This open access book assesses how the Covid-19 pandemic caught higher education systems throughout the world by surprise. It maps out the responses of higher education institutions to the challenges and strategic opportunities brought about by the pandemic, and examines the effects such responses may have. Bringing together scholars and case studies from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, the book is both comparative and global in nature. It also brings together researchers from a variety of disciplinary fields, including political scientists, historians, economists, sociologist, and anthropologists. In doing so, the book fosters an inter-disciplinary dialogue and inclusive methodological approach for unpacking the complexities associated with modern higher education systems and institutions.
The hegemonic University represented in the institutions of the global North is an increasingly hopeless place. Defined against value and generation of surpluses, the University is a critical node in the social metabolic control of capital. As such, it acts to deny human agency and autonomy, forms of mutuality, and alternative life worlds, precisely because it serves to reproduce capitalist social relations. These relations foreclose upon the idea that humans might make their own history, and in fact we have been told that we are at the end of history. Here, the idea that the University exists in a closed system designed to mitigate economic risk, generates structures that constantly restructure intellectual work through joint ventures; cultures that act pathologically to dehumanise those who work in the institution; and practices that are imposed methodologically to limit the horizon of intellectual possibility. However, the intersection of crises of political economy, black and indigenous lives, climate and environment, and epidemiology, have exposed the fraud at the heart of narratives of the end of History. A range of intersecting struggles have exposed the fraud of the transhistorical inevitability that capitalism will be our operating system. In spite of the fragility of capital's social metabolic control, the University remains committed to repurposing all of social life in the name of value, by working towards employability, entrepreneurship, excellence, impact and satisfaction. The University is a critical node in the denial of History, precisely because it provides a constant funnelling of individuals into a normalised existence framed by debt and work. Faced by the realities and lived experiences of intersecting crises, the University is revealed as hopeless, because: first, it has become a place that has no socially-useful role beyond the reproduction of capital, and has become an anti-human project devoid of hope; and second, it is unable to respond meaningfully with crises that erupt from the contradictions of capital. Thus. in its maintenance of business-as-usual, the University remains shaped as a tactical response to these contradictions.
Modern businesses face a pressing challenge in navigating the complex landscape of cloud computing, 5G, and artificial intelligence (AI) integration. Despite these technologies' transformative potential, businesses often need help with bandwidth, latency, connection density, and cost constraints. This hinders the widespread adoption of cloud computing, limiting its impact on various industries. Driving Transformative Technology Trends With Cloud Computing offers a comprehensive solution for academic scholars seeking to understand and leverage the potential of cloud computing, 5G, and AI integration. By exploring topics such as green cloud computing, edge computing, cloud cryptography, and more, scholars can gain valuable insights into the synergistic effects of these technologies. This book provides a roadmap for leveraging the power of cloud computing and its integration with 5G and AI to drive innovation and growth in academia and beyond. By offering practical insights and strategies, this book equips scholars with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate the complexities of modern technology integration and drive meaningful change in their respective fields.
This open access book expands the scholarly and policy debates surrounding digital transformation in higher education. The authors adopt a pluralistic conceptual framework which uncovers three analytical elements – contexts, mediations, and type of effects – for unpacking empirical manifestations. The publicly funded higher education systems in Nordic countries provide solid empirical insights into how digital transformations have gained ground before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and chapter contributions demonstrate how international digitalisation trends (such as in the global EdTech industry) impact on the core activities of higher education institutions (HEIs). The findings underscore the importance of assessments that consider multiple sub-systems within HEIs, as well as the complex relationships between them. By unpacking Nordic dynamics in the light of global processes and developments, the approach adopted and the results generated are of relevance to a much broader, global audience of students and researchers in higher education.
This multidisciplinary, edited volume examines higher educations’ ICT integration in Africa, contributing a new and inclusive change readiness framework to better understand how to manage ICT or other technological disruptions in resource-restrained contexts. Tackling ICT incorporation in HEIs from different levels, chapters document case studies from countries such as Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, Eswatini and Zimbabwe to demonstrate both the complexity of integration but also the successes it has enabled and under which conditions. The cases included in this book also exhibit better incorporation of both change content and process, while some cases also make explicit reference to other technology adoption models. Ultimately, the book highlights conceptual and empirical research to inform practices and policy development in Africa, improving multi-level success or change readiness in ICT incorporation in HEIs in Africa. Addressing various gaps in existing literature and proposing innovative solutions like the multilevel change readiness model, this book will therefore be of interest to scholars, researchers and academics in the fields of higher education, ICT integration, and educational technology more broadly.
The spring of 2020 marked a change in how almost everyone conducted their personal and professional lives, both within science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global scientific conferences and individual laboratories and required people to find space in their homes from which to work. It blurred the boundaries between work and non-work, infusing ambiguity into everyday activities. While adaptations that allowed people to connect became more common, the evidence available at the end of 2020 suggests that the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic endangered the engagement, experience, and retention of women in academic STEMM, and may roll back some of the achievement gains made by women in the academy to date. Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic STEMM identifies, names, and documents how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the careers of women in academic STEMM during the initial 9-month period since March 2020 and considers how these disruptions - both positive and negative - might shape future progress for women. This publication builds on the 2020 report Promising Practices for Addressing the Underrepresentation of Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine to develop a comprehensive understanding of the nuanced ways these disruptions have manifested. Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic STEMM will inform the academic community as it emerges from the pandemic to mitigate any long-term negative consequences for the continued advancement of women in the academic STEMM workforce and build on the adaptations and opportunities that have emerged.
The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism brings together extensive coverage of aspects of Institutional Theory and an array of top academic contributors. Now in its Second Edition, the book has been thoroughly revised and reorganised, with all chapters updated to maintain a mix of theory, how to conduct institutional organizational analysis, and contemporary empirical work. New chapters on Translation, Networks and Institutional Pluralism are included to reflect new directions in the field. The Second Edition has also been reorganized into six parts: Part One: Beginnings (Foundations) Part Two: Organizations and their Contexts Part Three: Institutional Processes Part Four: Conversations Part Five: Consequences Part Six: Reflections
This book explores the challenges and precarity of higher education post-pandemic, explicitly focusing on higher education in emerging countries. Looking beyond the pandemic, the editors and contributors provide a holistic view of the residual legacies of global health crises like COVID-19 in developing countries. The book calls for the need to reimagine, reevaluate and reposition the higher education system: exploring the challenges experienced by students, staff, administrators and other stakeholders. Bringing forth insights from researchers, practitioners and senior leadership, the book shares theoretical and practical insights on dealing with the aftermath of a pandemic and what can be learned for the future. It will be of interest and value to researchers, practitioners and leaders who wish to understand a develop new approaches for their teaching and management post-pandemic.
As we begin to fundamentally redefine our world, informed through the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) lens, entire industries are gearing up for this disruptive event. Library practices have been no exception. With the advent of advanced digital technology, knowledge is becoming more readily accessible. This book focuses on how libraries need to respond, adapt, and transform to become meaningful spaces in our rapidly changing 21st century, within the 4IR and coupled with the restrictions of the pandemic. Tracing the evolution of technology over the centuries, the changing role of the library as a response to disruptions is discussed.
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
