Lesley Gourlay

This open access book takes an innovative and critical look at the ways in which digital data and algorithms are changing the face of higher education in multiple ways. It examines their impact at both the macro scale of universities and systems worldwide, but also at the more subtle level of effects on academics and students. In doing so, it focuses on the day-to-day life of the university, examining how the digital is changing the way that we communicate, learn, and create new knowledge. As well as exploring the role of ‘big data’ and learning analytics, the book also focuses on areas of academic life not normally considered to be part of datafication, such as the physical structures of surveillance on campus and the ways in which systems of ‘quality’ in research can morph into regimes of surveillance and algorithmic discipline. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, the volume interweaves insights from Surveillance Studies, Science and Technology Studies and Postphenomenology. . Its wide-ranging analysis generates fresh, critical new insights into the nature of communication, semiosis, textual practices, subjectivities and knowledge practices at this dynamic and fast-moving juncture in the history and development of higher education worldwide. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by University College London, UK.

This open access book takes an innovative and critical look at the ways in which digital data and algorithms are changing the face of higher education in multiple ways. It examines their impact at both the macro scale of universities and systems worldwide, but also at the more subtle level of effects on academics and students. In doing so, it focuses on the day-to-day life of the university, examining how the digital is changing the way that we communicate, learn, and create new knowledge. As well as exploring the role of ‘big data’ and learning analytics, the book also focuses on areas of academic life not normally considered to be part of datafication, such as the physical structures of surveillance on campus and the ways in which systems of ‘quality’ in research can morph into regimes of surveillance and algorithmic discipline. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, the volume interweaves insights from Surveillance Studies, Science and Technology Studies and Postphenomenology. . Its wide-ranging analysis generates fresh, critical new insights into the nature of communication, semiosis, textual practices, subjectivities and knowledge practices at this dynamic and fast-moving juncture in the history and development of higher education worldwide. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by University College London, UK.

It is a commonplace in educational policy and theory to claim that digital technology has ‘transformed’ the university, the nature of learning and even the essence of what it means to be a scholar or a student. However, these claims have not always been based on strong research evidence. What are students and scholars actually doing in the day-to-day life of the digital university? This book examines in detail how the world of the digital interacts with texts, artefacts, devices and humans, in the contemporary university setting. Weaving together perspectives from a range of thinkers and disciplinary sources, Lesley Gourlay draws on ideas from posthuman and new materialist theory in particular, to open up our understanding about how digital knowledge practices operate. She proposes that digital engagement in the university should not be regarded as ‘virtual’ or disembodied, but instead may be understood as a complex set of entanglements of the body, texts and material artefacts, making a case that agency and the ways in which knowledge emerges should be regarded as ‘more than human’.

It is a commonplace in educational policy and theory to claim that digital technology has ‘transformed’ the university, the nature of learning and even the essence of what it means to be a scholar or a student. However, these claims have not always been based on strong research evidence. What are students and scholars actually doing in the day-to-day life of the digital university? This book examines in detail how the world of the digital interacts with texts, artefacts, devices and humans, in the contemporary university setting. Weaving together perspectives from a range of thinkers and disciplinary sources, Lesley Gourlay draws on ideas from posthuman and new materialist theory in particular, to open up our understanding about how digital knowledge practices operate. She proposes that digital engagement in the university should not be regarded as ‘virtual’ or disembodied, but instead may be understood as a complex set of entanglements of the body, texts and material artefacts, making a case that agency and the ways in which knowledge emerges should be regarded as ‘more than human’.

Student Engagement in the Digital University challenges mainstream conceptions and assumptions about students’ engagement with digital resources in Higher Education. While engagement in online learning environments is often reduced to sets of transferable skills or typological categories, the authors propose that these experiences must be understood as embodied, socially situated, and taking place in complex networks of human and nonhuman actors. Using empirical data from a JISC-funded project on digital literacies, this book performs a sociomaterial analysis of student–technology interactions, complicating the optimistic and utopian narratives surrounding technology and education today and positing far-reaching implications for research, policy and practice.

Student Engagement in the Digital University challenges mainstream conceptions and assumptions about students’ engagement with digital resources in Higher Education. While engagement in online learning environments is often reduced to sets of transferable skills or typological categories, the authors propose that these experiences must be understood as embodied, socially situated, and taking place in complex networks of human and nonhuman actors. Using empirical data from a JISC-funded project on digital literacies, this book performs a sociomaterial analysis of student–technology interactions, complicating the optimistic and utopian narratives surrounding technology and education today and positing far-reaching implications for research, policy and practice.