About the Book
The Digital University: A Dialogue and Manifesto focuses on teaching, learning, and research in the age of the digital reason and their relationships to the so-called knowledge economy. The first part of the book, ‘The University in the Epoch of Digital Reason,’ presents the authors’ insights into the nature of the contemporary university. The second part, ‘Collective Intelligence and the Co-creation of Social Goods,’ explores various collective ways of knowledge creation, dissemination, and education. The final part, ‘Digital Teaching, Digital Learning and Digital Science,’ presents an ongoing series of one-to one dialogues between Michael Adrian Peters and Petar Jandrić about philosophy of education in the age of digital reason, relationships between learning, creative col(labor)ation, and knowledge cultures, digital reading, digital self, digital being, radical openness, creative labour, and the co-production of symbolic goods. Situated in, against, and beyond the current state of affairs, the book ends with the Digital University Manifesto, which explores what is to be done in and for a better future of the digital university.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements – Introduction – ‘Internet Universality’: Human Rights and Principles for the Internet – Technological Unemployment: Educating for the Fourth Industrial Revolution – The University in the Epoch of Digital Reason: Fast Knowledge in the Circuits of Cybernetic Capitalism – Educational Web Science – Digital Archives in the Cloud: Collective Memory, Institutional Histories, and the Disclosure of Information – The Political Economy of Informational Democracy – The Eco-University in the Green Age – Who Is Really in Charge of Contemporary Education? People and Technologies in, Against, and Beyond the Neoliberal University – Conversation With Fred Turner, U.S. Historian of Digital Technologies: From the Electronic Frontier to the Anthropocene – Toward a Political Theory of Social Innovation: Collective Intelligence and the Co-creation of Social Goods – Toward a Philosophy of Academic Publishing – Collective Writing: An Inquiry Into Praxis – Conversation With Pierre A. Levy, French Philosopher of Collective Intelligence – Inside the Global Teaching Machine: MOOCs, Academic Labour, and the Future of the University – Philosophy of Education in the Age of Digital Reason – Learning, Creative Col(labor)ation, and Knowledge Cultures – Digital Reading: From the Reflective Self to Social Machine – The Digital Self – A Vision of the Digital University: Radical Openness, Creative Labour, and the Co-production of Symbolic Goods – Prologue to the Digital University Manifesto – The Digital University Manifesto – Index.
About the Author :
Michael Adrian Peters is Professor of Education at the University of Waikato, New Zealand and Emeritus Professor in Educational Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. His interests are in education, philosophy, and social policy, and he has written over sixty books.
Petar Jandrić is Professor of Digital Learning and Programme Director of BSc (Informatics) at the University of Applied Sciences in Zagreb (Croatia), and he is also Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Zagreb (Croatia). His research interests are focused on the intersections between critical pedagogy and digital cultures.
Review :
"This book does valuable work in re-connecting digital education with its critical, ecological and political worlds. All too often, writing within the field does not see itself as connected to contemporary critical thought, to issues of social justice, to democracy and to ethics. Michael Adrian Peters and Petar Jandric's text makes important inroads in the politicisation of educational technology within the digital university."-Siân Bayne, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
"This highly original book begins with the bold claim that reason itself has become digitized, and that the consequences of this digitization are as disturbing as they are promising, opening up the possibilities of new ways of learning, conceptualizing cultural exchange and social goods and building democratic institutions. Not everyone will agree with this analysis but that it demands our most serious attention and engagement cannot be denied."-Fazal Rizvi, The University of Melbourne, Australia
"The Digital University is an important book that delivers insights and reflections far exceeding what the title promises. The book explores the profound changes in academia, emerging not only from the digital, but equally from the complex social and political forces struggling to shape the university and 'reason in the digital epoch'. The book stands out through the breadth of issues it scrutinizes, for example, education in the digital age, the eco-university, open access, collective writing, cybernetic capitalism, as well as the depth and thoughtfulness with which it accomplishes this undertaking. The book is provocative and critical, but rather than painting a bleak, dystopian future, the book urges us to take arms against a sea of trouble, and strive for developing an open university characterized by radical openness and creative labour. It is a timely, significant book that calls for both reflection and action."-Thomas Ryberg, Aalborg University, Denmark
"The Digital University is both a necessary and path-breaking book. It not only redefines within the current technological revolution diverse ways in which knowledge is produced, but also the spaces in which it takes place. In doing so, it provides both a much needed manifesto regarding how the digital revolution within the university is changing the relationship of individuals to themselves, others, and the larger world. The Digital University is an indispensable book for understanding how the university is changing in the age of digital reason, but also how matters of human rights, the mission of education in the twenty-first century, and the political economy of knowledge, present new challenges and call for a new theoretical, political and educational discourse. This book is a must read for anyone concerned about the interface of technology, knowledge, and the future of democracy itself."-Henry Giroux, McMaster University, Canada
"In The Digital University, Michael Adrian Peters and Petar Jandric offer an insightful overview of the impacts of digital media in the work of the university, as well as a visionary manifesto articulating 'What is to be done.' This book is essential reading for any scholar concerned about the fate of academic life in these strangely dreadful yet nevertheless promising times."-William Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, United States
"Michael Adrian Peters and Petar Jandric present a highly accessible and inclusive breadth of vision in The Digital University. As such, there is scope to more than simply turn our heads one-by-one, from within our personal digital versions, of Plato's Cave. This volume has power to challenge our assumptions collectively. We are reminded that any university that merely applies information systems without understanding their nature, their history, or their projected futures, remains a prisoner of the age. Exploring what it really means to be human in the digital context is fundamental if we are to avoid maintaining a public 'structured ignorance' that simply encourages the global fast capitalism of higher education. It is the responsibility of all of us in universities to see through, and resist, hegemonic discourses and strategies that are simply reproduced in the digital. A Digital University Manifesto sheds light on what universities should represent to further critical emancipation. I recommend that policy makers, students and educators read it and reflect on the core academic practices which define the modern university."-Sarah Hayes, Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom
"This is an extraordinarily important book by two extraordinary educators and with an ensemble cast of intellectuals and visionaries. I found the book difficult to put down. The Digital University raises crucial questions for our time: Are we programmed to remain complacent, trapped in the feedback loop of the social machine, where closure is nonexistent, or can we ride bareback the ontologico-technical shift that is arcing throughout cyberspace, further and further from the here-and-now without trigging a non-digital nuclear apocalypse? Can we really harness the mighty powers of multidirectional and interactive practices so that they will lead us to a safe zone of recursive self-improvement, freeing us of oppressive hierarchies and the single technical system of 'algorithmic capitalism'? Will we use technology to revitalize the intellectual commons and in doing so create a counter-public sphere or will we simply re-capitulate old hierarchies in the name of a new participatory, networked democracy? The Digital University is an experiment in-the-making and a book that must be engaged by educators everywhere."-Peter McLaren, Chapman University, United States
"Those seeking a comprehensive, creative account of higher educational life in the age of digital reason will find much to whet their appetites in this book. The Digital University offers a distinctive, engaging portrait of an institution undergoing profound change. Among the many topics considered in this insightful volume are cybernetic capitalism, informational democracy, academic publishing, collective writing, the MOOC phenomenon, and the eco-university. Provocative in the questions it raises, dialogical and inclusive in its scholarly style, and rigorous in its academic foundations, this is a book that will appeal to a wide range of international readers."-Peter Roberts, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
