Challenges to Public Universities: Digitalisation, Commodification and Precarity

Holmwood, John; Servós, Chaime Marcuello

doi:10.1080/02691728.2019.1638986

Cited by 40 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…They identified increased precarity as a consequence of labour casualisation and wider proliferation of insecure employment (cf. Holmwood and Servós 2019). 78% of respondents stated that the COVID-19 crisis will result in an increase in temporary and casual forms of academic employment.…”

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Pandemia’: a reckoning of UK universities’ corporate response to COVID-19 and its academic fallout

Watermeyer

Shankar

Crick

et al. 2021

British Journal of Sociology of Education

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Universities in the UK, and in other countries like Australia and the USA, have responded to the operational and financial challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritising institutional solvency and enforcing changes to the work-practices and profiles of their staff. For academics, an adjustment to institutional life under COVID-19 has been dramatic and resulted in the overwhelming majority making a transition to prolonged remote-working. Many have endured significant work-intensification; others have lost -or may soon lose -their jobs. The impact of the pandemic appears transformational and for the most part negative. This article reports the experiences of n=1,099 UK academics specific to the corporate response of institutional leadership to the COVID-19 crisis. We find articulated a story of universities in the grip of 'pandemia' and COVID-19 emboldening processes and protagonists of neoliberal governmentality and market-reform that pay little heed to considerations of human health and wellbeing.

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Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Pandemia’: a reckoning of UK universities’ corporate response to COVID-19 and its academic fallout

Watermeyer

Shankar

Crick

et al. 2021

British Journal of Sociology of Education

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“…These studies are mainly focused on the UK. The state-organised capturing of the student data is used to measure, compare, and assess university performance (Holmwood & Marcuello Servós, 2019;Williamson, 2019). While digital technology is advancing neoliberal forms of metric power in HE (Williamson, Bayne, & Shay, 2020), HE digital infrastructure acts as a hidden architecture for the marketisation of the sector (Williamson, 2018).…”

Section: On the Intersection Of Digitalisation And Marketisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The future of value in digitalised higher education: why data privacy should not be our biggest concern

Komljenovič

2020

High Educ

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Universities around the world are increasingly digitalising all of their operations, with the current COVID-19 pandemic speeding up otherwise steady developments. This article focuses on the political economy of higher education (HE) digitalisation and suggests a new research programme. I foreground three principal arguments, which are empirically, theoretically, and politically crucial for HE scholars. First, most literature is examining the impacts of digitalisation on the HE sector and its subjects alone. I argue that current changes in digitalising HE cannot be studied in isolation from broader changes in the global economy. Specifically, HE digitalisation is embedded in the expansion of the digital economy, which is marked by new forms of value extraction and rentiership. Second, the emerging research on the intersection of marketisation and digitalisation in HE seems to follow the theories of marketisation qua production and commodification. I argue that we need theories with better explanatory power in analysing the current digitalisation dynamics. I propose to move from commodification to assetisation, and from prices to rents. Finally, universities are digitalising in the time when the practice is superseding policy, and there is no regulation beyond the question of data privacy. However, digital data property is already a reality, governed by ‘terms of use’, and protected by the intellectual property rights regime. The current pandemic has led to ‘emergency pedagogy’, which has intensified overall digitalisation in the sector and is bypassing concerns of data value redistribution. I argue that we urgently need public scrutiny and political action to address issues of value extraction and redistribution in HE.

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“…The existing management systems and infrastructures in many universities often date back to the past era, and therefore are usually not able to ensure the competitive functioning of the university adequate to the new realities. There are completely new requirements for infrastructure management (Holmwood et al, 2019;Hasanović et al, 2012). In order to accelerate the technological development of the university, it is necessary to involve not only all infrastructure objects, but also intellectual and cultural potential.…”

Section: Research Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Change of the Higher Education Paradigm in the Context of Digital Transformation: from Resource Management to Access Control

Gafurov

Сафиуллин

Akhmetshin

et al. 2020

IJHE

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Digitalization and transition to a new technological structure bring humanity to another level of development. The changing technological structures, industry and society progress, enhance the importance of improving the university development model. The existing management system and infrastructure in universities are often outdated and unable to ensure their competitive and adequate functioning. Hence, the need to improve the processes of using the university infrastructure through digital technology. The composition and range of the resources should also be reviewed and supplemented with new components.The purpose of this work is to reveal the principles and requirements for improving the university infrastructure using digital technology.The methodology is based on modeling the university management system, with the concept of infrastructure logic as a core, meant to include new elements in the university management infrastructure: university stakeholders, cultural values, investments and translation.The management model transformation implies a transition from structural to infrastructural approach, from infrastructure management to managing the infrastructure logic. The digital network platform incorporating the information on all the infrastructure facilities, their status, will provide effective user access management to each university resource.The recommendations formulated to improve the university infrastructure using digital technology will make higher education more effective.

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Challenges to Public Universities: Digitalisation, Commodification and Precarity

Cited by 40 publications

References 12 publications

‘Pandemia’: a reckoning of UK universities’ corporate response to COVID-19 and its academic fallout

‘Pandemia’: a reckoning of UK universities’ corporate response to COVID-19 and its academic fallout

The future of value in digitalised higher education: why data privacy should not be our biggest concern

Change of the Higher Education Paradigm in the Context of Digital Transformation: from Resource Management to Access Control

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