Maritime Operations

The setting

The Master’s course ‘Maritime Operations and Management’ (MOAM) is one of the few training opportunities in the UK for aspiring managers in the shipping industry. Conceived by professional bodies to develop the managerial class of the future, the course draws on a pool of teachers who serve in high-level positions in the maritime industry. It is attractive for practitioners who have reached the peak of their career as sailors, and is also frequented by students wishing to engage with academic subjects, such as ship design, logistics and maritime technology before continuing to a doctorate. The course has seen recently a surge in student numbers, and it now a prominent part of City University’s teaching.

What is the nature, scope and role of cases in this setting?

Being strongly oriented towards the education of future managers, in this setting cases are in nature, scope and role similar to cases used across business and management schools aiming to develop managerial and leadership personalities and attitudes. MOAM teachers describe cases variously as “accounts of managerial practices” and “real-world situations and how they were addressed” (often the teacher was involved in them). In this purpose, cases occupy the central role of reflecting the kind of situations students will face when returning to the world of work. By working on cases proposing solutions, students should acquire an attitude to action and become trained in making decisions under uncertainty and pressure. They further may learn about industry-specific problem kinds and about generic solutions to address them.
Their pedagogical significance lies also in training students in a variety of skills. Generic ‘critical thinking’ and ‘analysis’ skills are emphasized, as are collaboration, presentation, communication and argumentation. Here the role of the case as a ‘representation of the real’ is backgrounded, while the collaborative pedagogy and the exercise of skills it entails becomes more prominent. A similar multiplicity of case roles is typical for many other forms of case-based learning.

Cases are used alongside traditional lecturing, these lectures furnishing students with codified and substantive knowledge whereupon then case-centred exercises serve as opportunities to apply that knowledge.

How are cases designed, developed, described and reconstructed?

At a general level, cases in MOAM are connections between industry and the educational institution. Case-based learning may well be the pedagogy of choice for institutions aiming, and indeed presenting themselves, to train practitioners; and cases serve to bring some of the world of practice into these institutions.

Beyond the generic requirement to reflect in some way the world of practice, there are other influences on the design of cases:

  • the role of cases within the pedagogy to reflect real-world situations entail a commitment to enhancing ‘realism’ and ‘authenticity’ or at least engendering students’ perceptions of the similarity between the case and a real-world situation. So, cases may be ‘embellished’ with rich details that may however be of little relevance for understanding the case; or data coming from original sources may be used to increase the perception of authenticity
  • cases may be designed to address a single specific topic of the curriculum, (e.g. the role of motivation or leadership in organizations) but also to engender students’ thinking across topics and the discovery of relations between them.
  • a model of learning and problem solving with cognitive inclination affects the design of cases as well: details may be added to a case in order to simulate the information overload characteristic for real-world problem solving; or information may be omitted to simulate absence of information and so develop students’ skill and confidence in making decisions under uncertainty
  • the similarity to actual practice is further emphasised through the kind of work required in the exercises. Students are asked to analyse a case and then develop convincing arguments for addressing the situation. Pressure is exerted by clear time constrains, and the quality of the presentation of solution proposals is given prominence in marking.

What new tools have been developed and how?

We developed a range of tools based on the rich variety of SIMILE tools and the different demands of the courses.

One application, that may be termed ‘single-case’ study, enables the flexible exploration of the events leading up to and after the grounding of the Braer oil tanker off the coast of Shetland in 1993. The case is used in the module ‘Security Studies’ to teach students how to investigate accidents and write an IMO (International Maritime Organization) compliant accident report. This requires students to identify proximate and contributing causes. Knowledge about ship technology and engineering, about safety regulations, weather and tide patterns, the command structure and the proper communication and reporting procedures is required to identify those causes and understand which unfortunate coincidences led to the accident. The exercise is also used to promote reflection and the development of proposals to avoid a recurrence of similar accidents.

Understanding the case thus may require knowledge taught in other modules, and, for example, recommendations for improvement may feed into students’ ship design proposals.

The application helps students to navigate through the events, and to reconstruct the development of the many elements involved (e.g. a particular technology, the communication with the coast guard, the events of reporting and commands). The intersection of elements and their mutual influences can then be understood better.

A second application supports students in developing the design of a ship, the Isles of Scilly ferry. In this module, the teacher models the design process – strongly influenced by experience rather than normative templates – but leaves students considerable freedom to propose the design. The design process is distinguished into ‘bundles’, a set of questions and assumptions that require a decision before continuing. Decisions are made on the basis of data, such as tourism figures, dry-dock capacities, fuel prices, competition from air transport, available technology, and so on.

We implemented a DAD (data aggregation document) that connects questions/decision point with resources required to make those decisions. Maps from the Admiralty, information of tides and sea currents, previous passenger comments, etc. are aggregated in the website. An extension of the application is planned that verifies students’ decision according to crucial criteria and gives them feedback.

What are the pedagogical advantages and opportunities of using semantic technologies?

A core learning goal of the MOAM course is the development of students’ abilities to move within a world which is complex and often lacks information or may be overloaded with information, but requires decisive action. Students are trained to understand core issues of a problem or situation quickly and make judgements based on a large amount of data. The main issue for teachers is hence to develop an educational environment where skills and attitudes relevant for managerial positions are practiced.

In developing a learning environment is important to find a middle ground between teaching students core knowledge, including, for example, processes of ship design, but having a considerably open space within the students search for and select data to make decisions. Further, case-based learning in this setting is in essence about providing students a base-line whereupon they have to build understanding towards decision-making. Semantic tools, such as Exhibit and the Timeline allow the display of that base line. They allow the selective display of events represented in their temporal development, correlated to a location at a map if necessary, and of core variables to take into consideration in reasoning and decision-making.

What are the theoretical framings that help us understand this?

We understand decision-making as happening at the intersection of assembling resources and procedures of using them. This conforms to an interactional view of action where the environment, and specifically resources and devices, engenders and constrains activity, rather than seeing it as being in service of an abstract plan.

Our understanding of knowledge and learning as interactional achievements means that relationing between, e.g., case and resource requires particular support. Students need to be able to mobilize knowledge/resources in dependence of the many factors typically influencing a learning practice (such as questions, assessment, prior knowledge, projected professional future). The semantic web supports this form of learning because it allows easy mobilization and reuse of resources in dependence of relational attributes (including curriculum design, domain ontologies, students’ knowledge).

Demonstrations

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