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One teacher preparation program worked toward improving teacher preparation by strengthening the network of support among teacher candidates, mentor teachers, and teacher educators. Drawing on third-generation cultural historical activity theory, we modeled activity systems framing the experiences of teacher candidates and contradictions within and between activity systems. Using cycles of learning over one year, we learned 1) how direct and indirect activity systems interact and 2) how meaningful and influential contradictions erupt between two systems. Contradictions included the theory-practice divide alongside the implementation of equity supports, the teacher candidates' navigation of their role, and shifting rules during the transition to distance learning across contexts during COVID-19. This study has implications for enacting dynamic, program-wide change in teacher education programs.

Contribution: The study characterizes aspects of cognitive and metacognitive dimensions of team cognition of software development teams in educational settings. Background: The software development industry requires software engineers and developers to work in teams; for this, there is substantial research on teamwork in the context of the organization. However, little is known about it in the context of educational settings, where there is scant research on teamwork in engineering and computing projects. Research Questions: How do students enact teamwork cognitive engagement and metacognitive regulation in the context of a systems analysis and design course? Methodology: The participants were 127 undergraduate students in a systems development course organized into 26 teams. Qualitative categories were derived from a content analysis based on recorded teamwork sessions, which were then quantized and visualized for pattern identification. Findings: Results provide each team's overall cognitive engagement coefficient and metacognitive regulation coefficient. The findings also describe three clusters, each with a description of a selected team to provide further insights into the identified patterns.

The article investigates sustainable development from the holistic perspective, taking into account the complex nature of the world and the dynamism of the socio-economic systems. The study is interdisciplinary, as it addresses the issues of economics, mathematics and physics with the main focus on the modern perspective of sustainable development offered in the field of education. The article focuses on key questions concerning the expansion of the educational processes and deepening of ideas and knowledge about the dynamism and diversity of the planetary system. The holistic approach implies the interaction of various nonlinear features that have been used in the paper to build a mental model and a causal relationship schema. The understanding of the interaction of energy flows in socio-economic systems has been used by the authors to explain the underlying connection of various processes. The authors of the article propose a systemic dynamic model of sustainability, which can open up an understanding of some of the reasons for changes in the potential of the industrial sector. Modeling results have been obtained and interpreted using historical USA statistical data from 1949 to 2019. In the article, the authors reveal the relationship between nature, society and human from the point of view of promising and methodological approaches of the "new" and "old" world. The diversity of experiences makes it possible to question the dominant approaches of traditional teaching in education. This creates the need to look for new foundations that can promote the development of more sustainable learning for the future.

This case study describes an alternative process-focused approach to a group project assignment in an undergraduate Systems Analysis and Design (SAD) course. This approach more closely reflects the incremental and iterative nature of Information Systems Development Projects (ISDP) through expanded scope, modified instructions, and reallocation of class time. This approach enables students to select their own real-world ISDP and apply a wider breadth of course concepts in that context, while gaining experience in critical thinking and decision making within a group setting.

The case provides a realistic scenario that can be used in a systems analysis and design, database development or graduate level management information systems course. The case focuses upon the development of an event management system for a small conference with participants and exhibitors. Multiple assignment options are provided allowing instructors to select an assignment based upon course material coverage. Suggested assignments include the development of process modeling diagrams such as data flow and swim lane diagrams, a request for proposal and a response to the request for proposal, and database design and development artifacts.

Contribution: This study identifies the attributes of complexity that can be incorporated into engineering design problems at first-year undergraduate engineering projects. The findings are compiled as a set of guidelines to aid engineering educators in crafting design problems. Background: Engineering professionals solve complex problems like design problems, troubleshooting problems, system-analysis problems, and decision-making problems. To develop proficiency in solving such problems, accreditation bodies for engineering education mandate the development of knowledge and skills for solving complex problems. The literature presents several attributes of complexity, but it does not clearly state which of these attributes are relevant for first-year engineering problem-solving and incorporate them into the engineering curriculum. Research Question: This study qualitatively investigates the research question, "How to craft engineering design problems with known attributes of complexity for first-year undergraduate engineering education?" Methodology: The study is situated in a project-based learning course offered at first-year engineering at a university in India. It identifies the attributes of complexity in interdisciplinary (mechatronic) design projects (prototypes) through thematic analysis of faculty interviews. Further, this was validated by analyzing the prototypes. Findings: Several themes of complexity emerged; this article presents only two themes: (1) knowledge; and (2) skills related to solving the engineering design problem and the types of relationships between the prototype's functions.

