10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17566
The global higher education (HE) landscape is changing today, with HE systems facing similar dilemmas. Italian HE is characterised by a hybrid arrangement in which bureaucratic and neomanagerial features are coexisting. Recent scholarship has highlighted the role of digitalisation processes and interconnectivity across platforms in shaping educational practice and governance in HE. This research aims at investigating the unfolding of interconnectivity across digital entities in HE, and its effects. Two interconnective software used in an Italian university are examined through interviews, digital ethnography, and documentary analysis. The research highlights a close and threefold relationship between interoperability and standardisation processes in HE. In particular, interconnective textures may embed standards, exert standardising effects (on both local educational practice and the national HE governance), and become standards themselves. An alternative vision of interoperability in HE is finally articulated that focuses on collaboration and plasticity rather than control and closure.
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2038-3460
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Leonardo Piromalli
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
digitalisation
Governing Through Interconnections: Interoperability and Standardisation in Higher Education
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
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Essays
2022-07-07
2023-06-30
2022-07-07
2023-10-26
71-95
TS
Leonardo Piromalli
2022/07/07
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17566
71
Sapienza University of Rome
2038-3460
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digitalisation
en
95
Governing Through Interconnections: Interoperability and Standardisation in Higher Education
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17566/16416
13
                                                                               Essay
Governing Through Interconnections:
Interoperability and Standardisation in
Higher Education

Leonardo Piromalli
Sapienza University of Rome


     Abstract: The global higher education (HE) landscape is changing today,
     with HE systems facing similar dilemmas. Italian HE is characterised by a
     hybrid arrangement in which bureaucratic and neomanagerial features are
     coexisting. Recent scholarship has highlighted the role of digitalisation pro-
     cesses and interconnectivity across platforms in shaping educational prac-
     tice and governance in HE. This research aims at investigating the unfolding
     of interconnectivity across digital entities in HE, and its effects. Two inter-
     connective software used in an Italian university are examined through in-
     terviews, digital ethnography, and documentary analysis. The research high-
     lights a close and threefold relationship between interoperability and stand-
     ardisation processes in HE. In particular, interconnective textures may em-
     bed standards, exert standardising effects (on both local educational prac-
     tice and the national HE governance), and become standards themselves.
     An alternative vision of interoperability in HE is finally articulated that fo-
     cuses on collaboration and plasticity rather than control and closure.

     Keywords: higher education; governance; interoperability; standardisation;
     infrastructure; digitalisation.

     Submitted: November 10, 2021 – Accepted: May 24, 2022
     Corresponding author: Leonardo Piromalli, “Sapienza” University of
     Rome, via Salaria 113, 00198, Rome (Italy).
     Email: leonardo.piromalli@uniroma1.it



1. Introduction

    The global higher education (HE) landscape has been changing in the
last decades. Longstanding academic research has highlighted the ongo-
ing process of convergence of HE systems towards the Anglo-Saxon
mode of governance and cultural frame (Neave 1998; Normand 2016).
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TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
13 (1) pp. 71-95 - ISSN 2038-3460
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72                                                          Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


According to this paradigm, (higher) education is expected to foster eco-
nomic development and growth. The State is supposed to play as a mere
evaluator of academic results and guarantor of compliance with (market)
rules, whilst universities are required to compete in the provision of ser-
vices so as to deliver “high-quality” – that is, efficient, flexible and cost-
effective – education. Notwithstanding local re-articulations and histori-
cal legacies, national HE systems are now converging towards this mode
of governance (Gornitzka and Maasen 2000).
    As evidenced by scholars, digitalisation processes play a significant
role in shaping HE policy and practice in HE (Selwyn 2014; Decuypere
and Landri 2021; Williamson 2021). Partly as a result of the acceleration
brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic (Cone et al. 2021), market
actors and edtech “power networks” (Williamson 2019), as well as “fast”
trans-scalar policies and discourses (Peck and Theodore 2015) on digital
technologies, have a crucial impact in steering modes of governance in
HE systems. These transnational standardisation actors foster the “soft”
convergence of local and national HE practice and policy towards a ne-
oliberal agenda in education that sustains the interplay between educa-
tion and economy (Landri 2018). Educational quasi-markets and spaces
of commensuration thus emerge in global digitalised HE (Fig. 1) that
embed and perform the cultural and economic logic of the new public
management model. Indeed, digital technologies are deeply entangled
with sociocultural (Star 1999; Kitchin 2014; Decuypere 2019; Poell et al.
2019) and sociopolitical (Gillespie 2010; Decuypere 2016; van Dijck et al.
2018; Decuypere and Landri 2021) processes, in that they have far-
reaching effects on (higher) education by exerting standardising effects
on subjectivities, practices, policies, spaces, times, and cultures (Selwyn
2014; Normand 2016; Landri 2018; Brøgger 2018).
Piromalli                                                                73




