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Digital surveillance of scholars ¡®eroding academic freedom¡¯

<ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ class="standfirst">Tracking teaching, grades and research productivity with electronic systems is affecting staff independence and well-being, union-backed survey finds
May 7, 2024
Surveillance cameras keep watch in front of a giant hoarding with classical figures in the background to illustrate report says digital surveillance of scholars ¡®erodes faculty freedom¡¯
Source: In Pictures Ltd/Corbis/Getty Images

More than eight in 10 UK academics say universities¡¯ excessive use of digital technologies is harming academic freedom, according to a survey.

The conducted for the University and College Union (UCU) highlights growing unease over the digital tools commonly used in academia, such as the virtual learning environments (VLEs) used to facilitate teaching, electronic systems to evaluate teaching performance and metrics-based systems such as SciVal that enable managers to scrutinise research publications and citations.

According to the study¡¯s poll, 82 per cent of staff said they felt that digitally enabled performance management practices had reduced academic freedom over the past decade, with 84 per cent agreeing that digital monitoring of the student experience had eroded academic freedom.

Lecture recording was also cited as a major staff concern, according to the report, called Academic Freedom in the Digital University, . Fifty-nine per cent of respondents said lecture recordings captured on VLEs reduced their sense of academic freedom.

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Grade monitoring surveillance via digital tools also led a majority of respondents (57 per cent) to feel a reduced sense of academic freedom, while the same was true for electronic systems that tracked the design of assessment (65 per cent felt compromised), the study found.

One scholar complained about having to ¡°¡®fudge¡¯ our marking to ensure we meet the institutional demand that the average mark on any given module is at least 60 and that at least 90 per cent of students pass¡±. ¡°Student work that eight to nine years ago would have failed is now being given a bare pass mark ¨C essentially, we¡¯re pressured to not mark ourselves out of our jobs,¡± they added.

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Seventy-five per cent of respondents also agreed that student feedback tools, including online module evaluations and student satisfaction scores, had eroded their sense of academic freedom. One staff member explained that these feedback mechanisms meant that ¡°every word is monitored¡± and that ¡°management¡­always seem to side with students however irrational they are¡±.

On research, about two-thirds of respondents (71 per cent) said they believed their institutions had the ability to track their research performance via citation monitoring systems, such as SciVal. About 90 per cent of respondents said they believed this kind of digital monitoring would lead to more institutional control over research within five years.

The report¡¯s authors, Chavan Kissoon and Terence Karran, both from the University of Lincoln, said its findings showed academics had a ¡°high awareness of their research performance being measured¡±, which was ¡°impacting negatively on staff well-being¡±, given that 71 per cent said monitoring had lowered their happiness levels.


Campus resource collection: What can universities do to protect academic freedom?


Universities should collaborate with their workplace unions to establish policies and principles to ensure the ethical use of digital systems, while institutions should be transparent about how they were using new technologies to monitor staff, they added.

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UCU general secretary Jo Grady said the 224-page report showed how universities were ¡°increasingly using digital technologies to surveil, record and scrutinise staff, and that this is?corroding academic freedom¡±.

¡°All too often, the terms of debate on academic freedom are dictated by right-wing culture warriors, neglecting the day-to-day reality of university staff having their ability to research and teach freely eroded by panopticon-like digital management systems,¡± said Dr?Grady.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com

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<ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ class="pane-title"> Reader's comments (3)
This system was predicted by this 2019 pre-pandemic book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-20385-6 what is happening, including the hard repression of students and scholars in the United States, perfectly fits the utilitarian model of universities
It is disingenuous to conflate the pro-Gaza sit-ins with the general move to excess monitoring. Such protests do no involve the majorty or staff (or students) and disrupt legitimate university activity, whereas the monitoring process is insidious and potentially impacts all staff. Luckily I am (a) about to retire and (b) working at a university that does not engage in heavy-handed monitoring. It is sad to hear that not all employers are as enlightened.
Perhaps it's because I'm a computer scientist, but I find an increasing change in management style more oppressive than whatever may or may not be happening digitally. I moved into academia after the better part of 20 years in further education and found it a refreshing change. Alas there is a growing impression that we cannot be left alone to get on with doing our jobs, cannot in essence be trusted, and I find that very sad.
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