This paper explores the antecedents and conditions of a reskilling capability in organisations. Technological shifts, especially during discontinuous technological change (DTC), require new skills. Yet, firms may simultaneously experience skills shortages and worker displacement, while skills shortages can inhibit innovation. Reskilling employees has been suggested as a measure to combat skill shortages and worker displacement; however, few examples of reskilling in firms exist in the literature. We explore a rapid reskilling program in a manufacturing firm experiencing IT skill shortages and interview informants exploratively on reskilling as a method and model, participant recruitment, challenges, comparisons to ‘normal’ recruitment and lessons learned. Based on a dynamic capability framework, we propose that a reskilling capability is a type of renewing dynamic capability and contribute by suggesting that a reskilling capability can help firms mitigate the skills renewal challenge during DTC. We propose that the outcome of a reskilling capability is the redeployment of internal human resources, in particular because of a reskilling capability's ability to enact direct change on a human resource base, thereby enabling firms to renew and redeploy human resources towards ventures where new skills are needed. We illustrate several factors within the organisation that can facilitate this change.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into education and learning risks leading to intellectual dependence among users of AI tools. Meanwhile, intellectual dependence remains underexplored in AI-mediated learning and is addressed ambiguously in AI literacy programmes, which claim to foster critical thinking (CT) and critical consciousness (CC) among learners, helping them move from naïve to more critical ways of thinking about and using AI. However, such approaches to AI literacy often presume and reinforce a hierarchy of thought: teachers are seen as critical thinkers about AI, while students are viewed as less so. This hierarchy arguably leads to intellectual dependence of the latter on the former. In this paper, we problematise AI literacy programmes that embrace CT and CC as educational objectives, since, as we argue, they remedy intellectual dependence on AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude…) by subjecting AI users/learners to another intellectual dependence, but on AI teachers. By drawing on Jacques Rancière’s ideas of universal intellectual equality, we argue that enacting intellectual independence is not an educational or learning goal to be achieved in the future, but a starting point—a condition necessary for teaching and learning about and with AI. Hence, we apply this assumption of equality of intelligence to both AI literacy and AI-mediated learning, and illustrate this application with two practical scenarios: (1) AI-centred pedagogy (thing-centred AI literacy) and (2) ignorant AI-tutors (thing-centred AI-mediated learning). Both approaches aim to reduce dependence on human teachers in AI literacy or on AI tutors in AI-mediated learning. Ultimately, this paper presents design principles for these two solutions, offers a philosophical premise for rethinking education, teaching, and learning in the age of AI, and concludes with contributions, limitations, and a research agenda.

Singapore and Sweden invest substantial resources in upskilling their citizens for a digital transition fuelled by advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). There, the digital transition faces skills shortages and mismatches, leading to increased pressure on lifelong learning (LLL) systems to address these shortages. In this comparative case study, we examine how respective LLL policies and practices address the demands for basic and advanced AI skills. Comparisons are discussed on three levels: system, institutions, and programmes. Singapore and Sweden aspire to be global leaders in AI innovation. This study shows that their AI skills development strategies share similarities but also exhibit significant differences. Singapore adopts a centralised, top-down-leaning, and technology-first policy approach, and Sweden has a decentralised, bottom-up-leaning, and human-centric policy approach; each has its shortcomings. Comparing these two perspectives and identifying gaps provides a valuable lens for understanding and addressing national strategies at the intersection of AI and LLL.

In a rapidly transforming technological landscape, higher education institutions struggle to meet the demands of industry in providing timely and appropriate upskilling and reskilling opportunities for the workforce. Under the umbrella of “advanced digitalisation”, a term prominent in European discourse, covering a wide range of new digital technologies within the Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 paradigms in manufacturing, ICT and engineering, we use scoping review methods to explore the unique challenges and interventions in this area, highlighting potentials for further research. Our scoping review examines 81 peer reviewed Scopus-indexed papers, outlining the current global research on the challenges and interventions in upskilling the workforce for advanced digitalisation. Our results show that research in this area is most prevalent in Europe, North America, and Asia and is most frequently done within the manufacturing and ICT sectors. Due to the fast pace of advanced digitalisation, close collaboration between education providers and industry is required to develop relevant and appropriate upskilling opportunities. We underline the importance of developing strategic management and change management knowledge alongside technology skills. We also highlight the importance of inter- and trans- disciplinary knowledge development. While determining skill needs has attracted substantial research focus, businesses may struggle with developing strategic upskilling plans despite being aware of their skills needs. We conclude that interventions that foster situated engagement and hands-on experience are vital for the future of upskilling.

