Technology

Headlines about online instruction change quickly. Six months ago, massive open online courses (MOOCs) were news. Now, the news is no longer about the wonders of technology or access—the focus instead is on the potentially negative effects of online working conditions.

What is it really like to teach online? What kind of professional life does an online faculty member lead? Does the art of teaching survive online delivery? Faculty working conditions, after all, are students’ learning conditions.

How many times a day do faculty members check e-mail? How often do they send work e-mails in the evenings or over the weekend? Do students or colleagues expect faculty to reply to e-mails within twenty-four hours or in far less time? How can we change the university culture to keep up with technology?

There is no justice in following unjust laws,” wrote the computer programmer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz, who took his own life at the age of twenty-six on January 11, 2013. “It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.” Swartz was twenty-one years old when he wrote these words in his 2008 “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto.” Two aspects of Swartz’s manifesto are particularly prescient.

The universe of the Internet is changing both the AAUP and the university—and it will continue to do so. The AAUP, an organization that once could focus primarily on matters of particular concern to the faculty, now finds that it must react to a much wider range of issues and address a wider population. Universities that once were able to solve many of their problems out of public sight now find that almost everything they do is subject to comment. The privilege of privacy has disappeared—for all of us.