We often describe educational innovation as a strategic process aligned with institutional goals. In practice, it unfolds organically. My PhD began in that space, with a focus on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The study developed into a cross-national exploration of how higher education institutions in Ireland and Britain understood why and how MOOCs were developed and what their future might look like.

I interviewed lecturers, instructional designers and senior leaders navigating the space between institutional ambition and operational reality. Using Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006), I stayed close to their accounts of negotiation, uncertainty and competing priorities. Rather than consensus, the accounts revealed contradiction. Those tensions shaped the story of MOOCs.

As the dataset grew, so did its volume and complexity. The challenge was to synthesise competing positions without reducing them to tidy themes. Faced with an extensive qualitative dataset, I needed a way to hold contradictions without flattening them. Instead of producing a conventional findings chapter, I developed the analysis through six composite narratives organised around three institutional roles expressed through contrasting positions.

Inspired by how true crime documentaries allow multiple accounts to sit in tension rather than resolving them into a single narrative, the contrast functioned as both a narrative form and an analytic strategy. Presenting the findings through composite narratives and thick description (McElhinney and Kennedy, 2022; Patton, 2015) kept the study grounded in participant accounts while acknowledging my insider position as an instructional designer. This interpretive lens brings into view a perspective central to institutional innovation work yet less frequently foregrounded in research. By presenting findings as character-driven narratives rather than abstract categories, the research makes institutional tensions visible and open to discussion. The conclusion brings these strands together and offers practical recommendations for institutions seeking to align MOOC activity with strategic purpose and internal capacity.

This practitioner presentation is less about MOOCs themselves and more about researching in conditions of uncertainty. It reflects on what happens when institutional voices remain in tension and considers how narrative approaches can help those working in educational innovation engage complexity without prematurely resolving it.

Charmaz, K. (2006) Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Sage.

McElhinney, Z. and Kennedy, C. (2022) ‘Enhancing the collective, protecting the personal: The valuable role of composite narratives in medical education research’, Perspectives on Medical Education, 11, pp. 220–227.

Patton, M.Q. (2015) Qualitative research and evaluation methods. 4th edn. Sage.