During this period of remote working, I’m reminded of Martin Oliver’s (2015) argument for the importance and value for higher education of the co-location of learners, researchers, teachers, spaces, libraries and so on. These bases of values are now being eroded, problematised and reframed in the pivot to remote teaching. Oliver discusses such value creation in terms of the trade-offs resulting between different assemblages of learning and education whether networked and distributed, hybrid or traditional face-to-face teaching and learning. This current context requires academics and institutions to re-assemble their teaching and learning and so experience and embody alternative modes of education. So we have opportunities to rethink how universities generate value, what that value generation requires and how we can reassemble higher education based on the values, needs and responsibilities of staff, students, communities, and wider society.
Oliver, M. (2015) From openness to permeability: reframing open education in terms of positive liberty in the enactment of academic practices, Learning, Media and Technology, 40:3, 365-384, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2015.1029940