La diffusione delle nuove tecnologie informatiche trasforma in modo dirompente la nostra vita individuale e collettiva. Cambia il campo della politica, dalle tecniche di costruzione del consenso alle modalità di gestione del policy making.
Call for Paper
L’innovazione Digitale per la PA: Software vs Hardware
Con l’avvento dei social media e l’esplosione dello smartworking, la digitalizzazione della PA investe il suo software di funzionamento: le sue linee gerarchiche, i suoi codici formali, la centralità degli uffici.
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Digital Innovation for Public Administration: Software vs Hardware
With the advent of social media and the explosion of smartworking, digitalization of the PA has affected its operating software: its hierarchical structure, its formal codes and the core value of its office space.
Cyber(in)security
Un tempo considerato regno esclusivo e inaccessibile dell’industria dell’information technology, degli ingegneri e delle agenzie di sicurezza nazionale, la cybersecurity è emersa negli ultimi anni come questione di rilevanza pubblica, diventando una delle priorità nell’agenda di media e governi sia a livello globale che nazionale.
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Cyber(in)security
Once viewed as the exclusive, inaccessible realm of IT industries, technical experts and national security agencies, cybersecurity has rapidly emerged, both nationally and at the global level, as one of the major public concerns of contemporary societies, gaining the status of top priority in media and governments’ agendas.
Oltre ai focus indicati, per tutte le call for paper verranno prese in considerazione submission (saggi o web reviews) sui diversi temi della digital politics.
Didattica Online
3/2021
- Mauro Calise, Valentina Reda, Governare l’e-learning
- Mark Brown, Eamon Costello, Enda Donlon, Digital education as social practice: Major trends shaping online learning futures
- Susanna Sancassani, Platform thinking e università: verso la netversity
- Mina Sotiriou, Michele Giovanardi, The role of private and public educational providers in the digital post-Covid world
- Chris Dede, Yong Zhao, Punya Mishra, Curtis J. Bonk, The Silver lining for learning webcasts as a bottom-up driver of global educational innovation
- Martin Wirsing, Dieter Frey, Agile governance for innovating higher education teaching and learning
- Giuseppe Galetta, La digital education delle Forze armate italiane: modello attuale e prospettive future
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Abstract: Governare l'e-learning
Mauro Calise, Valentina Reda
GOVERNING E-LEARNING
In the second decade of the new century, digital education has been spreading fast worldwide through the Mooc revolution: massive, open, online access to top quality academic courses. With the sudden lockdown of over 1.4 billion students, e-learning has become the new normal. This article provides an overview of major drivers of changes in public versus private institutions, in Ict giants versus a myriad of ed-tech startups, in traditional Western universities as well as in Asian hybrid new entries. A late comer in the process of digitalization, e-learning is catching up with major industrial sectors such as e-commerce, e-health, fin-tech, fueled by the same factors of success: globalization, scalability, flexibility. In this new environment the future of education will depend on how fast national governments and international authorities will become aware of the new trends and live up to their disruptive innovations.
KEYWORDS: Mooc, Ed-Tech, Lifelong Learning, Unbundling Universities, Online Public Program Management.
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Abstract: Digital education as social practice: Major trends shaping online learning futures
Mark Brown, Eamon Costello, Enda Donlon
DIGITAL EDUCATION AS SOCIAL PRACTICE: MAJOR TRENDS SHAPING ONLINE LEARNING FUTURES
This paper explores some of the major trends shaping the future of online learning. It asks, what might the future look like? While the paper does not set out to predict the future as the authors do not have a crystal ball, it does endeavour to provide a bigger picture helicopter view of the online learning field. It responds to the tendency to overlook the research literature during the Covid-19 pandemic and aims to help keep the future of online learning in the political spotlight.The paper establishes that defining online learning is not a straightforward task and widespread differences exist in the global use of the term. A critical multifocal perspective is then adopted to identify five macro-level trends which help to frame the analysis from different angles and viewpoints. The discussion covers much ground and draws on a wide range of literature to illustrate how the digital education ecosystem is simultaneously converging, getting larger in scale, more open and closed, and is growing in diversity. Inherent tensions across these contradictory trends demonstrate how online learning needs to be understood in terms of wider societal change forces. Accordingly, the helicopter analysis attempts to steer a path between wider social issues, the language of opportunity, and the need for deeper criticality. Throughout the paper, there is the spirit of hope as educators have considerable agency to help shape possible, probable, and preferred online learning futures.
