Targeting faculties and external mentors in the teacher-training unit, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway opened up a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) pilot on digital learning in the fall of 2014. A main objective was to encourage these to use digital media more actively and hence, also to become role models for their own students' future digital practice.However, research has shown that a main concern with MOOC programs is attrition. In line with those findings, and according to the course platform data, none of the MOOC participants completed the course material. As the course progressed, less and less pages were opened and obligatory assignments were only rarely submitted. The participants may thus be described as dropouts.Five of these participants were then interviewed about their MOOC experiences and activities. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed according to Grounded theory procedures. A general finding was that the informants would in fact put some of the material and ideas from the MOOC to use. Even if they dropped out, this indicates a gain from the course. In fact, some of the material that was introduced significantly changed these informants' digital practices when they tested out new ideas in their own teaching. Frame-factors, such as lack of financial compensation or a nonstop flow of competing tasks, however, led the informants to down-prioritize the formal demands in the MOOC pilot.The informants selectively picked the material that suited their own purpose and therefore qualified as "drop-ins" rather than "drop-outs". Rather than quitters who could not keep up with the pace in the MOOC we met media literate participants who remixed and redefined the MOOC content into a Web 2.0 resource and a stepping stone for self-directed online learning.

In Norway, digital skills are defined as an essential proficiency in the national curricular plans, and learning worldwide is in many ways changed by contemporary Web 2.0 technologies. Even so, teacher training is lagging behind when it comes to developing digital learning cultures and providing digital role models for future teachers. At the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), we used a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) approach to provide a digital professional development (DPD) program to faculties at the Department of Teacher Training. A main idea was to develop this program at the meso-level (horizontally) with some mutual structures and offerings, avoiding a top-down approach, which, based on experience, is likely to fail. The findings in this study present a four-step model, the collaborative learning approach (CLA), to account for the development and implementation of a blended learning MOOC (bMOOC) for professional digital competency development.

While technological change in organizations is fast and eminent to most people, the adoption of Massive Open Online Courses, micro-credentials, and flexible and scalable online courses, appear to be comparatively slow in Higher Education in the Nordic countries. To explore this phenomenon, we completed 10 qualitative interviews at ten different higher education institutions across Norway in fall 2020. The informants were strategically selected among employees who had been involved in open platform technology, MOOC production and support for faculties. Adopting thematic analyses, we found entrepreneurs who positioned themselves in pockets of innovation with the intention to transform teaching and learning. Rather than seeing technological innovations as “more of the same”, the entrepreneurs embraced the possibilities emerging in new educational practices. Inspired by New Institutionalism, we focused on the organizational conditions for MOOC production. The entrepreneurs often entered interpretive struggles at higher organizational levels in competition with other stakeholders. Despite national initiatives and funding, many stakeholders questioned the value of MOOCs. Our study points to discrepancies in understanding the disruptive and transformative change that new technology can bring to study programs and lifelong learning. The informants also experienced insufficient support from leaders and lamented the lack of a national platform for open online access. We link these findings to embedded theories, belief systems and discourses in educational cultures and management in Higher Education.

This study used New Institutional Theory to explore how entrepreneurial activities in support units contribute to digital transformation in higher education in Norway. We describe how entrepreneurs initiated and operationalized support for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), micro-credentials and fully online courses in pockets of innovation within existing institutional arrangements. An ambition was to understand why capacity building for digital transformation in a country described by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as digitally mature is lagging behind other countries. We obtained our data from qualitative interviews with faculties and staff involved in fully online course production. The informants were chosen through strategic sampling from support units and faculties, where they filled different roles in the production of such online courses. Our findings describe entrepreneurial activities that strongly contributed to the emerging social field of digital transformation. Located in pockets of innovation, the entrepreneurs provided open digital platforms, a pedagogy for online course design and support for faculties who engaged in online course production. Yet, the findings also confirm previous research pointing out how the lack of supportive leadership may impede successful digital transformation in higher education institutions. The study concludes with a model for digital maturity which may be useful to researchers and stakeholders. The model can also support entrepreneurial processes in online environments.