Will Higher Education Share A Commons Destiny or Will The Market Know Best?

What is the future of higher education? Will market forces and values win out in a technological dystopia? Or will scholars reclaim their learning commons by reinventing it adapt to openness and technology? The battle for our future is playing out in our colleges and universities through a three-way battle of different institutional economic governance models/thinking between market-oriented firms, bureaucratic managers, and commons-oriented scholars. Concepts of open and new technologies are the both the triggers and
This session is about a work-in-progress research program for analyzing and understanding these conflicts using the tools of economist Elinor Ostrom for analyzing the commons. Participants in this session will both gain an in-depth understanding of this approach and what is meant when higher ed is described as learning commons or knowledge commons. Participants will also help further the research by assisting in framing the next questions.