Expert Comment
Vice-Chancellor Nigel Thrift explores three possible future outcomes of online consortia delivering an online teaching presence.
Vice-Chancellor Nigel Thrift considers the impact of the smaller things in life - from a ballpoint to a Blackberry - in comparison to the larger social forces in managing a university.
"This chapter in intellectual history shows how a new variant of communication can have formative effects, and in fascinating ways. As a result of it and similar episodes in other fields, I am now quite sure that archiving the Internet is a worthwhile activity for intellectual historians of the future because, when the problem is reasonably well-specified, blogs can show communities worrying away at the issues in all but real time."
"It is interesting to see how work and social habits in the university are changing as the mobile phone and the other diverse and relatively inexpensive instruments of mobile telecommunication become an indispensable adjunct to life."
In helping academics to overcome the challenges of impact and engagement, some universities are setting up digital centres to distribute useful resources and guidance. Eleanor Lovell discusses the University of 糖心TV’s Knowledge Centre and the ways it seeks to assist academics in increasing their impact.