Service Design for Teaching Innovation: AMB240 Redesign

QUTopia is a marketing simulation in the unit AMB240 Marketing Planning & Management, and has been delivered in the same format since inception a decade ago. Since then the world has changed with the advent of social media, web 2.0 and the rise of the digital native. Over the past two years informal and formal student feedback has indicated a change is needed in the traditional lecture/tutorial format, with the following issues and opportunities identified; the resource website (Blackboard) is outdated, uninteresting and confusing, the lecture format of stand and deliver does not benefit students, students wish to combine online and offline learning in a more seamless way, and students want modularized content, customizable for different academic grade goals.

The purpose of this project was to undertake a curriculum redesign of AMB240 in terms of the lecture delivery and content, information provision and support mechanisms in the unit. The project aims to review and address:

• How can we deliver information/communicate, create touchpoints and a service process that can be mass delivered yet customized for individual preferences?
• How can we improve the AMB240 experience? (e.g. Make teamwork more enjoyable, keep students task-focused, collecting and sharing QUTopia data from students more automated)

The notion of co-creation with clients is a core underpinning of service delivery and so a service design approach was used to develop a curriculum with students that is relevant, flexible, challenging and innovative. Two concurrent service design participatory workshops (each consisting of three sessions – (1) scope problem,  (2) explore solutions, (3) design solutions), were conducted with AMB240 staff and students varying in learning style, field of study and year of study, as well as including both past and current AMB240 students.