With my exceptional co-editors, I invite you to consider submitting a piece or reviewing for this special issue of the Journal of Computing in Higher Education.
Aims & Scope of Special Issue
What kind of model should institutions of higher education (IHEs) use as they look to utilize information drawn from the learning activities conducted with digital platforms for systemic improvement? Among the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is the realization that instructional support technology can be used on a massive scale when needed. Platform-based teaching provides options for IHEs to respond to a range of needs, to be resilient in the face of other disasters and disruptions that may occur in the future. Platforms can also allow an IHE to extend its reach to new communities. The phrase institutional learning ecosystems borrows concepts from organizational learning to advance a broad view of how an organization connects to its stakeholders. The ecosystem framing is a contemporary approach used with communities and complex organizations—terms that could apply to IHEs—that highlights emergent, adaptive, and responsive approaches (Wang, 2021).
This special issue will provide fresh perspectives joining other work questioning what kinds of research to value in a post-pandemic world. Reeves and Lin (2020) suggest technology researchers focus less on things and more on problems of education. Chinn, Barzilai, & Duncan (2020) argue for educational research that connects to epistemic cognition, including “understanding of performance, caring and enjoyment, and participation in performance with others.” (p 51). Like these forward-looking pieces, this issue will consider data collected for analysis from student learning technologies—learning analytics—with a sociotechnical lens to understand how these data and interpretive practices can be levers on system-wide challenges, including equity and inclusion.
More Information
Paper proposals are due August 31, 2021. For more information about the special issue, see this page. To provide feeback on the special issue, to express your intent to subit a proposal, or to volunteer to participate as a peer reviewer, please complete this survey.
Feel free to contact me with questions, and do pass on this call to your colleagues if you feel they might be interested (and thanks for doing so!).
