Digital disruption in the time of COVID-19: learning technologists’ accounts of institutional barriers to online learning, teaching and assessment in UK universities

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the qualitative findings of a UK-wide survey of learning technologists and their recent struggles of supporting attempts for digital resettlement of learning, teaching and assessment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, underlining the frailties of universities in the terms of crisis management and cultural and organisational change. We find broad attitude change towards the role and contribution of learning technology and technologists by higher education staff, yet a sense that institutions are neither grasping nor pursuing the potential of digital affordances and remain focused on returning to ‘pre-COVID normality’. Furthermore, despite physical campus closures increasing demand on learning technologists, we see that their attempts for institutional boundary crossing remain frustrated.

KEYWORDS:

• Learning technologists
• UK higher education
• digital disruption
• COVID-19
• boundary crossing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Typically, research-focused universities.

2. Respondents perceived academics’ attitudes to online LTA as significantly more positive in the current context (76%) than prior to COVID-19 (28%).

3. We note that only 25% of all survey respondents acknowledged institutional procurement of external edtech services or products

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard Watermeyer

Richard Watermeyer is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Bristol and Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education Transformations (CHET). He is by training and orientation, a sociologist with expertise related especially to academic praxis; institutional and research governance, scientific accountability and engagement, and higher education policy reform.

Tom Crick

Tom Crick is Professor of Digital Education & Policy at Swansea University, split between the School of Social Sciences and the Computational Foundry. His interests sit at the research/policy/practice interface, including digital/STEM education, curriculum reform, digital/data economy and infrastructure, and computational social science.

Cathryn Knight

Cathryn Knight is a Lecturer in Education based in the Department of Education and Childhood Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Swansea University. She has extensive expertise in qualitative and quantitative research design and analysis. Her interest lies in the area of additional learning needs (ALN) and inclusive education.