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Institute of Educational Technology > Research & Innovation > Research Groups > Digital University Research Group

Digital University Research Group

The Digital University Research Group (DURG) is based in the Institute of Educational Technology and is also part of CREET at the Open University. Participants include colleagues from IET and the  faculties of Education & Language Studies,  Maths Computing and Technology, Arts, and Social Sciences. The aim is to foster the development of an interdisciplinary field of scholarship around the role of digital technologies in the social shaping of higher education in the 21st century, and to provide a space for more critical responses to the increasingly strategic focus of the organisation of research and teaching in universities themselves.

The wider background to the group’s work is the context of escalating change in the social conditions of university research and teaching, driven by government and institutional policies premised on the ‘digitisation’ of higher education globally. To meet this, new scholarly groups, conferences and SIGs focusing explicitly on ‘the digital university’ are being formed elsewhere, exploring new kinds of theorisation about ‘the digital’ in higher education.

DURG aims to support scholarship across the OU and to look beyond the 2013 Research Excellent Framework to the kinds of research agendas that will put the OU at the forefront of investigation into the social consequences of educational technological innovation. It’s specific objectives are:

  1. To provide a space for information exchange and critical debate around emerging configurations of digital technology, higher education, and social theory.
  2. To provide a forum for OU researchers and scholars to present their own work on issues that address the reciprocal shaping of technologies and higher education practices.
  3. To bring in scholars working on these configurations from across and outside the OU to inform our research and scholarship development.
  4. To support new and student researchers in their personal development as scholars in these fields.
  5. To seek funding for a wider seminar series to extend the activities of the group outside the OU.