Academic identities and the digital self? A cross cultural study of digitisation in higher education teaching

This study seeks to understand the changing academic identities of higher education teaching academics as they inhabit an increasingly digitized locus of teaching and learning. Using interviews and a selection of ethnographic approaches, (e.g. photographs as elicitation, workplace participant observation) this paper explores lecturers narratives of change and fluid academic selves presented in discussion on the performance space of the online arena. Participants were recruited from two HEIs (UK and Middle East based) that were at different points on a digitization continuum, with varying interpretations of the importance of this medium to pedagogic design. The aim is to surface shared and differing experiences between digital as integrated in a curriculum or as complement to traditional teaching materials, with a particular focus upon adaptations to academic identity. The paper takes three initial areas for early exploration; building rapport on line, synthesizing what students need to know and standardization vs individualization.