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There are five factors acting as a barrier to the effective evaluation of educational technology (edtech), which are as follows: premature timing, inappropriate techniques, rapid change, complexity of context and inconsistent terminology. The purpose of this paper is to identify new evaluation approaches that will address these and reflect on the evaluation imperative for complex technology initiatives.

An initial investigation of traditional evaluative approaches used within the technology domain was broadened to investigate the evaluation practices within social and public policy domains. Realist evaluation, a branch of theory-based evaluation, was identified and reviewed in detail. The realist approach was then refined, proposing two additional necessary steps to support mapping the technical complexity of initiatives.

A refined illustrative example of a realist evaluation framework is presented, including two novel architectural edtech domain reference models to support mapping.

Recommendations include building individual evaluator capacity; adopting the realist framework; the use of architectural edtech domain reference models; phased evaluation to first build theories in technology “context” and then iteratively during complex implementation chains; and community contribution to a shared map of technical and organisational complexity.

This paper makes a novel contribution by arguing the imperative for a theory-based realist approach to help redefine evaluative thinking within the IT and complex system domain. It becomes an innovative proposal with the addition of two domain reference models that tailor the approach for edtech. Its widespread adoption will help build a shared evidence base that synthesizes and surfaces “what works, for whom, in which contexts and why”, benefiting educators, IT managers, funders, policymakers and future learners.

This chapter is based on the findings of the empirical material gathered in Finland and Sweden through interviews with education and audiovisual (AV) media actors and policymakers in 2017–2018. The aim of the chapter is to discuss the innovation systems of the education sector and Finland and Sweden in general, compare the sectoral innovation models of the two sectors, and conclude with discussing the resulting challenges for policymakers. Our results show that a new EdTech sector employing the competences of the education, information and communication technology, and AV media sectors has begun to emerge and actors in the both countries have eagerly taken actions to boost its development as a business and export field. We discuss the reasons and consequences of this development.

The chapter concludes the section on cross-innovation and convergence processes between audiovisual media industries and the education sector. It addresses, first, that these processes are not driven by any specific technology, but by two broad and interdependent processes – individualisation that makes people in insecure careers search for personalised learning opportunities and the experience economy that produces expectations for learning experiences to be pleasurable and fun, that is, gamified. The chapter demonstrates the emergence of EdTech as a new dialogic subsector operating between the publicly operating education sector and the private media and information and communication technology industries. It demonstrates the inherent institutional diversity in and around this subsector and discusses the nature of the dialogues constituting it. It, lastly, addresses the risks deriving from global platformisation to the education sector and demonstrates how Estonia’s government-run platforms, effectively cross-innovation systems linking teachers, learners and content providers in dynamic ways, could present feasible alternatives to the global platforms.

Contemporary public service innovations to an important degree are initiated and enabled by digitalization. Digitalization stimulates entry of new firms (start-ups) based on innovative implementation of digital technology for public services. The interwoven digitalization and innovation processes involve interaction and interdependencies between private business actors and public service providing actors. In this paper, the authors take the perspective of a start-up business actor that tries to develop and implement a viable business model in the very dynamic context of digital transformation of public education. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the instability of a startup firm’s business model during public service innovation can be explained. The research question is: “How can business modeling by a start-up firm be explained by tensions between its business model and public service provision models?”

Based on an abductive logic, the authors choose a single-case study of a start-up firm’s development in 2010-2018 and its interaction with public actors. Information about the firm acquired in the first phase of the study showed that it frequently changed its business model. A general analytical framework was developed to aid in efforts to answer the research question.

The case showed that a business model could be seen as a temporary outcome of a business modeling process, and that also concurrently public actors change their public actors’ service provisioning models. Public-private interaction reveals tensions that drive business modeling.

The study contributes to empirical knowledge about private-public interaction in the dynamic and complex context in which digital transformation in society drives public service innovations. The conceptual contribution rests more generally in the analytical framework and how it frames public actor’s “service provision modeling” as a driver of business modeling.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how teachers’ approaches to teaching and conceptions of teaching and learning with educational technology influence the implementation of three-dimensional virtual worlds (3DVWs) in health care education.

