Higher Education Researcher

In this episode, Felipe Sánchez interviews Onur Orkut, a doctoral researcher in higher education at Lancaster University. Onur discusses his research piece published as a working paper by CHERE@LU, where he engages in a fictional conversation with Uta Hagen, inspired by her book "Respect for Acting." They delve into the themes of acting, capital, and exclusion, exploring how acting techniques can be exclusive and how to make them more accessible. Onur also highlights the parallels between the acting world and academia, emphasizing the importance of looking behind the curtain and embracing authenticity.

In this episode, Janja Komljenovic talks with Elizabeth J. Cook, who is a Senior Analyst, Strategy and Performance at Edith Cowan University and a doctoral researcher in the PhD in Higher Education, Evaluation and Enhancement at Lancaster University. Elizabeth talks about her doctoral research, which developed and implemented a new relational employability approach for universities. She describes her conceptualisation of relational employability as a broader, holistic and interconnected understanding of employability that incorporates three equally important elements: (1) basic individualistic career development, career management and careers (getting into the workforce and having a successful career to benefit oneself); (2) humanistic interactions and contributions throughout careers; and (3) more-than-human interactions and contributions throughout careers. Elizabeth explains how she conducted this research, using design research methodology and mixed methods, and describes her publishing adventures while being a student at Lancaster, with some publishing tips that may benefit other doctoral researchers.

Elizabeth’s ORCID Profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8406-4049

Elizabeth’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ejcook4

Publications discussed in this episode:

Amon Ezike is a PhD researcher in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University. In this episode, Amon talks about bridging the cultural gaps among English Speaking International students in UK Higher Education. She talks about the cultural challenges faced by these students and how these challenges could be mitigated through the use of technology. In addition, she talks about the need for UK institutions and policymakers to understand and address such challenges faced by International during their educational journey to enhance their educational experience or capacity.

Talking to Amon is Dr Janja Komljenovic, a Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University and the Director of CHERE@LU.

Visit our website to read Amon's working paper.

Paul Ashwin is a Professor of Higher Education, Head of the Educational Research Department at Lancaster University and Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Higher Education. His research is focused on the educational role of higher education. He is interested in how higher education curricula can be designed to help transform students' understanding of themselves and the world. He is also interested in the role of policies in shaping the education offered by higher education institutions. In this episode, Paul Ashwin discusses the arguments in his recent book.

Talking to Paul is Onur Orkut, a PhD researcher at the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University and a member of CHERE@LU. Follow Onur on social media: @onurorkut

Don Passey is a Professor in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University. Don’s research interests include, but are not limited to the implementation and management of leading-edge technologies, teaching and learning outcomes that arise from them, and how technologies support different groups of learners. In this podcast, Don talks about his project on developing ongoing uses of technologies in post-compulsory education in the UK and Malaysia. In this study, Don and his colleague examined the use of technology for teaching and learning in times of continuous technological development. They revealed that innovation is an essential approach in this process. As a result of the project, Don and his colleague proposed a model for the implementation of educational technologies. 

Talking to Don is Olga Rotar, an alumna at the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University and a member of CHERE@LU.

Daniel Clark is the Head of Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Kent and a PhD researcher at Lancaster University. In this talk, Daniel draws upon his professional experiences and applies a critical lens to the emergent rhetoric of EdTech in post-pandemic HE. Daniel discusses his recent paper; a critical discourse analysis of sector-orientated literature published in response to the pandemic. Daniel argues that whilst technology may have been the ‘saviour’ of HE from the immediate challenges of the pandemic, the opportunistic dialogue that emerged has problematically imbued debate with notions of the pandemic as a catalyst for transformation, opening the door to unprecedented levels of investment into a pervasive and data-driven paradigm of EdTech.  Daniel argues that the rhetoric of EdTech is mediatory of neoliberal, libertarian, and consumerist ideologies, and that the portrayal of technology as a wholly beneficial enterprise obscures issues of privacy, ethics, and structural inequality.   

Talking to Daniel, is Dr Janja Komljenovic, a Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University and the Director of CHERE@LU.

In the podcast, Dr Tore Bernt Sørensen talks about the roles, ideas, workings and influence of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in global education governance, historically and currently. The podcast draws especially on the special issue Re-reading the OECD and education: the emergence of a global governing complex, of which Tore was a guest editor together with Christian Ydesen (Aalborg University) and Susan L. Robertson (University of Cambridge). The special issue was published in Globalisation, Societies and Education in March 2021. 

Talking to Tore, is Dr Janja Komljenovic, a Lecturer of Higher Education at Lancaster University and the Director of CHERE@LU.

Dr Hemy Ramiel is a postdoctoral researcher in the sociology, communication and political sciences department in the Open University in Israel. In this episode, Hemy talks about his research of an Israeli edtech R&D unit and a startup incubator. He discusses his choice of studying the edtech field through this organisation and the notion of disruption as the primary logic for the units’ activities. Also, the logic of disruption can be understood as a perspective for understanding the edtech industry agenda for educational change. Hemy presents his analysis on how students are framed as digital users in the edtech production; and the implications of this “userisation” framework on the education sector. Finally, Hemy touches on some fundamental traits of the edtech field, such as its technological solutionism and its universal cross-cultural ideas. The episode concludes with the ways we need to think critically about edtech products and policy agendas.

The two articles discussed in the episode are: “Edtech disruption logic and policy work: the case of an Israeli edtech unit” published in Learning, Media and Technology; and “User or student: constructing the subject in Edtech incubator” published in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Talking to Hemy, is Dr Janja Komljenovic, a Lecturer of Higher Education at Lancaster University and the Director of CHERE@LU.

Dr Richard Budd is a Lecturer in Higher Education at Lancaster University. In this episode, Richard talks about his 3DHEI project. This research explores how a university’s different dimensions – social composition, organisation culture, and the physical campus itself – mediate students’ experiences. Richard spoke to a diverse group of over 40 students at a UK university about how those elements are perceived by them, and how they impact how it ‘feels’ to be a student there. It became clear in this study that all of those dimensions matter, that they are interrelated, and this suggests that incorporating a broader sense of the local into higher education research could tell us more about how universities compare. 

Talking to Richard, is Dr Janja Komljenovic, a Lecturer of Higher Education at Lancaster University and the Director of CHERE@LU.

Dr Miguel Antonio Lim is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the School of Environment, Education, and  Development (SEED) at the University of Manchester. Miguel's research interests include internationalization of higher education, East Asian and transnational higher education, university rankings and performance metrics. He critically studies the institutional strategies of East Asian and Chinese Universities to build ‘World-Class’ Universities, establish transnational partnerships, and improve their reputation and rankings.

Talking to Miguel is Olga Rotar, a doctoral researcher and a member of CHERE@LU.