Academics and Digital Networks

Abstract

Previous chapters have dealt with the sociomaterial contexts within which people interact and co-constitute their contexts. In this chapter and the next, the focus shifts towards the people, the human elements in these sociomaterial assemblages. This shift is of course only one of emphasis, human actors remain component parts of sociomaterial assemblages and the individual human is just as importantly always a social actor. This chapter examines the position of the academic in networked learning. It begins from the premise that the academic role is broader than either a single or a combined focus on teaching or research would imply. Secondly, this chapter is interested in the interactions between academics and academic work, and the emergent practices that are co-configured by academic actors and those material and technological features enabled by digital and network technologies. In order to do this, the chapter examines the pressures on academic work, and it explores a number of different approaches that have developed to explain the changing role of the academic. The chapter surveys the discussions that have taken place about the nature of digital scholarship and the changes that have taken place to the practices of teaching and learning. It also explores the rise of the new professionals, the para-academics who are beginning to play an important role. Networked learning prizes certain kinds of relationships, and these form the basis of outlining a critical stance in relation to some of these changes to academic work. New ways of working with digital and networked technologies can open a positive range of possibilities. However, they can also be integrated into new managerial schemes of surveillance and accountability that pressure academic staff to perform in ways that destroy the autonomy that is symbolic of academic freedom. The chapter concludes by asking what kinds of academic practices might emerge in the tension between traditional academic life and new versions that stretch out across digital networks.