            Figure 1. “2020 higher education technology landscape”.
                          Image source: Encoura 2020

    The inner workings of these complex processes are often not easy to
observe as they are frequently shrouded by layers of opacity (Star 1999).
Extensive research has analysed specific educational technologies (online
platforms, apps, hardware, robotics, artificial intelligence, algorithms,
etc.) to unravel hidden cultures and values inscribed therein and their so-
cial consequences with particular attention to design, usage, and interfac-
es. However, recent scholarship has highlighted the cruciality of going
“beyond” the fixed boundaries of digital systems (Decuypere 2021) as
“in-between” spaces provide valuable vantage points for observing the
unfolding and consequences of digital practices. Far from being mere “si-
los”, digital entities thus appear as complex and unstable assemblages
that continuously interconnect thereby interweaving relational textures
that link together closer and farther entities and produce multiple effects.
An ever-changing and entangled space can thus be observed that is knot-
ted together across this interconnectedness.
    In the IT and engineering domains, these interconnective processes
are referred to as “interoperability”. While software interoperability is
everywhere today (healthcare, military, home automation, Geographical
Information Systems, etc.), it is now finding particular expansion in HE,
where it is often framed in a neomanagerial narrative that calls for “con-
74                                                                 Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


nected campuses”, “smart universities”, learning analytics, “AI for learn-
ing”, etc. (Williamson 2018). Interoperability would thus enable to
“augment” the efficacy of governance processes and learning experiences
in HE institutions (HEis) by seamlessly integrating their data sources and
applications. Benefits are announced for students (personalisation of the
“student journey”, ongoing “optimisation” of their experience, etc.), pro-
fessors (360-degree view of the “student journey”, reduced administrative
burden), and managers (support for decision-making through visualisa-
tions, cost reduction, improved efficiency). As an example, these are some
testimonies from a “success story” by Informatica, a US edtech specialis-
ing in interoperability for HEis:

     Imagine an environment where data moves seamlessly and is available to
     various systems at near real time speeds (…). Now imagine that data is au-
     tomatically classified, cleansed, and secured while all this happens (…).
     (Enterprise Architect for ACC [Austin Community College]; Informatica
     2020, 2).

     [interoperability] will provide us with a single source of truth for our stu-
     dent data – helping us ensure that (…) a student in one system is the same
     student in another system. (AVP Solutions Development & BI at ACC;
     ivi, 3).

     Data management and data integration are a “constant” in the life of any
     data-driven organization. ACC requires continuous evaluation for effec-
     tiveness and cost considerations. (Vice President of IT and CIO at ACC;
     ivi, 1).

    The concept of interoperability is not new. It dates back to the late
1800s at least, with the first patents containing the term. However, its
full-fledged emergence was in the military and IT literature from the
1970s onwards. In particular, in the 1990s, the vision of interoperability
landed in the IT communities that were pioneering connective networks
across information systems. It thus became a crucial element in imagining
“worldwide digital system architecture” (Cannata 1991) such as ISDN
and LAN. Interoperability then burst into everyday lives spanning e-
government, healthcare, Geographical Information System, security, pub-
lic safety, Internet of Things, military devices, and education software.
Hence, the idea of interoperability had to be translated into policy-
making at transnational, international, and local levels. The European
Union launched the Interoperability Solutions for European Public Ad-
ministrations programme which aimed at supporting the development of
interoperable digital solutions in public services. A European Interopera-
bility Framework was also launched aiming at promoting the develop-
ment of a single digital market in Europe. With regards to education in
Piromalli                                                                 75