Connecting people with resources is a common activity. However, special situations have unique data needs. Without the appropriate leadership and tools to manage the data, the connections may never take place. This case examines the data needs associated with providing resources and social connections for families having a member with a special need. The case provides a realistic scenario that can be used in a systems analysis and design, database development, or graduate-level management information systems course. The case focuses on developing a database to provide a support system for connecting caregivers of loved ones having special needs with people in similar circumstances, volunteers, and social and employment opportunities. Two assignment options are provided, allowing instructors to select an assignment based on course material coverage. Suggested assignments include the development of process modeling diagrams such as a data flow or swimlane diagrams and database design and development artifacts.

This teaching case describes the functionality of a system employing IoT sensors to monitor part levels for a fictitious auto parts manufacturer. Data from the sensors are used to populate a centralized database and generate a dashboard for management. The system also generates tiered alerts to notify part runners and managers of pending part shortages. The case is based on an actual systems development project that students completed for a real auto parts manufacturer. Material in the case can be used for assignments in systems analysis and design, database management, and data analytics courses. Teaching notes, including an entity-relationship diagram (ERD), data dictionary, data flow diagrams, prototype dashboard, and discussion questions are available through the JISE website.

Bart Longenecker was one of the most influential Information Systems (IS) educators ever. Renowned for his decades of work on IS model curricula, Bart died in 2016 after a 44-year career. This paper traces the life's work of this EDSIG Fellow and Professor Emeritus to capture his IS education legacy.

Systems Analysis and Design (SA&D) is the cornerstone course of a traditional information system curriculum. Conventionally, it is a sequence of two courses with the second course dedicated to the completion of a project. However, it has recently become more common to reduce the two-course sequence into one, especially for IS departments that are only concentrations of a business school and not independent departments. Not only has the original sequence been reduced to one course, but the course is also offered to non-technical business students. It is challenging to design a successful SA&D course that is subject to these constraints. In this article, the author showcases a modified SA&D hybrid course enriched by a real-life entrepreneurial-inspired project with a double review development process model. A survey conducted at the conclusion of the course shows that the new approach works well and holds great promise for improving future SA&D courses.

Even though transformations have been made in Turkey, schools have turned into places where partners are unhappy. Recently, education has moved into a new dimension called the system of objects in consumer society. The consumer society has become devoted to the system of objects, as people are not consuming for need but for want. Model schools and education are couched not within humanitarian paradigms but as promoters of this system of objects, thereby acting to deceive humanity. In this research, simulation theory is used to develop an ontological view of school and educational systems as the simulacra for a radical humanist paradigm. In conclusion, Education systems today tend to anonymize the individual within the nation, enabling the capitalist system to become the reality, thus allowing those in power to shepherd the herd easily.

The purpose of this paper is two fold: to look at Mornington U3A in organisational terms and then look at U3AM as a loosely coupled system. One outcome of the study would be to undertake further analyses of U3As in Victoria to determine the levels of bureaucracy under which each operates. Questions to be asked: are U3As in Victoria operating as bureaucracies and so need to be loosened up? Or are they run as organisational anarchies and need to be tightened up?

This article presents a case scenario that may be used in system analysis and design, database management, and business analytics classes. The case document includes realistic, detailed information on the operations at the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). Examples of assignments for each class and suggested reading are presented. In each assignment, students should learn relevant concepts and skills before applying them to create the deliverables. The core application in the case is a membership accounting system (a variation of an accounts receivable system) with several custom features that require innovative reflection by the student analysts. Instructor's materials are available.

