Information Technology and Commercialization of Knowledge: Corporate Universities and Class Dynamics in an Era of Technological Restructuring.

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Industry research

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Information Technology and Commercialization of Knowledge: Corporate Universities and Class Dynamics in an Era of Technological Restructuring.

It is one of the unwritten, and commonly unspoken, commonplaces lying at the root of modern academic policy that the various universities are competitors for the traffic in merchantable instruction, in much the same fashion as rival establishments in the retail trade compete for custom. Indeed, the modern department store offers a felicitous analogy, that has already been found serviceable in illustration of the American university 's position in this respect...

--Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America

Originally published in 1918, the sentiments expressed by Veblen are at least equally applicable to the higher education landscape of the present. Indeed, the rise of electronic commerce set the stage for the development of on-line education. Universities are as attuned to the look and feel of their Web home pages as they are to their campus buildings and grounds. Web pages are seen as essential marketing tools in the quest for student enrollment and donor contributions (McCollum 1999, A25). In fact, some colleges have entered into agreements with for-profit comp...

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