more recent times, the Rome Ministerial Communiqué 2020 by the Euro-
pean Higher Education Area has called for “new solutions to enhance the
interoperability of digital systems and the exchange of student and insti-
tutional data” (2020, 6).
    It thus seems fair to assert that interoperability has now become an
“idea whose time has come” (Czarniawska and Joerges 1995) in many
fields of social life, and on a global scale. Complex relational arrange-
ments are now possible that unlock new challenges and opportunities in
digitalised HE with the potential to reconfigure local and global educa-
tional governance. Despite the relevance of these issues, still scant re-
search has been produced regarding the specific role of interconnectivity
processes in HE governance and practice. What does interoperability do
in/to HE? How can it affect the social life of HE and its practitioners?
    This research aims at addressing these questions by exploring how in-
terconnectivity across digital entities unfolds, and what effects it might
produce in HE practice and processes. In particular, two interconnective
software used in an Italian HEi (from now on, “Athenaeum”1) shall be
taken into consideration.
    In the first section of the paper, a brief history of HE in Italy will be
drawn in order to provide a background for the empirical exploration.
Thereafter, the theoretical framework of this work will be discussed. In
the third section of the essay, I will present the methodological engage-
ments of this work. In the fourth section, two interconnective software
shall be unpacked in order to empirically examine the unfolding of in-
teroperability and its effects. The empirical findings will be then dis-
cussed. Final remarks will be drawn in the last section of the paper.


2. Governing Higher Education in Italy: In-between Bu-
reaucracy and Entrepreneurship
    Continuity and change in the modes of governance in HE systems
have been thoroughly studied by Higher Education Studies scholars striv-
ing to better understand the changing relationship between the State, the
market, and further stakeholders in universities and society. These studies
allow analysing the shifting national and global patterns in the governance
of HE systems over time, as well as long-standing frictions between pub-
lic and private players.
    Scholarship has frequently referred to the Italian HE system as a par-
ticular case of the “continental” (Clark 1977) mode of governance of HE.
Accordingly, the historical peculiarity of the Italian HE system has been
found in the “bureau-professional compromise” whence it originated
(Clarke and Newman 1997). On the one hand, the powerful state bureau-
cracy has been zealously designing procedures and ex ante evaluation in-
struments following a centralising and “control-and-command” logic
76                                                          Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


(Dobbins 2017) constraining the work of the public administration. On
the other hand, actual decision-making in universities has long been hap-
pening through informal bargaining between academic interest groups
(Moscati et al. 2015).
    Systemic reforms developed in the 1990s aimed at limiting the power
of academic oligarchies by shifting the balance of the system towards a
“steering-at-a-distance” mode of governance of the State over academic
activities. In particular, university autonomy was introduced with regards
to governance, finance, and teaching processes, along with a Ministry for
University and Scientific and Technological Research and some early
quality assurance tools. However, aiming at preserving the traditional life
of the system, academic guilds “outsmarted” (Dobbins and Knill 2017)
the reform via local circumventions and re-articulations. The neomanage-
rial narrative could thus penetrate Italian universities only on a purely
ideological rather than pragmatic and cultural level.
    In the 2000s, Italian universities exploited the (regulated) deregulation
phase in HE policy-making to multiply their activities. An anarchic situa-
tion thus emerged that the State attempted to buffer through the intro-
duction of new regulations. This spiral of centralisation-decentralisation-
recentralisation did not really bring any effective change in the govern-
ance of the system (Dobbins 2017).
    Further reformist efforts were put forward in the 2010s. In particular,
Decree-Law 112/2008 and Law 240/2010 introduced new grammars,
repertoires, and financial levers that were more overtly inspired by the
neomanagerial paradigm and the “steering-at-a-distance” model (Lumino
et al. 2017). Narratives (efficiency, accountability, quality assurance) and
tools (performance indicators, economic rewards and sanctions, ex post
evaluation devices, cost-cutting) were imported from the managerial
world into HE. Again, these policies did not have all the expected cultur-
al and organisational success (Capano et al. 2016)
    Contradictory patterns can thus be singled out in the governance of
contemporary HE in Italy (Lumino et al. 2017) which has been aptly
summarised by Giliberto Capano as “steering at a distance with strong
bureaucratic oversight” (2018, 689). Across this hybrid arrangement, ap-
parently contrasting aspects coexist which bring together legacies and
new trends in Italian and global HE. On the one hand, strong bureaucrat-
ic-procedural aspects remain in the State’s detailed regulation of the ac-
tivities of institutions and professionals. On the other hand, instances of
convergence towards the dominant Anglo-Saxon entrepreneurial model
are emerging despite local resistance to change.
Piromalli                                                                 77

