Postgraduate Course: Data-Driven Innovation in Services (fusion online) (EFIE11105)
Course Outline
School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
Summary | To stay competitive, all service providers need to innovate by delivering new services and continuously improving their existing services. Innovation is a process, and service organisations need to have effective innovation processes utilising new technologies and responding to changes in customer expectations. Innovation in services is rapidly changing as customer data makes it possible to monitor customer behaviour and server actions. This course will provide students with an understanding of how to implement strategies to develop new services and to improve service delivery using information technology and the effective use of data about customers and current service delivery. |
Course description |
Service providers want to launch innovative new services and improve their existing services, either by reducing costs or increasing customer satisfaction. The course draws on concepts from innovation studies, organisational behaviour, informatics, and marketing to provide students with the knowledge and skills to think critically about how a new service can be launched and an existing service can be improved.
The course will be taught as two intensive days, supported by off-campus exercises and expert panels to set the context and challenges for service innovation, and to address in detail how strategies for service improvement can be implemented.
In preparation for the first intensive day, students will be given a grounding in the context of service improvement in a range of organisational contexts, including public sector services, consumer services and business-to-business services. They will gain this knowledge through an online video, a panel of practitioner experts, an online discussion, and a targeted reading list.
Students will then have two days of intensive practical class exercises and discussions. The first day will cover techniques for service innovation, and the second day will cover the development of an organisation's strategy for service innovation, building on the outcomes of day one. The intensive days will be designed to integrate online and on-campus students.
The second day will be followed by a practitioner panel of three managers involved in implementing service innovations discussing their experiences of developing processes for service innovation, followed by an online class discussion of the implementation issues raised in the assessment reports.
The course will be assessed by a 2000 word individual report analysing an organisation's process for service innovation. Students will receive formative feedback after each intensive day and during the writing of the report. This report may be an opportunity to think how the techniques covered in the course may be used in their own work environment, but students can also choose a service that they are interested in.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Online Fusion Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute will teach this course in a way that enables online and on-campus students to study together. This approach (our 'fusion' teaching model) offers students flexible and inclusive ways to study, and the ability to choose whether to be on-campus or online at the level of the individual course. It also opens up ways for diverse groups of students to study together regardless of geographical location. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities. Students should note that their interactions may be recorded and live-streamed. There will, however, be options to control whether or not your video and audio are enabled.
As part of your course, you will need access to a personal computing device. Unless otherwise stated activities will be web browser based and as a minimum we recommend a device with a physical keyboard and screen that can access the internet.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisites | None |
High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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Academic year 2023/24, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 2 |
Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Course Start Date |
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Timetable |
Timetable |
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 4,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 16,
Online Activities 4,
Other Study Hours 4,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
70 )
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Additional Information (Learning and Teaching) |
Other Study: Scheduled Group-work Hours (hybrid online/on-campus) - 4
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Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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Additional Information (Assessment) |
Summative Assessment:
The course will be assessed by means of the following assessment components:
1) 2000 Word Individual Report (100%)
The course will be assessed by a 2000 word individual report analysing an organisation's process for service innovation.
Formative Assessment:
Each course within Edinburgh Futures Institute includes the opportunity for you to participate in a formative feedback exercise or event which will help you prepare for your summative assessment. The formative assessment does not contribute to your overall course mark.
1) Individual Report Outline
Formative feedback will be provided for an outline of the final individual report, submitted on a date midway between the two intensive days with feedback returned in a week. |
Feedback |
Feedback on the formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The course organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Summative feedback will be provided for the final assessed 2000 word report.
Formative feedback will be provided for exercises in both intensive days and formative feedback on an outline of the final report, submitted on a date midway between the two intensive days with feedback returned in a week. |
No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate and work with quantitative and qualitative techniques to plan how an innovative service can be improved using detailed data from the service's operations and the service's customers.
- Demonstrate how organisations can identify opportunities for developing and delivering new services by building on their existing processes and resources.
- Blend their knowledge of techniques to propose and communicate approaches fitting with the social and technical constraints of an organisational context.
- Be able to communicate to a general audience the quantitative and qualitative elements of proposed processes for service innovation.
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Reading List
Indicative Reading List:
Intensive Day 1 - Essential Readings:
Ling, Rich. 'Measuring Mobile Phone Use: Self-Report Versus Log Data.' Journal of computer-mediated communication': JCMC. 18.4 (2013): 508-519.
Sampson, Scott E. 'Foundations and Implications of a Proposed Unified Services Theory.' Production and operations management 15.2 (2006): 329-343.
Intensive Day 1 - Recommended Readings:
Cayla, Julien, and Eric Arnould. 'Ethnographic Stories for Market Learning.' Journal of marketing 77.4 (2013): 1-16.
Cardoso, J. 'Service Analytics' in Cardoso, Jorge. et al. Fundamentals of Service Systems Edited by Jorge Cardoso, Hansjörg Fromm, Stefan Nickel, Gerhard Satzger, Rudi Studer, Christof Weinhardt. 1st ed. 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2015.
Parasuraman, A, Valarie A Zeithaml, and Leonard L Berry. 'Servqual: A Multiple-Item Scale For Measuring Consumer Perc.' Journal of retailing 64.1 (1988)
Reichheld, Frederick F. 'The One Number You Need to Grow.' Harvard business review 81.12 (2003): 46-124.
Intensive Day 2 - Essential Readings:
Greenwood, Royston. 'Digital Innovation and Transformation: An Institutional Perspective.' Information and organization. 28.1 (2018): 52-61
Nicolini, Davide. 'The Work to Make Telemedicine Work: A Social and Articulative View.' Social science & medicine 62.11 (2006): 2754-2767.
Intensive Day 2 - Recommended Readings:
Ball, Kirstie S, and Stephen T Margulis. 'Electronic Monitoring and Surveillance in Call Centres: a Framework for Investigation.' New technology, work, and employment 26.2 (2011): 113-126.
Flemig, S. and Osborne, S. 'The Dynamics of Co-Production in the Context of Social Care Personalisation: Testing Theory and Practice in a Scottish Context.' Journal of social policy. 48.4 (2019): 671-697
Moynihan, D, Herd, P. and Harvey, H. 'Administrative Burden: Learning, Psychological, and Compliance Costs in Citizen-State Interactions.' Journal of public administration research and theory J-PART. 25.1 (2015): 43'69.
Welte, Jean-Baptiste, Olivier Badot, and Patrick Hetzel. 'The Narrative Strategies of Retail Spaces: a Semio-Ethnographic Approach.' European journal of marketing pre-print (2021) |
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Knowledge and Understanding:
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate and work with quantitative and qualitative techniques to plan how an innovative service can be improved using detailed data from the service's operations and the service's customers.
- Demonstrate how organisations can identify opportunities for developing and delivering new services by building on their existing processes and resources.
Generic Cognitive Skills:
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Blend their knowledge of techniques to propose and communicate approaches fitting with the social and technical constraints of an organisational context.
Communication, ICT and Numeracy Skills:
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Be able to communicate to a general audience the quantitative and qualitative elements of proposed processes for service innovation. |
Keywords | Services,Innovation Processes,Service Improvement,Analytics,Ethnography |
Contacts
Course organiser | Mr Ian Graham
Tel: (0131 6)50 3797
Email: |
Course secretary | Mr David Murphy
Tel:
Email: |
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