓		• Software for searching the content of teaching • Managerial software for the content of teaching • Learning management system • Task level for a teacher (not processes)
Houssein et al., 2018		✓	• Workload, classroom viewpoint • Not relevant
Marklund and Taylor (2016)		✓	• Educational games, learning software • Not relevant
Bobryts’ka and Prots’ka (2018)		✓	• Classification for teaching ISs • Not teachers’ processes • Not relevant

Table 4

Literature review workshop results

Indicators	Starting point	Starting point	Teaching	Teaching	Teaching	Reporting	Reporting	Integrations	Process control	Target level	Target level	End point	End point	Performance support *
Indicator subcategory	Pre-phase	Enrolling	Communication	Material sharing	Assignments and activities	Feedback (during the course)	Progress	(Integrations)	Building (not, possible, autom.)**	Upper level (process)	Lower level (task)	Close-up and feedback	Grading and registration	(Performance support)
Article
Zhao et al. (2020)	0	0	2	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1
Gugino (2018)	0	0	2	2	1	2	1	1	1	2	2	0	0	1
Bauwens et al. (2020)	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	2
Tokel et al. (2019)	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Misfeldt et al. (2019)	0	0	1	1	0	0	2	1	0	1	0	0	2	1
Limongelli et al. (2016)	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	0	1

Note(s): *Whether an IS diminishes a teacher’s cognitive load

**If process support is possible to build (0 = not, 1 = possible, 2 = automated)

Table 5

Case results

	Indicators	Starting point	Starting point	Teaching	Teaching	Teaching	Reporting	Reporting	Integrations	Process control	Target level	Target level	End point		Performance support *
	Indicator subcategory	Pre-phase	Enrolling	Communication	Material sharing	Assignments and activities	Feedback (during the course)	Progress	(Integrations)	Building (not, possible, autom.)** aautumautom.)**	Upper level (process)	Lower level (task)	Close-up and feedback	Grading and registration	(Performance support)
IS	IS category
Peppi	Study and student management system	2	2	1	0	0	1	2	1	0	2	0	0	2	1
Moodle	Generic learning management system	2	1	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	2	1	1	1
Wihi (Konto)	Case-specific learning management system	2	2	2	2	1	2	2	1	2	2	2	2	2	2
Repotronics	Reporting application	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Course feedback system	Reporting application	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	1	2	0	1	2	1	2
Timetable system	Study and student management system	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	2
Teams	Communication and sharing	2	1	2	2	1	2	1	1	1	1	2	1	0	1
Zoom	Virtual meeting application	0	0	1	1	1	1	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1
Kaltura	Teaching activity-specific application	0	0	0	1	1	1	0	2	0	0	2	0	0	1
Padlet	Teaching activity-specific application	1	0	2	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0
Miro	Teaching activity-specific application	1	0	2	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0
Socrative	Teaching activity-specific application	1	0	1	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	1	0
Viope	Subject-specific application	2	0	1	1	2	2	1	0	1	1	2	1	1	2

Note(s): *Whether an IT system diminishes a teacher’s cognitive load

**If process support is possible to build (0 = not, 1 = possible, 2 = automated)

Table 6

Recommendations

Recommendations	Explanations
1. Examine whether the business processes are understood as wholes, or only as the implementation of a few tasks	This is important in terms of resource management, performance measurement, and monitoring. In addition, since an increasing proportion of decisions are made based on data collected via processes, the collected data must describe the actual situation as well as possible. As this study has shown, process entities are not necessarily fully understood in all industries or organizations; essential parts of the process may be unrecognizable, and core processes may be unseen
2. Consider whether there are hidden tasks and responsibilities in the core processes that affect both the efficiency of the process and the IS being developed	If the whole process is not understood, the IS supporting actions can be more harmful than beneficial: the ISs can be fragmented, overlapping, incomplete, cause internal suboptimization of the process and additional cognitive load without providing support for the effective completion of the process. In addition, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to collect reliable data on process efficiency from fragmented IS and applications
3. The load and resource needs of overhead work must be understood and followed	Overhead work may form a significant part of the specialist’s workload. If overhead work is invisible, then its growth will also remain invisible, and the efficiency of the process may decrease significantly, even if there have been no changes in the visible parts of the process
4. When evaluating IS affecting the developed business process, IS classification based on process objectives should be applied	Classification helps evaluate which are task-level ISs, which are process-level ISs, and if there are overlapping or gaps
5. The previous recommendations must be included in the digitalization models and guidelines used in the process digitalization of an organization	For example, in the education sector, it is important to add the process dimension when the TPACK model is applied in education digitalization