3. Theoretical Toolkit: Classifications, Standards, Infra-
structure, and Interoperability

    As discussed in the introduction, digitalisation processes in HE play a
role in shaping HE practice and governance at the local and global levels.
Several theoretical frameworks are available in social science literature for
the analysis of the workings of digital technologies. Among these, the STS
toolkit provides a valuable repertoire for exploring their relationality and
performativity.

     3.1 Classification Systems

    The most convenient departure for this discussion might concern clas-
sification as the concept is intended within the ecological approach of
STS. Classification systems are spatial, temporal, or spatio-temporal seg-
mentations of the world. Specifically, they have been defined as “a set of
boxes (metaphorical or literal) into which things can be put to then do
some kind of work – bureaucratic or knowledge production” (Bowker
and Star 1999, 10).
    Classification systems are “complete” in principle in that their aim is
to achieve thorough coverage of the world they describe – and, in fact, to
overlap with it. Moral and political orders are thereby established and en-
forced as every object can (must) be placed in a predetermined box.
When confronted with objects aberrant to the provided definitions, clas-
sification systems attempt to “make categories fit the circumstances” (ivi)
according to principles of convergence. Indeed, this is about creating
boundaries between what is “right” and “wrong” about the way things
are organised, thereby shaping social life (Star et al. 2003). Despite their
apparent stability, classification processes can always be subject to negoti-
ation and contestation through tacit or explicit categorical work.

     3.2 Standards and Standardisation

    Classification systems are closely related to standards, in that stand-
ards often contribute to classifying the world (Bowker and Star 1999).
Standards are often studied as agreed-upon rules to achieve “coordina-
tion and control of activities at a distance (…) by which to order and per-
form realities” (Landri 2018, 8). They are both inscribed in the fabric of
social life, and reshape it in heterogeneous ways as they codify, incorpo-
rate and prescribe ethics and values (Bowker and Star 1999).
    STS scholarship has famously described a number of dimensions
characterising standards. In particular: a standard can be considered as
any set of agreed rules for the production of (textual or material) objects;
it spans more than one community of practice; it is used to make things
work together in heterogeneous spaces, times and metrics; legal bodies
78                                                               Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


often enforce standards; the “best” standard will not necessarily prevail;
standards have strong inertia and may be difficult to change (Bowker and
Star 1999). Recent literature distinguishes between a realist, top-down
idea in which standardisation is seen as a “complete” process that aims at
constructing uniformity in space and time, and a performative, post-
realist vision that focuses on how standards contribute to the creation of
the world and the very alteration of what they govern (Brøgger 2018;
Landri 2018; Staunæs et al. 2018).
    Standardisation processes have been extensively researched in the case
of education. Recent studies have explored how standards can exercise
“soft” governance power in that they can establish uniformities in educa-
tional practices, processes, policies, spaces, times, and cultures (Landri
2018; Brøgger 2018). Particular – standardised – points of view on what
education should be and do might be valorised and taken for granted as
the legitimate and proper ones, while the others are made invisible and
relegated to marginality. With differences being erased, iniquities might
be reproduced in local and global educational practice and politics.

     3.3 Infrastructure and Infrastructuring

As argued by Brian Larkin, infrastructure – such as databases or the in-
ternet of things – can be intended as “matter that enable the movement of
other matter” (2013, 329). Infrastructures, which might become standard-
ised (Bowker and Star 1999), can be considered as complex imbricated
sociotechnical assemblages (Piattoeva and Saari 2020):

     modular, multi-layered (…) [they] consist of numerous systems, each with
     unique origins and goals, which are made to interoperate by means of
     standards, socket layers, social practices, norms, and individual behaviors
     that smooth out the connections among them (Edwards et al. 2013, 5).

