Book launch: University and the Algorithmic Gaze

Lesley Gourlay will discuss her new book and the ways in which digital data and algorithms are changing the face of higher education.

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Close-up of a black and white photo of a book's pages.

University and the Algorithmic Gaze examines the impact of big data and algorithms at the macro scale of universities and systems worldwide, but also at the more subtle level of effects on academics and students. In doing so, it focuses on the day-to-day life of the university, examining how the digital is changing the way that we communicate, learn, and create new knowledge.

As well as exploring the role of ‘big data’ and learning analytics, the book also focuses on areas of academic life not normally considered to be part of datafication, such as the physical structures of surveillance on campus and the ways in which systems of ‘quality’ in research can morph into regimes of surveillance and algorithmic discipline.

Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, the book interweaves insights from Surveillance Studies, Science and Technology Studies and Postphenomenology.

This event will be particularly useful for researchers, policymakers, teachers, and students interested in higher education and big data.

Image

Taken from the book's cover with permission from Kata Kyrola.

Professor Lesley Gourlay

Professor of Education

UCL

Her scholarship focuses on technologies and knowledge practices of students and academics, with a particular emphasis on textual practices and the digital.

Her recent theoretical work has focused on sociomaterial and posthuman perspectives on engagement in the university, exploring themes of space, inscription, nonhuman agency, and digital media.