Aalto International Design Business Management programme to be provided for remote students
Aalto University's IDBM (International Design Business Management) Master's degree programme focuses on the methods, thought processes and competitive advantage perspectives of design. The programme's courses focus on products, service and business design, technology and innovation management. IDBM is a common programme that involves every school at Aalto, and the School of Business is responsible for its coordination. The graduates of the programme are design experts who are employed as e.g. consultants, product or service developers and entrepreneurs.
In the future, Aalto wants to provide IDBM studies to students at other universities. This autumn, the programme received funding from the A!OLE (Aalto Online Learning) project to develop its online learning processes in a minor programme that is taught entirely with blended learning, which combines both contact and online learning methods. Last autumn, the programme received the same funding for the implementation of its IDBM Challenge and Capstone courses.
‘We want to provide our programmes to students at top international universities. To be able to achieve this with good learning outcomes, we must utilise the principles of blended learning,’ notes Vice President for Education Eero Eloranta.
‘The blended learning minor will become an alternative that will be provided alongside the traditional minor programme. We want to provide Aalto and IDBM to the global market and also to such students who are happy to study online but don't want to move to Finland,’ says IDBM's visiting Assistant Professor Miikka J. Lehtonen.
Good webinars are key
The minor programme consists of three courses that are worth 25 credits in total. The programme begins with the IDBM Challenge course that focuses on all the senses, which helps orientate students to the programme. The online series of the course consists of 15 episodes. Its production involved a large number of people at Aalto. Graphic designer Parvati Pillai was responsible for the course's visual identity, sound designer Harri Dammert for the music, consultant Johannes Söderström for the course’s 360-degree environment and Educational Media Specialist Kalle Kataila for the videos and editing. The script was written by the leader of the course, Miikka J. Lehtonen. In addition, the core working group included Education Planners Theresa Berg and Katharina Schilli, both IDBM alumni.
After the IDBM Challenge, the minor continues with the Industry Project course, where student teams create real-life projects for 10 companies in total.
‘Lately, we haven't been able to accept all the projects that have been offered to us, as more and more companies have become aware of our programme and expressed their interest in it,’ notes Professor of Practice Niina Nurmi, who is IDBM's director.
After the Industry Project course, the Capstone course dives deep into the contents of the fields that are part of IDBM. The Capstone course is implemented with the help of Adobe Connect. Niina Nurmi, who is responsible for the course, says that all students use a video camera during the course – this helps ensure total concentration during the webinars. Their planning, scheduling and rhythm also involves a great deal of time and effort.
‘90 per cent of the things that we do during the webinars must be activating. Any articles and other materials are read before the webinar, and during the webinar itself, we work together to learn about the uses of design technology methods.’
Niina Nurmi's dissertation focused on organisational psychology and Miikka J. Lehtonen’s on visual communication. These form the basis for the development of the programme next year as well, and the goal is to make IDBM into one of Aalto's flagship programmes.
Since the beginning of 2016, Aalto University's strategic A!OLE (Aalto Online Learning) project has funded pilots, courses and programmes that are used to develop the education that is provided at Aalto. IDBM is one of the programmes that has received its funding. Additionally, IDBM received funding from the strategic digitalisation project of Aalto University.
Get to know the IDBM Challenge course and view its episodes:
More information about IDBM:
Other pilots which got A!OLE funding in autumn 2017 are below. More information about these will be provided soon on .
- MSc Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management
- Blended learning for textile design courses
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- Blended Mentoring in Bachelor’s Thesis Research, Mikkeli Campus
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- Intelligent Computational Media - Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Designers and Artists
- Teknillisen kemian ja polymeeriteknologian laboratoriotöiden digitalisointi
- AR for space science teaching & outreach
- Rapid transitioning to CO2 free power system in Finland
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