Academic work in the information age: a speculative essay

Abstract

Both campus-based universities and distance teaching universities are highly bureaucratised organisations that have eroded the traditional autonomy of the academic and created environments in which education is dehumanised. Developments in telecommunications and computer-based communications open up the possibility of creating new forms of interactive universities that can operate globally, irrespective of the place of abode of either students or staff. Exploiting these possibilities to advantage will require the development of new social relations, and in particular of different cash relationships between academics, students, and validating or licensing authorities that will, in many ways, mirror the artisanal organisation of the twelfth-century university. Such interactive universities will, however, be well suited to meet the lifelong learning needs of mobile knowledge workers.