Call for Papers: ZFHE 17/3
Posted on 2021-10-27Call for papers –Special issue
Academic Culture and Freedom in the Face of the Digitalization of Teaching and Learning
Editors: Ines Langemeyer (Karlsruhe), Ernst Schraube (Roskilde) & Peter Tremp (Luzern)
Date of publication: October 2022
To the main topic
The experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has amplified the use of digital technologies in teaching and learning when the on-site presence of teachers and students has been impossible for quite a long time. This has not only changed the teaching and learning relations, but also the self-understanding of the universities.
Questions arise about the implications of such accelerated digital transformation for academic culture. Many universities have conducted surveys to reflect the transformation and turned to various conclusions. Some suggest that physical presence is a core element of academic culture. Others discuss that a dominance of mere knowledge transfer via digital technologies will further intensify the “learnification” of education, such as a channeling of learning activity to testable outcomes of teaching-learning interaction. In contrast, some identify a “post-digital education,” claiming that essential parts of life are already digitally permeated and, in this respect, only the blackout of digital services and functions makes any difference. So far, it remains unclear how the university culture of the future can be imagined; whether, for example, the plurality of the sciences, their forms of knowledge and practices of reflexivity and critique will suffer or whether new promising cultural developments are already emerging. A key issue here are the concrete forms of accomplishing teaching and learning in digital spaces. Are new possibilities for reflexive academic practice emerging, or are new constraints more likely to be observed?
Also new legal questions arise: What activities may be stored in digital form? How can privacy be maintained when working and learning spaces are in one’s own home? How can examinations be conducted properly and in accordance with data protection laws? And what does all this do to our academic culture?
In addition, more fundamental questions arise concerning the understanding and practice of the constitutionally guaranteed academic freedom in the face of digital transformation processes. This freedom protects, not least, a discursively open university culture. What now, when everything (including what is provisional, unfinished, and articulated for trial and error) is recorded, when everything can be removed from context, when practices are stored and can be traced in big data, and everything strives toward “open science”?
The Special Issue engages in the following questions:
- Digital technologies transform fundamentally the conditions of teaching and learning. How do these changes relate to questions of academic culture and academic freedom? What new questions are emerging, what new answers are becoming visible?
- How are ideas and judgements formed in the context of digital communication and search for information? Are the processes of developing scientific knowledge restricted or innovated and expanded in new forms?
- Are ideas still expressed ‘freely’ in digital teaching-learning relations, or is there more self-censorship when articulations leave digital traces? How does the understanding of ‘being free’ change in digital spaces? What kind of external and internal independence is required? How and in what way is academic freedom experienced?
- How do the content-related spaces of participation and creativity change for students in digital spaces? Is the content of study programs more tied down or do new possibilities emerge for participatory, problem-oriented, and inquiry-based learning? How do digital technologies transform the possibilities of dialogue, experimentation, and collaboration in the practice of learning and studying?
- How do responsibilities change both for students and teachers in relation to the development of scientific knowledge? In what ways are the spaces of freedom in scientific practices of knowing still negotiable between students and teachers?
Empirical based articles are as welcome as theoretical-philosophical examinations.
References
Arnold, M. & Fischer, M. (Hrsg.) (2004). Disziplinierungen. Kulturen der Wissenschaft im Vergleich. Wien: Turia & Kant.
Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good Education in an Age of Measurement. London: Routledge.
Castañeda, L. & Selwyn, N. (2018). More than tools? Making sense of the ongoing digitizations of higher education. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 15, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0109-y
Demantowsky, M., Lauer, G., Schmidt, R. & te Wildt, B. (2020). Was macht die Digitalisierung mit den Hochschulen? Einwürfe und Provokationen. De Gruyter. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/40142/9783110673265.pdf?sequence=1
Huber, L. (2016). Lernfreiheit, Lehrfreiheit und Anwesenheitspflicht. die hochschule, 2, 81–93.
Selwyn, N. (2014). Digital Technology and the Contemporary University. London: Routledge.
Stichweh, R. (2016). Akademische Freiheit in europäischen Universitäten. Zur Strukturgeschichte der Universität und des Wissenschaftssystems. die hochschule, 2, 19–36.
