[Air-L] Does Big Tech have too much power in the Post-Pandemic University?

[Mark Carrigan]

*March 16th, 1pm-2pm GMT*
Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Xrt0PuBhQCOP3YwNZaBzRA

During the pandemic platforms like Zoom and Teams became central to the
core operations of the university, enabling teaching and research to
continue in the absence of face-to-face interaction. The radical change
involved in what has been called the online pivot built upon a much longer
term process of growing reliance upon digital infrastructure across higher
education. Each operation of the university has been changed through cloud
based services to the extent the university itself could be argued to
increasingly resemble a platform, enabling individuals to work together at
a distance while the system itself quietly shapes their interaction.

The online pivot wouldn’t have been possible without these platforms but
there are crucial questions we must begin to ask as we move into a new
phase of this crisis. How are decisions about them being made? How are they
changing working life within universities? What influence do the firms
operating them have over what we do? What does our institutional dependence
on them mean for the future of the university?

In the first DTCE <http://www.twitter.com/madtce/> Forum we’re pleased to
welcome three leading experts in this field for a dialogue about whether
Big Tech has too much power in the post-pandemic university. Dr Janja
Komljenovic
<https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/educational-research/people/janja-komljenovic>,
Professor Susan Robertson
<https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/robertson/> and Dr Ben Williamson
<https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/ben-williamson> will reflect on these
questions in conversation with DTCE’s Dr Mark Carrigan, with plenty of
opportunity for audience participation.