Author: Radka Newton, Jean Mutton and Katie Murrie
Service design knowledge is practice based and driven by continuous iteration of experiments, exposure to other people’s practice and external mentoring. It is continuous learning involving multiple obstacles related to problematic legitimisation of the methodology in Higher education.
The committee will reflect on their own practice evolution and knowledge transfer within the and outside the network, the impact they have created and their personal and professional calling related to their clear purpose of changing education for better.
Our story
Many of us knew that something didn’t feel right, that there must be a better future ahead, a future where the value is co-designed and co-delivered collaboratively by students, staff and wider stakeholder groups. Service design initiatives started bubbling under the surface with localised successes and excitement, but in pockets. Some colleagues have been familiar with the technique for years, some are novices, but we all have a lot of enthusiasm and commitment to a better future.
The service design community worldwide has created an excellent resource of connectivity where contacts are made easily and experts help the newcomers to pave their SD journey.
And so this is how it all happened. This is how SDinED was born…..
Jean was an evangelist, the helpful ear on the other end of the phone. Radka was an early career University manager wanting to make a change. Radka found Jean’s JISC article and contacted her immediately! Jean became Radka’s mentor and guided through her SD experiments. Jean’s mantra for Radka was: hold your nerve, hold your nerve…. Radka and Jean both kept educating themselves and came across the SD channel by Marc Fontejn. One day Radka sent Marc a LinkedIn message “Help, Education needs SD!” Marc replied with the contact details of Katie Murrie in Dundee at the Service Design Academy.
And so Jean, Radka and Katie started the SD in ED movement by service designing themselves. What is it that education might need? How might education benefit from SD? How might we be a part of it? This trio started spreading the word and set out to bring all SD enthusiasts together in order to change the future of education. They co-created their first gathering, collaboratively developed a tentative agenda and held their nerve. The SD approach to change in education has proven the importance of practicing what we preach.
HCD in HE 