Systems analysis and design is a crucial task in system development and is included in a typical information systems programme as a core course. This paper presented a preliminary study on gender differences in studying a systems analysis and design course of an undergraduate programme. Results indicated that male students outperformed female students in general in this course. However, regarding the different study focuses of the course, female students performed better in information systems development methodologies and systems analysis, whereas male students worked better in systems design. Discussions have been raised to explain the findings and it was suggested longitudinal studies could be conducted for a more generalized conclusion.

Deloitte Consulting LLP conducted a review of publicly available data sources with the goal of identifying the pre- and post-award systems used in higher education. The number and type of pre- and post-award systems identified not only show that higher education institutions (HEIs) use a variety of methods to facilitate research activities, but also suggest that HEIs and ERP vendors may think differently about the role of research administration technologies. We provide some hypotheses for why this may be the case. These hypotheses focus on: institutional priorities, market maturity, and the "vision thing." We also provide high-level considerations to help HEIs think through their research administration technology decisions.

For decades, advising practitioners and scholars have worked toward developing an identity for advising as a unique field of scholarly inquiry and practice. To date, the identity crisis in advising remains. This study presents an examination and description of the function, purpose, and identity of a university advising system through comparisons of ideals espoused by advisors and administrators with practice. Based on systems theory as a framework, this study shows that the identity of academic advising can be misunderstood because of systemic issues. Addressing systemic flaws may help clarify the identity of academic advising within a specific system and possibly the field as a whole.

This teaching case presents a cross-team systems analysis and design case requiring integration of multiple, interdependent systems. Case deliverables are a mix of both traditional and agile methodologies. Students are introduced to methodology tools and techniques including data flow diagrams, use case diagrams, user stories, and entity-relationship diagrams as they complete the planning, analysis, and design steps for a new information system. Most Systems Analysis and Design textbooks include a standalone, independent system case to enhance learning for students. In the presented case, once the main steps are completed, student teams are then combined to integrate multiple interdependent systems for a company. This case emphasizes that most companies are moving toward a centralized data repository in systems development and that most systems within the company use the same data to accomplish different tasks. Teaching notes with student assignments and solutions are available through the JISE website.

To more effectively meet the expectations of industry for entry-level IT employees, a case is made for the inclusion of writing throughout the Computer Information Systems (CIS) curriculum. "Writing Across the Curriculum" ("WAC") principles are explained, and it is opined that both Writing to Learn (WTL) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) pedagogies are desirable for inclusion as part of the delivery of the CIS curriculum. Examples of both WTL and WID are provided from the author's Systems Analysis & Design (SAD) course. It is concluded that the use of WTL and WID techniques in the flipped SAD course has both (1) increase student engagement both in and out of the classroom, and (2) improved student writing and learning.

Despite the effectiveness of using e-learning, educational institutions are still facing many challenges with the e-learning infrastructure and technical aspects, practices and capabilities, and improvement in learning outcome. Hence, a need for framework to benchmark the e-learning capability maturity level and measure the extent to what it is improving the learning processes and ensure improvements in student learning outcomes is raised. The current research is aim at assessing and identifying the e-learning maturity level of the universities in the Kingdom of Bahrain by adopting the e-learning Maturity Model (e-MM). The current state of e-learning in the Kingdom of Bahrain in terms of the drivers for the using e-learning, the technical challenges faced by the learners and level of satisfaction with the current e-learning systems will be investigated in attempt to consolidate the findings. A self-administrated questionnaire was adopted in which 400 surveys were distributed to the public university (University of Bahrain) and all private universities in Kingdom of Bahrain. The overall eMM figures demonstrate that universities in Kingdom of Bahrain both public and private reached an average level of achievement and performance in e-learning processes and developed reasonable capability maturity level on each dimension of the learning processes.

