Students as Users

This project wasconcerned with how new information and communication technologies (ICTs) were reconfiguring the ways in which universities manage and administer their students. This builds on an ongoing programme of work - much of which was carried out under the ESRC Virtual Society? Programme - on the introduction and implementation of Management Information Systems within universities, the development of online self-study degree courses, and the ‘Space’ and ‘Place’ of the Virtual University.

Specifically this study involves research into the design, implementation, and use of a computer system developed specifically for the management and administration of students, a Student Management System. The preliminary hypothesis is that such systems are beginning to contribute to a significant reshaping of the University and the way in which it functions, particularly with regard to how it manages, administers, and relates to its students. In what ways, we ask, are such technologies being used to construct radically more or less different forms of organisation and relationships between actors? To what extent is this a result of the way in which the University, and its relationship to its staff and students are conceptualised and built-into such systems by software developers? How are such assumptions debated and reworked during the actual implementation? What will such systems mean for students and their relationships to the institution, and to academic and non-academic staff, as they become the 'users' of the new Student Management System?

To appreciate the significance and the timeliness of the research focus and questions, it is necessary to briefly situate them in terms of broader issues and developments. The way in which universities are organised and operate is currently in a period of change. Transformations that have been occurring within higher education within recent years - for instance, the student population has increased by 40 per cent during the 1990's – are now having important consequences for the organisation, management, and administration of universities (cf. Scott, 1995; Schuller, 1995). Moreover, with the move to ‘modularity’, credit systems, semesters, auditing and the like, changes have been necessary across the whole institution (cf. Newby, 1999).