KEYWORDS: Online Learning, Covid-19, Future Trends, Hybrid Learning, Digital Education
Ecosystem.
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Abstract: Platform thinking e università: verso la netversity
Susanna Sancassani
PLATFORM THINKING AND UNIVERSITY: TOWARD THE NETVERSITY
The concept of «netversity», seen as a new direction of evolution of university models so well summarized in the concept of «multiversity» (Sancassani 2021), is the basis of new models of production and reproduction of knowledge where the main point is the connection. Nothing like education determines the creation of value through the interaction between subjects, and the digital dimension is becoming more and more important in this interaction. A recent model for understanding the digitization processes of activities and new value making strategies is «platform thinking», an approach to the design of services that determine the creation of value through interaction (catalyzed and managed by a digital ecosystem), of various subjects often difficult to be traced back to the categories of demand, supply and more, often, labelable as a mix between the two, the so-called «prosumers» (producer and consumer at the same time). Platform thinking can therefore constitute an interesting methodological paradigm of reference for exploring the new university models that will emerge from the progressive obsolescence of traditional «multiversity» models towards the new idea of «netversity».
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KEYWORDS: Platform Thinking, Netversity, Learning, Systems, Digital Learning.
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Abstract: The role of private and public educational providers in the digital post-Covid world
Mina Sotiriou, Michele Giovanardi
THE ROLE OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC EDUCATIONAL PROVIDERS IN THE DIGITAL POST-COVID WORLD
The paper discusses and investigates the differences in the aims, purpose and roles of public Higher education institutions and private sector actors in digital education. Specifically, we discuss whether big tech multinationals play an invasive role in the educational arena that risks undermining the role of traditional public sector Higher education institutions and, therefore, whether we need digital education governance and what kind. The paper uses secondary data and critically evaluates opposing arguments in the literature to analyse and investigate theories and practices of educational offering in both the private and public sectors, arguing that: (1) there are differences between Higher education teaching & learning (public domain) and training and professional development (private domain) purposes; (2) tech companies like Microsoft and Alphabet (private) have a role to play in the knowledge-based economy especially in the post-Covid era; (3) this prompts the need for public funded Higher education institutions to work with industry to become more entrepreneurial and re-design their pedagogy by incorporating some of the best-practices in digital education; (4) we need independent instruments and institutions to safeguard our citizens and communities of learners; (5) and finally, argue that public investment in digital education should increase accordingly to enable universities to meet these new educational challenges. The paper does not position the analysis within a specific framework but rather presents a focus for discussion of current issues, located within a theoretical context. It is concluded that any «threat» publicly funded Higher education Institutions may face in the current commercialised educational world, is the result of outdated educational practices and a misconception of the roles and missions of public and private institutions in education. As such, we do not need stringent governance of digital education but a better digital education framework.
KEYWORDS: Higher education, EdTech, Covid, Private, Public.