    STS scholars have identified a few distinctive dimensions of infra-
structures (Star and Ruhleder 1996). They: emerge in relation to situated
practices and cannot be understood “as a thing stripped of use” (ivi, 113);
are embedded within other sociomaterial arrangements; are imbricated in
the conventions and learning practices of communities of practitioners;
are inherently invisible, except in the case of breakdowns; are intercon-
nected. Infrastructures are also intrinsically fluid and non-linear in their
spaces, timescales, and affordances. The concept of “infrastructuring”
(Mongili and Pellegrino 2014) has been recently deployed to examine the
constant emergence of infrastructure and its “accreting” onto installed
bases (Pellegrino 2014; Karasti and Blomberg 2018; van de Oudeweeter-
ing and Decuypere 2021).
    In the field of education, infrastructures are expanding on at least four
fronts (Sellar 2015): the political scales in which they are becoming em-
Piromalli                                                                  79

bedded, the scope of the data that they contribute to generating, the ex-
planatory power of the analyses that they afford, and the role of algo-
rithms and datafication. Yet, few scholars so far have explored the pro-
cesses and actors involved in the design, usage, and maintenance of edu-
cational infrastructures, as well as the relational work they afford in digi-
tal education (Sellar 2015; Williamson 2018; Aragona and Felaco 2019;
Decuypere 2021; Kerssens and van Dijck 2021).

     3.4 Interoperability

    Being both things and the relationship between things, infrastructures
are inherently relational. Whilst appearing as finite and accomplished,
they continuously emerge through ubiquitous and interconnected pro-
cesses (Pellegrino 2014; Sellar 2015). IT and engineering professionals
often describe these processes as “interoperability”, that is, “a measure of
the degree to which different systems (...) are able to work together to
achieve a common goal” (Ide and Pustejovsky 2010, 2) using standard
technologies such as formats, procedures2, and protocols.
    STS scholars first attempted to research interoperability in the social
sciences. Susan Leigh Star and Geoffrey Bowker picked up the notion of
interoperability from computer science and worked it through with the
concept of “convergence”, that is, “the double process by which infor-
mation artifacts and social worlds are fitted to each other and come to-
gether” (Star et al. 2003, 2; see also Mongili 2020). The Comparative In-
teroperability Project used qualitative research methods to comparatively
study “interoperability strategies” in infrastructure (Baker et al. 2005, 65).
David Ribes in particular has researched interoperability (2017; Ribes and
Polk 2015) as “an umbrella term for the constellation of concepts, ap-
proaches, techniques and technologies that seek to make heterogeneous
data work with each other” (ivi, 1515). Interoperability has also been ad-
dressed in the Computer Supported Cooperative Work literature with
regard to healthcare (Ellingsen and Monteiro 2006), design (Mongili
2014), organisation (Sharma and Sawyer 2016), and welfare (Cozza 2018).
It has also been discussed in data studies as a relevant episode in the
journey of data that might change stories and generate social consequenc-
es (Borgman 2016; Leonelli and Tempini 2020).
    With respect to education research, interoperability processes have so
far received little scholarly attention. Some significant contributions have
been made from STS and platform studies perspectives that emphasise
the effects of interoperability processes on data production, practices,
and organising activity in densely technologised educational environ-
ments (Ratner and Gad 2019; Hartong et al. 2021; van de Oudeweetering
and Decuypere 2021).
80                                                          Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


