Digital Delights

"Whatever we think 'information' is (and that is an enormous question), it is clearly there and growing. Somehow, it is having a deep effect on the decisions that managers (particularly) and teachers make. It might be that people behave in ways to make the information fit the targets they've been given; it might be that managers select the data to justify the policies they wish to pursue; it might be that active pedagogical interventions are designed specifically to target students who appear to be failing by the databases - whatever it is, there is an interface between information and decision which is poorly understood.

It's not just the manager in the institution, or the teacher in the classroom. The explosion of the 'information environment' has presented learners themselves with challenges too. Decisions of how to approach assignments are now taken in the light of the need to negotiate systems like Turnitin. Decisions as to which course to choose or which institution to attend may be taken in the light of consultation of statistics on student satisfaction or 'key information sets'. Everywhere there is information, and information appears to be at the heart of David Willetts's policy of marketisation, whereby he hopes to establish greater diversity in the system. If he achieves the opposite and reduces diversity (which I think he will) it will be because he misunderstood information in the fundamental way that Friedrich Hayek warned us about over 50 years ago."