LEGGI QUI: https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.53227/103802
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Abstract: The Silver lining for learning webcasts as a bottom-up driver of global educational innovation
Chris Dede, Yong Zhao, Punya Mishra, Curtis J. Bonk
THE SILVER LINING FOR LEARNING WEBCASTS AS A BOTTOM-UP DRIVER OF GLOBAL EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION
Silver lining for learning (Sll: silverliningforlearning.org) is an unfunded, unsponsored, bottom-up initiative that emerged as a direct result of the pandemic. The authors are part of a team that co-founded this series of weekly webcasts (starting mid-March 2020), with close to 100 episodes as of March 2022. As the website describes, Sll «is an ongoing conversation on the future of learning» with innovative educators and education leaders from across the globe. The demands of 21st century work, citizenship, and life require a transformation of instruction to foster a very different set of knowledge, skills, and dispositions than those mandated by current national and regional educational governance systems focused on outdated educational goals and methods. This article describes representative Sll episodes and highlights the grassroots innovations that have been featured in them. The episodes on Sll have highlighted bottom-up models for transformative innovation that complement top-down initiatives for incremental educational improvement in industrial-era schooling. Regional, national, and global policies and reports have some value, but their recommendations lack detail about specific models for educational transformation in which participants experience ownership, cultural relevance, and contextual alignment. These bottom-up cases of innovation have been selected to illustrate educational transformation, particularly those involving digital forms of learning, design, and technology. Sections in this article on Student autonomy and Self-determination, Communities of learners, and Educational creativity and Innovation highlight a range of perspectives on innovation from the co-hosts. The creative tensions among these perspectives drive rich dialogues that help to make the show evocative for new models and methods. Sll demonstrates that, with almost no resources, locally led but globally motivated innovations can be recognized, celebrated, and shared across the world.
KEYWORDS: Innovation, Technological Change, Education, Policy.
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Abstract: Agile governance for innovating higher education teaching and learning
Martin Wirsing, Dieter Frey
AGILE GOVERNANCE FOR INNOVATING HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHING AND LEARNING
In the field of study and teaching at universities today, digitisation is the cause and driving force for change and innovation. Online teaching, blended learning and new digital techniques for data structuring, simulation and interaction offer many opportunities for revising and renewing teaching and examination content, curricula and also communication between students and academics. In Germany, however, the Humboldtian principle of «freedom of teaching and research» applies. According to the German Basic Law and the Higher education acts of the German federal states, university lecturers are free «in their way to hold courses and to organise their content and methodology» and are therefore not obliged to develop their teaching techniques. To reform teaching, we propose agile processes that emphasise self-direction, collaboration, and lightweight procedures. In software development and business operations, such methods have proved to be successful in dealing with changing technologies and product requirements. In higher education, agile-based instructional methods are used but are not yet the method of choice. In this paper we present a novel agile governance approach for fostering innovation in university teaching and learning. The so-called «multiplier method» is also based on ethical principles and consists of two steps. Firstly, academics carry out innovative, self-selected teaching projects in small teams; they are coached by experts and also receive training on relevant topics such as teaching, inspiring, and leadership. Secondly, the participating academics act as multipliers: they pass on their experiences to their colleagues and become contact persons for good teaching in their faculties. The «multiplier method» was successfully tested in a large teaching innovation initiative. Over a period of 9 years, more than 150 individual innovation and online learning projects were successfully implemented.
KEYWORDS: Agile Governance, Software Development, Teaching and Learning, Higher Education, Multipliers.
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Abstract: La digital education delle Forze armate italiane: modello attuale e prospettive future
Giuseppe Galetta
THE DIGITAL EDUCATION OF THE ITALIAN ARMED FORCES: CURRENT MODEL AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
In close co-operation with the University of Turin, Italian Armed forces (Afs) have been introducing e-learning as a training method for their personnel for some years, making extensive use of Moocs and developing progressively a specific digital education model, based on particular management characteristics, as well as on specialized personnel, able to respond to servicemen’s lifelong learning needs. Italian Afs have long been aware of the potential of digital education; in fact, after a starting up incubation period, they have embarked a gradual process of emancipation from the University model, in order to develop an autonomous framework. But how far has this process of emancipating the digital education of Italian Afs from the University model gone? If in an early stage Italian Afs leant on the University to get fully understood the dynamics and capacities of the e-learning and digital education in the Military field, by creating a hybrid training environment for their personnel, the competition between two public model of digital education, one civil (open), the other military (closed), as well as the particular training and strategic needs of the military sector, are imposing a separation of their respective governance systems of digital education, aiming to create an interforce training environment, in close collaboration with the Armed forces of the other Nato countries. This paper aims at outlining the possible developments of a new governance system of digital education, the Military one, tracing the evolution of the Italian Afs model, from the first stage of incubation into the University model, up to the progressive detachment from it.