Stanisavljevic, M. & Tremp, P. (Hrsg.) (2020). (Digitale) Präsenz – Ein Rundumblick auf das soziale Phänomen Lehre. Luzern: Pädagogische Hochschule Luzern. https://zenodo.org/record/4291793#.YXF9mhxCRPY
Guidelines regarding the journal
The ZFHE is a peer-reviewed online journal that publishes scientific contributions of practical relevance concerning current higher education development issues. The focus is on didactical, structural, and cultural developments in teaching and learning. Topics that are innovative and still regarded as open in respect of their design options are preferred.
The ZFHE is published by a consortium of European researchers and funded by the Austrian Ministry for Science, Research and Economics. For more information, see https://www.zfhe.at.
Submission information
German or English contributions may be submitted in two possible formats:
Scientific contributions within the main theme should comply with the following criteria: The contribution...
– presents innovative perspectives, arguments, problem analyses etc. on the key topic;
– focuses on essential aspects of the key topic;
– is theoretically supported (i.e. it offers a clear connection to the scientific discourse of the topic under discussion);
– provides scientific insights with added value at least in some parts;
– clearly elucidates the methodology used to acquire knowledge;
– follows the relevant citation rules consistently (APA style, 6th edition);
– comprises up to 33,600 characters (incl. spaces, as well as cover page, bibliography and author information)
Workshop reports comprise the instructional presentation of practical experience, good practice examples, design concepts, pilot projects, etc. Workshop reports should comply with the following criteria:
– demonstrates potential for knowledge transfer;
– describes illustrative aspects and factors for the purpose of theory formation;
– systematically and transparently presented (e.g., no incomprehensible clues to details in an area of practice);
– follows the relevant citation rules consistently (APA style, 6th edition);
– up to 21,600 characters (incl. spaces, as well as cover page, bibliography and author information).
Submission and review schedule
July 4, 2022 – Submission deadline for complete articles: Please upload your contribution(s) to the ZFHE journal system (https://www.zfhe.at) in the corresponding section (scientific contribution, workshop report) of ZFHE 17/3 issue in anonymous format. To do so, you must first register as an author in the system.
July/August, 2022 – Feedback/Reviews: Scientific contributions and workshop reports are evaluated in a double-blind process (see below).
September 5, 2022 – Revision deadline: Where necessary, contributions may be revised according to feedback and recommendations from the reviews.
October 2022 – Online publication: In October 2022, the finalized contributions are published under https://www.zfhe.at and also made available in print.
Review Process
All submitted contributions will be examined in a double-blind peer review process to guarantee scientific quality. The editors of the current issue propose the reviewers for the respective theme and allocate individual contributions to the reviewers; they also determine which contributions will be accepted. The selection of reviewers and the review process for each thematic issue are always supervised by a member of the editorial board.
Formatting and submission
In order to save valuable time with the formatting of the contributions, we kindly ask that all authors work with the template from the beginning. The template can be downloaded from the ZFHE website under the following links:
https://www.zfhe.at/userupload/ZFHE_17-3_TEMPLATE_de.docx
https://www.zfhe.at/userupload/ZFHE_17-3_TEMPLATE_en.docx
Since we must be able to edit the texts, they must be submitted unlocked/unprotected in in Microsoft Word (.doc), Office Open XML (.docx), Open Document Text (.odt) or Plain Text (.txt) format. Please do not submit any PDF files! Submissions in the “Scientific Contribution” and “Workshop Report” categories must first be made in anonymous format in order to guarantee the double-blind review process. Please remove all references to the author(s) of the document (including in the document properties!). Upon a positive review result, this information will be re-inserted.
Questions?
If you have any questions regarding the content of the issue, please contact Ines Langemeyer (ines.langemeyer@kit.edu), Ernst Schraube (schraube@ruc.dk) or Peter Tremp (peter.tremp@phlu.ch). For technical and organizational questions, please contact Elisabeth Stadler (office@zfhe.at).
We look forward to your submissions!
Ines Langemeyer, Ernst Schraube & Peter Tremp