Anna Nyström Claesson

Coal Tar‐Containing Asphalt Resource or Hazardous Waste?

Coal tar was used in Sweden for the production of asphalt and for the drenching of stabilization gravel until 1973. The tar has high concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), some of which may be strongly carcinogenic. Approximately 20 million tonnes of tar-containing asphalt is present in the public roads in Sweden. Used asphalt from rebuilding can be classified as hazardous waste according to the Swedish Waste Act. The cost of treating the material removed as hazardous waste can be very high due to the large amount that has to be treated, and the total environmental benefit is unclear. The transport of used asphalt to landfill or combustion will affect other environmental targets. The present project, based on three case studies of road projects in Sweden, evaluates the consequences of four scenarios for handling the material: reuse, landfill, biological treatment, and incineration. The results show that reuse of the coal tar-containing materials in new road construction is the most favorable alternative in terms of cost, material use, land use, energy consumption, and air emissions.

Evaluation of a MOOC on “Sustainability in Everyday Life” - The teachers’ experiences

Universities all over the world have been developing Massive Online Open Courses, MOOCs. In this paper, we discuss our experiences during the production of and running the MOOC “Sustainability in everyday life”, that was developed at Chalmers University of Technology. The MOOC ran over a period of 7 weeks, from early June until late July, 2015 and attracted about 9000 participants. The purpose of this paper is (1) to describe and evaluate the further development and content production, and subsequent running of the course; and (2) to share our experiences of running a MOOC for the first time. An action research approach, that focuses on the experience of the teachers, was combined with information obtained from the course statistics, and from the course evaluations by the participants. This approach was used to identify the challenges that were met during the development of the course material and running the MOOC. The results show that, on the one hand, the major challenges were the planning of the content production process and the formulation of the assignments. On the other hand, although time consuming, the production of the video content was perceived as a nice activity. The course statistics and evaluations by the MOOC participants reflected the teachers’ experiences to some extent, and this information can be used to improve the MOOC. The role of MOOCs in higher education for sustainable development (HESD) is not yet clear. This paper demonstrates that developing a MOOC from scratch is a complex process, and adaptation of on-campus courses may be a feasible alternative, thus making already existing courses more widely available.

Producing and running a MOOC for the first time – Evaluation from the instructors' perspective

The MOOC “Sustainability in Everyday Life” was run for the first time in 2015. This was a first-time experience for the instructors. We evaluate the MOOC by examining the cooperation between the different groups involved in producing and running the MOOC, and how it changed over time.

Design and early development of a MOOC on ”Sustainability in everyday life”: Role of the teachers

Universities all over the world have developed Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) to attract students and explore new ways of learning. The MOOC “Sustainability in Everyday Life” (SiEL) is currently in its design and early development stage at Chalmers University of Technology. It aims at developing the MOOC participant’s capacity to appreciate the complexity of sustainable everyday life by developing skills such as systems thinking and critical reflection on the information flow in public media. This paper aims at sharing first experiences regarding the design and early development of the SiEL MOOC and identifying the role(s) of the teachers and its features during the course design and early development based on these first experiences. An action research approach was used to reach these aims, and the teachers’ narratives about these first experiences were used as data source. Three distinct processes (pedagogical, production and interaction) and six roles (owners, teachers, learners, designers, developers and negotiators) were identified. The teachers’ roles and the processes and activities taking place during the design and early development are closely linked to each other and need to be carefully considered in order to guarantee a successful MOOC design and development process.