Often, users of information systems (both automated and manual) must analyze those systems in a "black box" fashion, without being able to see the internals of how the system is supposed to work. In this case of business process outsourcing, an insurance industry customer encounters an ongoing stream of customer service issues, with both the original provider and outsourcing organization. To understand and validate what is happening with his account, the insurance customer (Edward) and his representative (Penny) must deduce the operations, business rules, and data flows of the organizations. Most importantly, have the operations of these organizations released anyone's data inappropriately? And are these same customer service issues happening to other customers, who may not be in a position to spend the time and energy needed to catch and resolve them?

Korea has used three different teacher evaluation systems since the 1960s: teacher performance rating, teacher performance-based pay and teacher evaluation for professional development. A number of studies have focused on an analysis of each evaluation system in terms of its advent, development, advantages and disadvantages, but these studies have been critically limited in that they have focused only on the partial integration of the three current teacher evaluation systems, without addressing the problems embedded in each of them. The present study provides a systematic analysis of the three current Korean teacher evaluation systems based on a sound analytical framework and proposes appropriate directions for designing an effective and efficient system. It is found that the three systems share commonalities in terms of stakeholders, evaluators, scope, criteria and methods, further supporting the rationale for developing a single comprehensive teacher evaluation system in Korea. Finally, several steps to establish a comprehensive teacher evaluation system based on the analysis results are suggested.

Gamification is becoming more and more popular in education. The consequences of the use of games for learning are not sufficiently investigated yet, although it is known that using games for learning does not always have a beneficial effect on students. Besides, practical rather than theoretical problems related to use of gamification in education have been more the focus of research by now. It is therefore desirable to consider at the theoretical level the role of game technologies in education taking into account the systemic nature of man's spiritual life and values and ideologies as its constituent parts. The research aim is to determine the degree of applicability of gamification in education determined by a specific system of values and ideologies every participant of educational process has. To achieve this goal, secondary analysis of scientific literature on this problem was applied, main approaches to gamification were singled out and evaluated. Secondly, using systematic approach it is shown that the nature of the impact of gamification depends on the level and character of the development of a person's values and ideologies. The research employs basic scientific and special scientific methods typical of social and humanitarian studies. At the same time, the important role among them is played by the system analysis method that allows us to consider the use of games for learning in educational not in isolation but taking into account the role of basic factors of a person's spiritual life, especially his world outlook. This allows for a many-sided analysis of causes of difficulties which appear when using games for learning. The novelty of this research lies in showing the dependence of the character and results of gamification on man's values and ideologies.

Many educational institutions are shifting their teaching and learning towards equipping students with knowledge, skills, and dispositions that prepare them for lifelong learning, in a complex and uncertain world. These have been termed "21st century competencies." Learning analytics (LA) approaches in general offer different kinds of computational support for tracking learner behaviour, managing educational data, visualizing patterns, and providing rapid feedback to both educators and learners. This special section brings together a diverse range of learning analytics tools and techniques that can be deployed in the service of building 21st century competencies. We introduce the research and development challenges, and introduce the research and practitioner papers accepted to this section, before concluding with some brief reflections on the collection and relevance of a complex systems perspective for framing this topic.

The urgency of the issue discussed in this article is caused by the need for development and assessment of new models and mechanisms of management of higher education institutions, which are connected with the development of the system of management of innovation projects and contribute to the development of educational institutions. The aim of the article is to give a theoretical justification and assessment of the system of innovation project management at a higher education institution as well as to assess its efficiency. The leading research methods are pedagogical modeling and project planning, theoretical analysis and compilation of the educational practice in innovation project management, and mathematical methods of statistics which help to make a comprehensive analysis of efficiency of the system of innovation project management. The article reveals the role of the system of innovation project management at a higher education institution as a complex of methodological approaches, principles, and mechanisms which provide for successful implementation of innovations in scientific, international, economic and other activities of an educational institution. The article also describes the peculiarities of innovation project management connected with the specific character of management entities, subjects to management, management processes. Efficiency of the model of development of the system of innovation project management is justified.