Lifelong learning in higher education (HE), epitomised by Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), is valuable for re-skilling and upskilling Sweden's industry workforce in (advanced) digital competencies to remain globally innovative and competitive. Meanwhile, Sweden's non-regulatory approach towards MOOC deployment in HE meant that their accreditation by universities faces strenuous systemic challenges. However, since 2019, one university began accrediting an AI mass-market MOOC following a nationally unique system-divergent innovation, which this case study unpacks by responding to three research questions. First, what were the underlying processes of this system-divergent innovation, and how and why did it occur? Second, what were its key success factors? Furthermore, how sustainable is it? This reflexive case study draws on eight semi-structured interviews with university staff and faculty, which were deductively analysed based on topical literature and concepts from system-divergent innovation and structuration theory. Generated themes were called challenges-as-opportunities and spanned bureaucracy, finances, technological infrastructures, deroutinisation, internal conflicts and external pressure. These themes and their discussion inform policy on three tiers: governmental, sectoral, and institutional. This original work highlights that mmMOOCs' accreditation by universities can play a significant role in bridging lifelong learning and HE in Sweden, and calls for digital maturity and national contagion.

This article contributes to the emerging field of research on computational journalism with a practical illustration of an attempt to utilize Machine Learning to generate Search Engine Optimized headlines in a major Swedish newsroom. By using its technical results as a springboard for reflections among internal stakeholders, the experiment serves as a catalyzing innovation revealing deliberations on computational approaches in journalism in general and communicative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in specific. The study concludes with three ideas to support decision makers involved in evaluating potential use cases for communicative AI in journalism.

The skills required to realise the potential of technological transformation to preserve humanity and our fragile world ecosystem in the next decade will centre on the development of digital solutions. This paper discusses the issue of characterising these competencies, since a definition is needed in order to ensure an adequate supply of cutting-edge scholars and a highly educated and agile technological workforce. The paper takes a mixed methods approach combining insights distilled from a rapid literature review, with interviews with leading practitioners and industry leaders. The validity and reliability of the results have been ensured through expert workshops and focus groups. The outcome is a robust definition of what digital excellence entails as well as a road map guiding educational policy and the future supply of digital excellence in national workforces.

Contribution: An intensive three-month educational program can be used for rapid integration of foreign-born people into the IT industry. A novel method for integrating industrial needs with the practical parts of a bachelor's Computer Science program. Background: The program was motivated by (1) the societal need to increase the meaningful integration of immigrants into the workforce, and (2) the demand for IT specialists in the IT labor market. Intended outcomes: An effective intensive software developer program with a high level of industrial integration and a working matching model for employment. Application design: The program consists of three different phases; recruitment of participants, training and job matching. The training is divided into six modules using five different teaching methods. An evaluation model, based on passive and active data, is implemented with fast learning loops for teachers and participants. Findings: The program has been run seven times with 263 unemployed participants of different nationalities. On average 82.6 percent of the participants found employment in the IT industry within 5 months of the course ending. Female participants are in the majority and are more successful in securing employment. The findings suggest that it was possible to rapidly prototype and deliver an advanced reskilling program within a university setting and use it as a positive method to support newcomers find meaningful work that has a direct benefit for the local IT industry, as well as for the wider society.

Many online learning initiatives have failed to reach beyond the environments in which they were first developed. One exception is the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). In an attempt to validate the question-based learning methodology implemented in OLI, we developed online material for an introductory course in object-oriented programming, and tested it on two course offerings with a total of 70 students. As our course has been given in the same format for several years, we also had comparable assessment data for two classes prior to our intervention in order to determine that we did not introduce any obvious harm with this methodology. Findings show a reduced teaching and learning time by 25%. No statistically significant differences could be found in the results of the assessment quizzes nor confidence surveys completed by the students. The two teachers (the same who handled the classes before the intervention) took different paths to teaching preparations with this new methodology. One teacher increased preparations, whilst the other reduced them, but both teachers were convinced that using online question-based learning was superior to the previous lecture and textbook-based approach, both for the students and themselves in terms of overall satisfaction. We also gathered time logs from the development to estimate return on investment.

Students face difficulties when transitioning from introductory programming to using more complex enterprise technologies, such as libraries, software frameworks and development kits. Whilst much literature has been devoted to how to teach introductory programming effectively, less attention is devoted towards managing the transition towards more complex technologies. This work presents the design, experience and evaluation of a module that engages students with a range of enterprise technologies. The module uses peer teaching to transfer the responsibility to students for teaching each other about the technologies. As such, this reduces the need for the teacher to invest time in preparing materials, and it is feasible to cover more technologies depending upon the number of teaching teams. The evaluation, conducted on a cohort of 34 students studying six enterprise technologies over the course of one week, revealed overwhelmingly positive experiences with this approach. For the teacher, effort for preparation and delivery was minimal, and the feedback on the module was highly positive.