Universities, Disruptive Technologies, and Continuity in Higher Education

Book excerpt: This book seeks to understand the effects of the current information revolution on universities by examining the effects of two previous information revolutions: Gutenberg’s invention and proof of printing in 1450 and the Scientific Revolution from the mid- fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Moodie reviews significant changes since the early modern period in universities’ students, libraries, curriculum, pedagogy, lectures, assessment, research, and the dissemination of these changes across the globe. He argues that significant changes in the transmission and dissemination of disciplinary knowledge are shaped by the interaction of three factors: financial, technological, and physical resources; the nature, structure and level of knowledge; and the methods available for managing knowledge.