KEYWORDS: Digital Education, E-learning, Italian Armed Forces, Military Education, Military Training.
- Mauro Santaniello, La regolazione delle piattaforme e il principio della sovranità digitale
- Rita di Leo, Appunti per una teologia della Rete
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Abstract: La regolazione delle piattaforme e il principio della sovranità digitale
Mauro Santaniello
PLATFORM REGULATION AND THE PRINCIPLE OF DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY
The article presents a typology of platform regulation. After a critical review of a multidisciplinary set of definitions of digital platform, the paper emphasizes the transformative capacity of platforms in relation to the whole architecture of the internet. Then, regulative approaches to digital platforms are categorized into four ideal types on the base of two political dimensions of platform regulation: the source of regulation and the object of regulation. Finally, the paper discusses the policy principle of digital sovereignty as a type of internet regulation, which is particularly useful to understand recent policy initiatives designed by the European Union to deal with the challenges and opportunities of global internet governance.
KEYWORDS: Platform Regulation, Digital Sovereignty, Internet Governance, Internet Regulation.
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Abstract: Appunti per una teologia della Rete
Rita di Leo
TOWARDS A WEB THEOLOGY
The penetration of Internet into our lives is changing the nature of social relationships. Conflict for change – the main principle regulating Western civilisation civilisation – is replaced by the new algorithmic rule of control by consent. Web connectivity becomes the environment where goods are produced and exchanged, on a strictly individualistic basis. The very existence of religious supernatural beliefs is called into question by the limitless power of electronic gods.
KEYWORDS: Web Theology, Social Control, Algorithmic Rule.
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Abstract: La nuova dieta informativa
Luigi Rullo
THE NEW INFORMATION DIET IN DIGITAL TIMES
Effective participation in democratic processes requires informed citizens. The web provides new solutions for fostering citizens’ political participation and engagement, urging citizens to learn and be informed about politics and current affairs in a completely new way. This Insight highlights the characteristics of the new information media diet in the web environment and focuses on the Italian scenario. The article is divided into four sections. First, it presents the profiles of the well-informed citizen 2.0. Second, the article focuses on the characteristics of the information diet of Italian citizens. Third, it reflects on the rise of the content hubs, observing how experimenting with new formats and sources of political information can improve public awareness and interest in politics and current issues. The last section concludes the article and observes that in the digital ecosystem a healthy citizens’ information diet depends on the quality rather than the quantity of political information. All in all, the Insight stresses the need to better exploit the opportunities and potentialities of the web as a source of political news and its key role in well-functioning democracies.
KEYWORDS: Democracy, Digital Platforms, Media Diet, Content Hub, Political Information.
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Abstract: From learning innovation to digital distance education
Ruth Kerr
FROM LEARNING INNOVATION TO DIGITAL DISTANCE EDUCATION
Higher education is currently challenged by a shifting demographic, declining public funding, the rapidly changing needs of the job market in a global knowledge society, questions of rising costs and affordability/value for students, as well as competition from new non-academic and for-profit players in the Higher education marketplace. In line with the platformization of society, narratives around Higher education, and its digital future, embrace disruption theory, the uberization of teaching, the Netflix effect on the Higher education (He) industry, alternative credentials, and the partial substitution of universities’ role by tech giants. There is also an increased focus on preparing career-ready graduates for the 21st century workplace via the teaching of competencies and skills in in-demand areas and collaboration with industry. This review article looks at four recent works that try to respond to these challenges facing He. They propose diverse reflections on how to achieve an effective and resilient evolution of Higher education. Their strategies may vary but the direction is online, and all of them bring the narrative firmly back to the institution and system level, highlighting the intrinsic value of a formal university education, and the benefits of that education to the individual and society. This review provides a synthesis of key issues for the future of Higher education explored in all four of the books selected for review. It then summarizes the governance approaches and main issues explored in each one.
KEYWORDS: Learning Innovation; Digital Learning; Digital Governance; Moocs; Institutions.