Data were collected through thematic interviews with eight teachers to elicit their approaches to teaching in a 3DVW and their conceptions of teaching and learning with technology in online health care education.

Results indicate that teaching in 3DVWs necessitates the adoption of a student-centred approach to teaching. The teachers’ underlying approaches to teaching and learning became evident in their student-centred approach and use of problem-based activities. The immersive, social nature of the environment facilitated the creation of authentic, communicative learning activities created by the health care teachers and was in alignment with their disciplinary approaches to teaching and learning.

The sample size of the study is relatively small which limits the degree of external validity and generalisability of the results.

If sustainability of 3DVWs is to be achieved, academic development activities for teachers and their communities of practice may be necessary to support conceptual change and facilitate a shift to student-centred teaching where necessary.

There is limited research concerning the relationship between teachers’ approaches to teaching and the use of educational technologies, in particular the implementation of 3DVWs.

Introduces an assessment model being developed around a knowledge initiative in Pepperdine University’s Educational Technology Doctoral program (http://moon.pepperdine.edu/gsep/programs/ET). The knowledge initiative involves the implementation of group memory technology, developed by Intraspect Software (http://www.intraspect.com), in an attempt to cultivate a community of practice in the program. The assessment model looks for indicators of communities of practice and mines for usage patterns called “knowledge transactions”, as forms of measures.

In India, the COVID-19 outbreak has been declared an epidemic in all its states and union territories. To combat COVID-19, lockdown was imposed on March 25, 2020 which has adversely affected the education system in the country. It has changed the traditional education system to the educational technologies (EdTechs) model, where teaching and assessments are conducted online. This paper aims to identify the barriers faced by teachers during online teaching and assessment in different home environment settings in India.

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of qualitative research methodology has been used in this research. The study was conducted among the teachers working in the government and private universities of Uttarakhand, India. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted among 19 teachers to collect data regarding the barriers faced by them during online teaching and assessment. ATLAS.ti, version 8 was used to analyze the interview data.

The findings revealed four categories of barriers that are faced by teachers during online teaching and assessments. Under home environment settings, a lack of basic facilities, external distraction and family interruption during teaching and conducting assessments were major issues reported. Institutional support barriers such as the budget for purchasing advanced technologies, a lack of training, a lack of technical support and a lack of clarity and direction were also reported. Teachers also faced technical difficulties. The difficulties were grouped under a lack of technical support, it included a lack of technical infrastructure, limited awareness of online teaching platforms and security concerns. Teachers’ personal problems including a lack of technical knowledge, negative attitude, course integration with technology and a lack of motivation are identified as the fourth category to damper their engagement in online teaching and assessments.

The findings of the study can be helpful to the regulatory authorities and employers of higher education institutions who are planning to adopt online teaching as a regular activity in the future. The insights gained from the findings can help them to revisit their existing policy frameworks by designing new strategies and technical structures to assist their teachers in successfully embracing the EdTech to deal with any crisis in the future.

Many authors have conducted research to address the problems faced by students related to online teaching and learning during COVID-19 in India. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that addresses the challenges faced by teachers during the online teaching and assessment in the home environment settings by using qualitative analysis (IPA) techniques. The current study replenishes the gap by contributing to the literature of online teaching and assessment under the home environment settings during the pandemic situation.

The chapter demonstrates that one way to read recent developments in national curriculum in nations around the globe is as both expressions of and responses to globalization. Additionally, the chapter argues that curriculum making today is affected by ever-changing imbrications between local, national, regional and global relationships. Examples of this include the curriculum impacts actual and potential of the OECD's testing regime and aspirations in relation to curriculum and the EU's creation of a European education policy space. The more recent rise of new nationalisms and ethnonationalism is seen to have potential impact on national curriculum. Some consideration is also given to the content of the curriculum and the contemporary focus on both disciplinary knowledge and on what sorts of people schools should produce; both it is argued are responses to globalization. The ways the message systems (curriculum, pedagogy and evaluation) sit in a symbiotic relationship with each other and the impact of the strengthened significance of international and large-scale assessments on the enactment of the curriculum are also documented. Some brief account is provided of the enhanced involvement of EdTech companies producing online curricula and the ways the pandemic has accelerated this development with the concerning potential for the privatization of the curriculum.