Abstract
Universities are increasingly organized and managed through digital data. The collection, processing and dissemination of Higher Education data is enabled by complex new data infrastructures that include both human and nonhuman actors, all framed by political, economic and social contingencies. HE data infrastructures need to be seen not just as technical programs but as practical relays of political objectives to reform the sector. This article focuses on a major active data infrastructure project in Higher Education in the United Kingdom. It examines the sociotechnical networks of organizations, software programs, standards, dashboards and visual analytics technologies that constitute the infrastructure, and how these technologies are fused to governmental imperatives of market reform. The analysis foregrounds how HE is being reimagined through the utopian ideal of the ‘smarter university’ while simultaneously being reformed through the political project of marketization.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 12 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-26 |
Number of pages | 26 |
Journal | International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 8 Mar 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2019 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- dashboards
- data
- infrastructure
- marketization
- standards
- visualization
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Ben Williamson
- Moray House School of Education and Sport - Senior Lecturer and Chancellor's Fellow
- Institute for Education, Community & Society
- Centre for Research in Digital Education
Person: Academic: Research Active