Data governance and the emerging university

Abstract

Knowledge and information governance questions are tractable primarily in institutional terms, rather than in terms of knowledge itself or individual or social interests. This Chapter offers the modern research university as an example. Practices of data-intensive research by university-based researchers, sometimes reduced to the popular phrase “Big Data,” pose governance challenges for the university. The Chapter argues that the new salience of data exposes emerging shifts in the social, cultural, and economic identities of the university, from missions defined in terms of distinctions between basic knowledge (research) and applied knowledge (suitable for technology transfer and commercialization), on the one hand, to missions now defined in terms of data and evidence, on the other hand. The concept of the data-intensive university offers a general outline of a new paradigm for aligning the university as an institution with social goals associated with information law and policy.