This study investigates the current process of internationalization of higher education in the countries of the Asia Pacific region (APR) through the example of China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Russia. The article aims to familiarize the reader with the experience of internationalizing higher education in APR states against a backdrop of global trends. The authors examine the major strategies for the internationalization of education, such as taking a coordinated approach, attracting qualified manpower, focusing on deriving profit, and expanding the potential. The paper analyzes the traditions, strengths and weaknesses, and general traits and characteristics of the above states' national systems of education, as well as the major forms of international partnership and key dimensions of education internationalization in APR states. The authors show that over the last few years APR states have been increasingly active in entering into agreements in the area of education internationalization, which has facilitated the division of spheres of influence and zones of responsibility within the educational area, as well as the steering of educational approaches along a common course. The paper employs traditional methods of research, such as classification, comparative analysis, generalization, juxtaposition, and forecasting. The study suggests three possible scenarios for the future development of the process of higher education internationalization: sustainably diverse internationalization, convergence in the direction of the liberal model, and the triumph of developing economies. The paper also describes current trends in this area in APR states. The authors come to the conclusion that we are in for considerable changes in the international market of educational services, such as the reconsideration of spheres of influence and redistribution of key players in the market, dynamicity and heterochrony in development being among the key traits inherent to today's market of educational services.

The purpose of this article is to describe and compare individual state funding systems for public elementary and secondary education in the United States. States' major education funding systems are described as well as funding mechanisms for students with disabilities; English language learners (ELL); gifted and talented students; and low income or "at-risk" students, the latter more broadly defined as those who are at risk of dropping out of school. Third is a description of state funding for vocational, career, and technical education programs, an area that is of particular importance to students who do not plan to pursue postsecondary education. Fourth are funding programs that are generally, but not always, outside the state's major funding system that are district-based. These include state funding related to sparsity and density factors; transportation costs; and infrastructure-related expenses for capital outlay and associated debt. The research reported in this article was based upon a 50-state survey of chief education officers with regard to their respective state's funding system for public elementary and secondary education for the 2014-2015 academic year. As a result, this article presents a comprehensive view of formulas and other mechanisms states employ to fund PK-12 education at present.

The purpose of the study is to determine the business need for vocational training. This article gives a detailed analysis of the problem aimed at finding optimal occupational skill structure of training, which involves all kinds of positive effects in various areas of public life--from the economy up to the spiritual sphere of human life. Moreover, the authors described relevant stages and their interconnections in the implementation process and provided a detailed description of relevant source data. The practical value is that the investigation suggests approaches to provide balance in the regional labor market, and considers the need for concerted action of regional authorities, educational and manufacturing companies in the region.

The purpose of this study is to examine specific features of the traditional Kazakh dances as the methodological foundation of training specialists in the culture and art universities. The article describes the main typologies of Kazakh dances, such as ritual and ceremonial, combative-hunting, work dances, household-imitative dances, festive and ceremonial dances, mass-thematic dances. National dance performs cultural, historical, aesthetic and semantic functions. Relevance of this problem is determined by the fact that in the present globalized world, national culture and traditions are oppressed by the multicultural environment; consequently, there is a need to train high-quality specialists in the field of cultural studies, who will be able to teach national culture. The authors used structural-functional, institutional and phenomenological approaches as well as methods of typological, historical, logical analysis. Research results show theoretical ways to address this problem. These include improvement of teaching and learning technologies, introduction of uniform terminological apparatus of the Kazakh dance, as well as various proven and advanced training technologies, in-depth study of the national dance, traditional culture, and heritage of the Kazakh dance art. This work can be used as a theoretical basis to develop the methodology of training future specialists in the field of cultural studies.

This paper utilizes the theoretical framework of complexity theory to compare and contrast leadership and educational change in two urban schools. Drawing on the notion of a complex adaptive system--an interdependent network of interacting elements that learns and evolves in adapting to an ever-shifting context--our case studies seek to reveal the complexities, tensions, characteristics, and related implications for school leadership derived from using this heuristic to understand adaptive change. In particular, we highlight the need to disrupt the status quo as a precursor to adaptive change, the power generated by distributing authority through decentralized networks, the importance of relational trust, and the impact of school culture.

