@inbook{d8c4bc0a5c184bd6919b72c98c991c10,
title = "The cloud campus: Imagining and investing in the digital future of higher education",
abstract = "Calculations and decisions about financial investment in educational technologies have become key ways through which the future of higher education is imagined. Focusing on the techno financial and imaginative work of investors in digital education platforms and infrastructures, this chapter examines the {\textquoteleft}futures in the making{\textquoteright} that emerge from edtech investment practices, and the ways investors{\textquoteright} funding decisions instantiate particular configurations of the future in platform and infrastructure developments. The {\textquoteleft}digital transformation{\textquoteright} of HE is thus intimately tied to the practices of both imaginative {\textquoteleft}futuring{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}capitalization{\textquoteright}, through which the value of technologies is calculated in terms of expected future monetary returns on investment. Empirically, the chapter explores the capitalization and futuring practices of an educational technology finance and investment firm and its role in imagining and investing in the future of HE, and how markets were made during the Covid-19 crisis for online learning platform providers to operate as large-scale infrastructures for university teaching and learning. The conclusion considers the implications of these investment futuring practices and, by contrast, the prospects for {\textquoteleft}defuturing{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}refuturing{\textquoteright} post-pandemic higher education according to alternative, collective visions.",
keywords = "capitalization, educational technology, futures, futuring, investment, platforms",
author = "B. Williamson",
year = "2023",
month = jul,
day = "21",
doi = "10.4337/9781802204575.00012",
language = "English",
isbn = "9781802204575",
series = "Political Science and Public Policy 2023",
publisher = "Edward Elgar Publishing",
pages = "60--77",
editor = "Carrigan, \{Mark A.\} and Hannah Moscovitz and Martini, \{Michele \} and Robertson, \{Susan L.\}",
booktitle = "Building the Post-Pandemic University",
address = "United Kingdom",
}