Enhancing Innovations through Distance-Learning Studio: The Sociological Institutionalism Perspective.

Amidst the COVID-19 outbreak and its mobility restrictions around the Globe, academic institutions have been seeking innovations to organise distance learning activities. Distance-learning studio emerges as an alternative that offers a project and teamwork-based method to learn specific courses using online platforms. Its flexibility and borderless characteristics have promoted various academic collaborations beyond any geographical boundaries, which encourage mutual learning process and knowledge enrichment. This article discusses the innovation brought by distance-learning studio through the case of "the Inclusive City Planning", a pilot studio initiated by the collaboration between University of College London, in the United Kingdom, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Universitas Lambung Mangkurat, and Kotakita, in Indonesia. Drawing upon the sociological institutionalism viewpoint, we assessed various activities through which different values, cultures, and practices of the participating students were consolidated and transformed into useful knowledge and skills. We applied the institutional capacity framework to highlight some key achievements gained by the students, whereby data were collected through observations and assessments of the students' outputs, discussions, and course journals. Our findings showed that the project has proven to be a reliable distance-learning platform, which helped students in gaining broader contextual knowledge as well as teamwork skills within cross-boundary culture and ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]