The goal is to provide a robust and challenging problem statement for a capstone, advanced systems analysis and design course for CIS/MIS/CS majors. In addition to the problem narrative, a representative solution for much of the business modeling deliverables is presented using the UML paradigm. A structured analysis deliverable will be the topic of a second paper on this subject. The authors teach the systems analysis and design course(s) or the systems development course(s) at their university. The CIS senior capstone course that the primary author teaches requires that the student complete one or more business modeling case studies. The authors have used some cases/problem statements from various systems analysis and design texts; however, the authors wanted a problem statement that would challenge a systems team at the senior undergraduate level to produce a complete static, functional and behavioral business model that could be designed and implemented. The authors believe that the narrative should include enough detail to enable the team to use either Unified Modeling Language (UML) or Structured Analysis.

Information system professionals strive to determine requirements by interviewing clients, observing activities at the client's site, and studying existing system documentation. Still this often leads to vague and inaccurate requirements documentation. When teaching the skills needed to determine requirements, it is important to recreate a realistic environment to develop analytical thinking skills. To address this, we developed a simulation for students to learn requirements gathering and analysis where they experience the requirements by operating a fictitious manufacturing firm. The students manage and operate the company, taking on a variety of employee roles from the physical "manufacturing" to the order-taking to the purchasing of component parts. With this pedagogical approach, students deal with the messiness of the problem by drawing on their own experience working in the manufacturing firm, making assumptions, and having the opportunity to verify their assumptions and analyses by working with their classmates. The simulation was implemented across two courses in an undergraduate information systems program.

Problems associated with the ubiquitous presence of technology on college campuses are discussed and the concept of the flipped classroom is explained. Benefits of using the flipped classroom to offset issues associated with the presence of technology in the classroom are explored. Fink's Integrated Course Design is used to develop a flipped class approach to the author's Systems Analysis & Design course, and a resulting classroom module is provided as an example. Results of the initial use of this approach are discussed. It is concluded that the use of the flipped classroom in systems analysis and design definitely increases in-class student focus and engagement and as a result helped to increased student learning of both program specific and course specific student outcomes. Further longitudinal studies are suggested to determine effects of employing the flipped classroom approach on the continuing attainment of student learning outcomes.

In this paper, the author reports the results of an empirical study on the relationship between a student's programming experience and their success in a traditional Systems Analysis and Design (SA&D) class where technical skills such as dataflow analysis and entity relationship data modeling are covered. While it is possible to teach these technical skills to students without programming experience, the results of the study strongly suggest that students with programming experience complete the course more successfully than those without.

Students studying Civil Engineering (CE) at the Further Education and Training (FET) colleges spend periods of time in the classroom and workshop as well as in the workplace during experiential learning. The overall purpose of education and training in the college sector is generally understood as preparing students for employability, and difficulties in colleges performing this role are well known. In this article, these difficulties are examined in a novel way. The everyday perspectives of lecturers and supervisors about student learning in their college programmes and their work experience are translated into more theoretical language, using activity theory. A theoretical argument is made, which suggests that different sites of learning create different purposes, and that these different purposes derive from a distinction between knowledge and practice, which in turn has historical roots. The study concludes by suggesting that a new, common object of integrating theory and practice at all the sites would better link the college and workplace education and training systems, and tentatively suggests how this new object could be put into practice.

The author was assigned the task to comment on the broad topic: "New sciences, technologies, and media--impact on education for librarianship (or libraries)." The author choose to emphasize "information science." Narrowing the subject down even further, in this article the author emphasizes some of the aspects of the "interface" between librarianship and information science, where he believes the action is going to develop in the coming years. [For the commentary on this article, "Broad and Visionary. Commentary on Allen Kent (1977) Information Science," see EJ1073522. This article was originally published in the "Journal of Education for Librarianship" (1977).]

