Digital Technology and the Contemporary University: Degrees of digitization

by Neil Selwyn

Overview

Digital Technology and the Contemporary University examines the often messy realities of higher education in the ‘digital age’. Drawing on a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives, the book explores the intimate links between digital technology and wider shifts within contemporary higher education – not least the continued rise of the managerialist ‘bureaucratic’ university. It highlights the ways that these new trends can be challenged, and possibly changed altogether.

Addressing a persistent gap in higher education and educational technology research, where digital technology is rarely subject to an appropriately critical approach, Degrees of Digitization offers an alternative reading of the social, political, economic and cultural issues surrounding universities and technology. The book highlights emerging themes that are beginning to be recognised and discussed in academia, but as yet have not been explored thoroughly. Over the course of eight wide-ranging chapters the book addresses issues such as:

• The role of digital technology in university reform
• Digital technologies and the organisation of universities
• Digital technology and the working lives of university staff
• Digital technology and the ‘student experience’
• Reimagining the place of digital technology within the contemporary university

This book will be of great interest to all students, academic researchers and writers working in the areas of education studies and/or educational technology, as well as being essential reading for anyone working in the areas of higher education research and digital media research.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415724616
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/06/2014
Series:	Research into Higher Education
Pages:	170
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Neil Selwyn is Professor of Education at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Table of Contents

Part I – Beyond the rhetoric of the digital university 1. Universities and digital technology: hype, hope and fear 2. Digital technology and higher education ‘reform’ Part II – The realities of universities and digital technology 3. Digital systems: digital technology and the organization of universities 4. Digital labour: digital technology and the working lives of university staff 5. Digital study: digital technology and the ‘student experience’ 6. Digital ‘stuff’: digital technology and the material university Part III – So what now? 7. Looking back: making sense of universities in the digital age 8. Looking forward: reimagining digital technology and the contemporary university