| Title: |
Life in the university of data: student perspectives on datafication |
| Authors: |
Noteboom, Joe |
| Contributors: |
Ross, Jen; Gregory, Karen; Centre for Technomoral Futures, Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Edinburgh: Gifford Fellowship in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence |
| Publisher Information: |
The University of Edinburgh |
| Publication Year: |
2025 |
| Collection: |
University of Edinburgh: Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA) |
| Subject Terms: |
datafication; platformisation; higher education; students; everyday life |
| Description: |
This dissertation explores students’ experiences of datafication in higher education in the UK. It draws on ideas and literatures from critical data studies, digital education and digital sociology to analyse and theorise research undertaken with students at a large, research-intensive university in Scotland. The research used qualitative and creative methods, including mapping students’ use of digital platforms and group walking to explore university data infrastructures, to prompt critical reflection, imagination and deliberation about datafication and generate shared matters of concern. The analysis builds on and extends critical accounts of datafication in higher education, approaching datafication from the perspectives of university students to demonstrate how everyday experiences with technology relate to structural dynamics of digitalisation. In doing so, I present three main arguments: First, students use a range of digital platforms in their academic work and everyday lives, introducing relations of agency and dependence that connect their everyday lives with structural dynamics of platformisation. These experiences of platformisation form an important site of student learning about datafication that shapes their experiences of university and feelings about university data practices. Second, students’ perspectives on datafication are based on a complex interplay of awareness, understanding and feeling toward datafication that combine to produce datafication as a ‘matter of unconcern’, underpinned by feelings of trust and/or resignation. Such responses highlight the significance of organisational practices and structural dynamics to students’ varied and unequal experiences of datafication. Third, and building on this, to combat digital resignation and enhance students’ agency over datafication, universities should reimagine data governance as a site for participation and collective action. Approaching datafication from the perspectives of students, I show, highlights the reciprocal nature of the ... |
| Document Type: |
doctoral or postdoctoral thesis |
| File Description: |
application/pdf |
| Language: |
English |
| Relation: |
Noteboom, Joe, and Jen Ross. 2024. ‘Speculation: Challenging the Invisibility and Inevitability of Data in Education’. In Framing Futures in Postdigital Education: Critical Concepts for Data-Driven Practices, edited by Anders Buch, Ylva Lindberg, and Teresa Cerratto Pargman, 181–94. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-58622-4_10; https://hdl.handle.net/1842/43856; http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/6387 |
| DOI: |
10.7488/era/6387 |
| Availability: |
https://hdl.handle.net/1842/43856; https://doi.org/10.7488/era/6387 |
| Rights: |
CC BY-NC 4.0 International ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ; 2026-08-25 |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.1EB38F07 |
| Database: |
BASE |