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This chapter describes and analyzes the result of an active, cooperative learning design adopted in “Change Management,” an elective course at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), which is a fully online university. The paper describes the context and foundations that support the learning design, outlines the learning activities and their evolution, and presents the results of a student survey to assess the design’s effectiveness in reaching its main goals. The results of the survey suggest that students perceived this design as enhancing their teamwork abilities, while being interesting and motivating, as well as useful in learning the course’s content. Therefore, the desired goals were attained and the design was kept, with minor changes, in subsequent editions of the course. In addition, students without prior teamwork experience valued the collaborative activities more than students who had previously worked in teams in other subjects of their degrees. In contrast, no differences were found for individual learning activities. This suggests that the design can be useful in introductory courses where students are asked to learn in virtual teams for the first time.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional format which emphasizes collaborative and contextual learning and hence has favored face-to-face course design. However, with the plentitude of online tools which technology offers nowadays, PBL courses can also be effectively offered to students who cannot physically be present at the campus. The change process from offline to hybrid, blended, or online PBL courses need to be carefully managed and the right combination of technology and learning activities selected from the ever increasing available set. Hybrid, blended, or online courses differ in the amount of integration between offline and online activities. A mixed-method design was used to elaborate on how the different (hybrid, blended, or online) PBL courses can be effectively build and taught to create learner engagement. Twelve people (change agent, instructor, and participants) were interviewed and 82 students filled out a course evaluation form. The data was used to describe how a hybrid, blended, or online course was created and how the instructor and students perceived it. Instructional and change management implications for implementation are presented. Instructional implications deal with the needs of the learner, the role of the instructor, and the importance of sound technology integration in the course. Change management implication highlights the need to foster intra-institutional collaboration.

The world of management and technology has become accustomed to the notion of “2.0” advancements and transformative innovations. Is the field of Change Management/Organizational Development itself in this story? Not enough! We re-examine the field’s foundational beliefs, practices, focus, research directions, and value add. We conclude that there is strong evidence from the front line and from an IBM Case Study that the field must “reboot” – to rethink our methods and frameworks; the role and skills of change leadership for the future; change practitioner capabilities for the future; the metrics needed to evaluate progress; and the knowledge exchange between Academe and practitioners.

This chapter examines the changing nature of frontline supervision in light of the supervisory training and development programme which was provided to shift-bosses in order to complement the workplace change processes that AfricaGold embarked on to improve operational efficiency, productivity and safety of its mining operations. Although the training course was an important workplace change initiative taken by top management to improve organisational, individual and team performance at the rock-face where it mattered most, lack of organisational and managerial support prevented frontline supervisors from effectively implementing what they learned on the training course. The chapter highlights the importance of not only providing organisational change-focused training, but also systematically and strategically involving frontline supervisors in the conceptualisation, design, execution and evaluation of workplace change initiatives. It is only when frontline supervisors are supported, managerially and organisationally, that they can be deal-makers rather than deal-breakers for a successful introduction and execution of change initiatives on the shop-floor.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce library and information science professionals to the idea of combining the tools and techniques of project management and change management to support the success of their projects. Combining these two methodologies can assist professionals not only in carrying out their projects efficiently, helping them to meet project objectives, but can also increase the likelihood that their project objectives will be accepted by their organizations.

This chapter provides an overview of project management and change management methodologies with numerous examples from academic and practitioner literature and supplements them with concrete, specific examples of how these tools and techniques were implemented in an information management project.

This chapter contributes to the development of change management and project management competencies for librarians by providing explanations of project management and change management which include advice and evidence from the literature combined with examples of how these techniques and processes were applied in a library and information management project. This chapter should therefore serve as an educational tool for library and information management practitioners seeking either to develop their project management and change management skills or to apply these techniques to their own projects.

Articles which combine project management and change management methodologies are rare. This chapter takes these concepts and applies them in a library and information management setting in a way that should be practical and approachable to library and information science practitioners.

Over the past years, the educational environment has undergone a revolution, caused mainly by the wide diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the multiscalar implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. This chapter taps into educators’ first-hand experience relating to the adoption of online technologies in an action learning process during the pandemic. Action learning is one of the experiential training methodologies aimed at individual, group, and organizational growth and development through practical, hands-on experience. It is an educational process that facilitates and improves the mechanism and functioning of groups of people who come together to support real challenges or activities, also by learning from direct experience. To this end, the case study of a University Master Course in leadership and change management is examined, based on unstructured interviews and analysis of written documents. The case study represents an emblematic case of adaptation and response to the change imposed by Covid-19 through the promotion of an innovative teaching and learning method. Results show how the adjustments devised to cope with the consequence of teamwork virtualization proved to be synergistic, delivering positive outcomes in terms of participants satisfaction, learning and impact, and producing deeply innovative change management projects. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.