Lecturers

All interested lecturers can find here some useful information about using real-life cases in teaching. If you have some good cases or ideas to share with us (also cooperation ideas are welcomed), please do not hesitate to contact us.

Please find here:

Guidelines and tips for writing the cases *

1. Find an interesting company and situation.

a. Make assurances of confidentiality and gain confidence that they will eventually approve the use of cases.

b. Take notes and remember to keep track of your sources for later citations in your case study.

2. Choose a case site. Think of a location, an organization, company, or individuals who are dealing with that problem. Plan and set up interviews with these people.

a. Your interviewees should all be involved in the same company or organization (your case "site"). They can be workers, volunteers, customers, or other stakeholders with an interest in solving the problem you have identified.

3. Interview them about what they are doing

a. Interview people involved in interesting things

b. Interview people to give you the overall picture and context that provides the business situation

c. Ask to interview others as you learn about new things

d. 5 to 8 one-hour interviews can often be sufficent, but more are better

e. Sometimes interview people with interesting perspectives outside the case (not part of the subject organization)

f. Ask what they have tried to do to solve the problem, their feelings about the situation, and what they might do differently. Ask open-ended questions that will provide you with information about what is working, how the situation has developed, which parties are involved, and what a typical day is like. Stay away from yes or no questions, or you may not get the information you are seeking.

4. Transcribe interviews

5. Read transcripts, and highlight "the good stuff“

6. Copy and paste "the good stuff“ into a case document

a. Include everything you can't imagine leaving out, even if it makes the case way too long (you´ll cut it later)

7. Rearrange the materials into the document until it roughly fits into headings and tells a story - Opening, Background, Specifics of the company, Revisit decision

8. Decide on case issue

9. Think about how to teach the case

a. What will be the class plan?

b. What questions will you ask the students to discuss?

c. How long will each "pasture“ of discussion last?

10. Use your ideas about the class plan to decide which of the things you can´t imagine leaving out

a. Some things you can move to Exhibits

b. Some you have to cut ("kill your darlings“)

11. Rewrite the majority of quotes into story text

a. Keep only some quotes best conveyed as a quotation

12. Smooth out the prose, revise, polish

13. Write the teaching notes (see below)

a. Note that most don´t write teaching notes as long as the case is taught 2-3 times in class

14. Teach the case

15. Revise the case

16. Publish and celebrate.

*2011 Robert D.Austin and Daniel Hjarth

Tips for writing**

1. Write in the past tense

2. Keep your audience in mind: Remember that you are writing for students or discussants who may not be familiar with the background, details, and terminology of the situation. Keep jargon to a minimum.

3. Use short-story-writing techniques: A case has flesh-and-blood characters who should be intriguing. Each story element should move the narrative forward.

4. Openings: Grab the reader with a character facing his or her biggest problem: set the scene for the confrontations, the frustrations, and the main conflicts.

5. Present situations and scenes without any attempt at analysis: Scenes must follow a logical order and should illustrate a point, concept, or issue that relates to the problems that the writer wants to have analyzed. Do not give any signals that one solution might be preferred.

6. Provide relevant details: After an opening that sets up the situation, provide relevant details about goals, strategies, dilemmas, issues, conflicts, roadblocks, appropriate research, relevant financial information, people, and relationships. Be stingy with numbers; they must help solve the problems, not confuse readers or send them off on unproductive analytic tangents.

7. Use as much dialogue as possible: Make the characters come alive with dialogue. Straight narrative is boring.

8. Endings: Leave the reader with a clear picture of the major problems - either ask or imply "what is to be done now?"

**http://www.cpcug.org/user/houser/advancedwebdesign/Tips_on_Writing_the_Case_Study.html

What makes a good teaching note (facilitator note)?***

• Clear learning objectives

• Suggested class time, broken down by topics

• Suggested student assignment

• Brief description of the opening and closing 10-15 minutes and case synopsis

• Challenging case discussion questions with sample answers

• Supporting materials – worksheets, videos, readings, reference material, etc

• Target audience identified

• If applicable, an update on ‘what actually happened’.

***2018 Emerald Publishing Limited, eCases Writing Teaching Cases