There are few tools that exist to measure knowledge mobilization (KMb), the process of connecting research to policy and practice across diverse organizations and sectors. This article reports on a comparison of KMb efforts of 105 educational organizations: faculties of education (N = 21), research brokering organizations (N = 44), school districts (N = 14), and ministries of education (N = 26). This study used a tool that analyzed KMb efforts along two dimensions--research dissemination strategies (e.g., products, events, and networks) and research use indicators (e.g., different types of strategies, ease of use, accessibility, collaboration, and mission)--using data available on organizational websites. Findings show that research brokering organizations and faculties of education are producing stronger knowledge mobilization efforts than school districts and ministries of education; however, even faculties and research brokering organizations often have modest efforts. Most KMb efforts are product based, with network strategies usually being the weakest KMb strategy utilized.

The purpose of this study was to examine corruption in universities with the aim of finding out the types/forms, causes, effects and measures for combating the menace. Four research questions guided the investigation. The study is a survey research, ex-post facto in nature. A sample of 780 comprising of students, academic staff and administrative staff was selected through random sampling technique from six public universities in Nigeria. Data collected through the questionnaire was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that the types of corruption prevalent in universities are examination related, admission related, finance related, accreditation related and sexual related. Each of these types of corruption has different forms of manifestations. The causes of corruption in universities included greed, lack of fear of God, and the desire to get rich quick. The effects of corruption and measures for combating it were identified. The study concluded by recommending among others that all stake holders in university education should have a moral reorientation and begin to reverence God by fearing him to help sanitize the universities and create a corruption free learning environment in the university system.

This article interrogates principles of ethnography in education proposed by Mills and Morton: raw tellings, analytic pattern, vignette and empathy. This article adopts a position that is uncomfortable, unconventional and interesting. It involves a deterritorialization/rupture of ethnography in education in order to reterritorialize a different concept: rhizoanalysis, a way to position theory and data that is multilayered, complex and messy. Rhizoanalysis, the main focus of this article is not a method. It is an approach to research conditioned by a reality in which Deleuze and Guattari disrupt representation, interpretation and subjectivity. In this article, Multiple Literacies Theory, a theoretical and practical framework, becomes a lens to examine a rhizomatic study of a Korean family recently arrived to Australia and attending English as a second language classes. Observations and interviews recorded the daily lives of the family. The vignettes were selected by reading data intensively and immanently through a process of palpation, an innovative approach to educational research. Rhizoanalysis proposes to abandon the given and invent different ways of thinking about and doing research and what might happen when reading data differently, intensively and immanently, through Multiple Literacies Theory. Rhizoanalysis, a game-changer in the way research can be conducted, affords a different lens to tackle issues in education through research.

In the new era of big educational data, learning analytics (LA) offer the possibility of implementing real-time assessment and feedback systems and processes at scale that are focused on improvement of learning, development of self-regulated learning skills, and student success. However, to realize this promise, the necessary shifts in the culture, technological infrastructure, and teaching practices of higher education, from assessment-for-accountability to assessment-for-learning, cannot be achieved through piecemeal implementation of new tools. We propose here that the challenge of successful institutional change for learning analytics implementation is a wicked problem that calls for new adaptive forms of leadership, collaboration, policy development and strategic planning. Higher education institutions are best viewed as complex systems underpinned by policy, and we introduce two policy and planning frameworks developed for complex systems that may offer institutional teams practical guidance in their project of optimizing their educational systems with learning analytics.

Considering that coordination can take many forms, and may be instituted through an array of policy instruments and tools, we take the position that coordination is both a consequence of pressures on higher education some of which are brought by market forces (globalisation) but also that state coordination of higher education can be a trigger for change. Our objective is to demonstrate this through a review of literature and legislative and policy instruments in Namibia. We complete the review with an in-depth analysis of key informant interviews on coordination in Namibia. We argue that although Namibia's approach of higher education governance and state coordination strongly emphasizes autonomy, which is in-line with international trends. We also argue that self-governance in an absence of policy does not promote effectiveness of HEIs in the country. We conclude that coordination and state steering of it, is in Namibia's context a consequence of experience in hindsight rather than a case of foresight.