Call for Proposals: 16th International Conference on Higher Education Reform (HER2019)
NB: 13th International Conference on Higher Education Reform was hosted by Higher Education Research Centre (HERC), DCU in September 2016 (Please visit HERC website under Seminars/Conferences for further information about HER2016).
16th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM (HER2019)
(Former International Workshop in Higher Education Reform)
Digital Society and Higher Education: Impact and Consequences for Policy
Hosted by Department of Educational Studies at Centre for Research and Advanced Studies,
Mexico City, September 11-13, 2019
The transition to the digital society leads to immense change in the economic, social and cultural life of nations. It is a transition with profound consequences for higher education: its institutions (HEIs) and systems, their administration, forms of teaching and learning, research priorities and methodologies, assessment of quality and impact across and within the higher education system (HES), and the ethical questions raised by and in a ‘digital society’.
Cloud computing, the internet of things, ‘big data’, data openness and analytics, driven by information and communication technologies and artificial intelligence, imply important changes in research, teaching, and external linkages. Examples include online learning, research using drawing on data analytics, working through network consortia, increased collaboration with external partners (professional associations, industry, communities and international organizations).
Not all the new rules and ways of academic life will be determined by public policy. Some will fall within the purview of autonomous HE institutions and be constrained by the freedom of academics to define their research and teaching responsibilities. In light of the power of major global corporations and commercial interests, the boundaries between public and private in digitalized higher education may be further blurred.
Still, government, HEIs, industry and commerce, the liberal and new professions, nonprofit organizations, and the wider public—all have wider interests in higher education as an engine of scientific progress. We are obliged to consider how digital society and digitalized HEIs contribute to sustainable development and social justice between richer and poorer countries.
Key issues and topics
With the focus on public and institutional policies and reforms, the theme invites a multi-disciplinary perspective (theoretical and empirical), including, for example, topics such as:
- New sources and modes for research, e.g. big data, simulation, machine learning.
- New scientific disciplines and protocols.
- New ways to disseminate research, e.g. open access (MOOCs), the end of traditional academic journals and monographs, the role of intellectual capital and its distribution and protection in collective research and teaching.
- Consequences of the changing knowledge production on evaluation systems and academic careers, e.g. ‘impact’ factors and other tools of scientific metrics.
- Public and institutional policies for the use of information and communication technologies in face-to-face learning and online open programs.
- Governance in the digital HEIs: the place(s) of senates, departments, faculty unions, community interest groups, government and leadership.
- Policies to prevent, monitor and sanction plagiarism, forged data and other a dishonest academic behavior.
Workshop Organization
The 16th conference will be held in Mexico City, under the auspices of Centre of Research and Advanced Studies (www.cinvestav.mx), an academic institution of great prestige and leadership in Latin America and many other countries, in various areas of natural and exact sciences, technologies and social sciences (especially in education).
The Mexico City conference is the 16th in an international series of conferences on Higher Education Reform, which have taken place annually since 2003. The first in this series was held in Vancouver, Canada, organised by the Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and Training at The University of British Columbia. In following years conferences took place in Tokyo, Vienna, Shanghai, Mexico City, Vancouver, Berlin, Pittsburgh, Ljubljana, St. John’s, Tianjin, Dublin, Hiroshima and Baltimore.
Call for proposals
The 16th International Conference (HER2019) encourages comparative analysis and discussion emphasizing policy and reform in/of postsecondary education. The conference will support an open exchange of views in a collegial environment, based on empirical research and policy analysis. As with previous conferences, a selection of papers and panel presentations will be published after the conference.
Three types of proposals are invited:
Papers (single or dual authorship) 400 words, plus affiliations and email addresses of contributor(s).
Panels (between three and five panellists) 800 words, plus affiliations and email addresses of contributors.
Poster presentations: these are particularly welcome from early career researchers.
Proposals of up to 400 words for papers, up to 800 words for panels and up to 200 words for posters should be sent via email to:
Web address: To be announced very soon
The deadline for submission of abstracts is 15 of May, 2019.
Submissions will be peer reviewed and the result communicated to proposers within four weeks of submission.
Organizing Committee
Germán Álvarez Mendiola (Chair). Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados.
Angélica Buendía Espinosa. Departamento de Producción Económica, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Xochimilico.
Celso Garrido. Departamento de Economía, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco.
Mitzi Morales Montes. Facultad de Ciencias de la Conducta, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México.
Alejandro González Ledesma. Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados.
Miguel Casillas Alvarado. Centro de Investigación e Innovación en Educación Superior, Universidad Veracruzana.
International Advisory Board:
Germán Alvarez Mendiola, Centre for Advanced Research and Studies, Mexico City, Mexico
Walter Archer, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Mei Li, East China Normal University (ECNU), Shanghai, China.
Sumin Li, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
Antigoni Papadimitriou, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States.
Jun Oba. Hiroshima University, Higashihiroshima, Japan.
Hans G. Schuetze, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Maria Slowey, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland.
Andrä Wolter, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
Shinichi Yamamoto, Oberlin University, Tokyo, Japan.
Pavel Zgaga, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Registration
Online registration will soon be available on the HER 2019 website.
If you require further information in the meantime, please feel free to email us at the above-mentioned e-mail address.
The 2019 HER will take place at the Department of Educational Research, Center for Research and Advanced Studies, Calzada de los Tenorios 235, Granjas Coapa, Tlalpan, 14330, CDMX. Mexico. Information about access to the venue can be consulted at: https://goo.gl/maps/MhJW6RKi5ER2. More details will be available on the 2019HER website.