4. Methodological Engagements
     As mentioned, this research aims at exploring the unfolding of in-
teroperability in an Italian HEi and its effects across such ecology. In or-
der to explore this issue, and in the awareness that “method is not, and
could never be, innocent or purely technical [...] does not ‘report’ on
something that is already there” (Law 2004, 143), a series of necessarily
categorical acts have been performed with regard to research methods.
     The first choice concerned the methodological sensitivity, namely, an
ecological approach. Ecological perspectives in social and human sciences
are concerned with connection over separation, inclusion over difference,
and continuity over isolation (Bateson 1972). Holistic alternatives are
thereby envisioned that challenge boundaries and divides in social theory
and everyday life. Rather than extra-social space for “long-distance” rela-
tions between actors, environment is considered as a social practice that
can hold together subjectual and objectual lives and multiple realities:
“there is no distinction between individual and environment. There are
no natural, pre-given boundaries. Instead there is blurring. Everything is
connected and contained within everything else. There are, indeed, no
limits” (Law 2004, 9). In particular, an ecological perspective inspired by
the STS and interactionist approach initiated by Susan Leigh Star and
colleagues has been deployed in this research. Rather than on the final-
istic action or primacy of individual actors, events, or inventors (Star and
Griesemer 1989), relations have been understood as instances of interde-
pendence, cooperation, and boundary work (Star 1995; Pellegrino 2014).
A comprehensive and reticular examination has thus been carried out in
which all entities in the ecology have been simultaneously interrogated,
and any attempt to fix, stabilise or demarcate limits in platforms has been
tentatively eschewed (Decuypere 2021).
     A second choice concerned the empirical field for the observation,
i.e., the digital ecology of a large Italian HEi (“Athenaeum”). Based on
the selected methodological sensitivity and relational understanding, I
proceeded by examining the connection between processes of interoper-
ability, and educational practice and processes in Athenaeum. Specifical-
ly, I selected two case studies – i.e., two interconnective platforms at Ath-
enaeum – for observing the entanglement between nonhuman (online
platforms) and human (university governance, professors, technicians)
actors in a common interconnective arena. The relational space emerging
from the interconnectivity across these entities has thus been observed as
a sociotechnical field of action. In particular, I looked at how the inter-
connective texture was designed and maintained, who and what it was
holding together, how it materialised to users, who was using it and how,
and what effects such interconnectivity was exerting on educational pro-
cesses in the digital ecology of Athenaeum – and beyond.
Piromalli                                                                  81

    A third methodological choice regarded the theoretical tools to be de-
ployed for the investigation. As mentioned, an ecological sensitivity was
mobilised to simultaneously observe multiplicity and interdependence in
the empirical field. In addition, insights from STS studies were deployed
to observe more closely the movement and transformations of data across
infrastructure (Star 1999). These perspectives were chosen since they can
provide an adequate vantage point to grasp and bring to the fore an elu-
sive and relational object of study such as interoperability processes.
    A final methodological choice concerned the research methods and
techniques. Since I could not actually “see” the processes of interopera-
bility, I have trailed and collected all the “clues” that these processes left
behind as they happened: “[u]nearthing the narratives behind boring as-
pects of infrastructure (…) reveal (…) how knowledge is constrained,
built and preserved” (Star 2002, 122). I looked for any kind of “witness”
(archival documents, programming codes, governance narratives, web-
sites and platforms, accounts from technicians and teachers, student dia-
ries) that would hold evidence of interoperability processes. I thence
conducted 32 interviews, digital ethnography, and documental analysis.
In particular, the interviews allowed me to explore the design (9 IT spe-
cialists), usage (15 professors), and governance (6 members of the Athe-
naeum governance staff) of interconnectivity as it unfolds across and be-
yond the digital ecology of Athenaeum. More generally, through the in-
terviews3 I could investigate the construction, practice, and effects of in-
terconnectivity at Athenaeum. A digital ethnography was also carried out
in order to “watch what happens, listen to what is said, and ask ques-
tions” (Pink et al. 2016) in the digitally entangled environment of Athe-
naeum. Specifically, and in conjunction with the interviews, I conducted a
thorough observation of Athenaeum’s interconnective software interfaces
and the user journeys they afford in order to inspect whether and how
interconnective processes are materialised in their web pages, and to what
effects. Furthermore, I analysed offline (Athenaeum’s historical archive)
and online sources (Athenaeum’s and interconnective software produc-
ers’ websites) to obtain first-hand information on the functioning of in-
teroperability processes in the case studies and, more generally, in Athe-
naeum’s digital ecology. Notably, I collected internal technical material
on digital platforms at Athenaeum, policy briefs on digitalisation in Athe-
naeum, promotional handouts by platform developers communicating
software features. Through the triangulative use of these techniques, I at-
tempted to construct a richer and thicker picture of the research results.
In particular, the data collected through these three techniques were ana-
lysed considering the overall objective of the research and allowing the
specific perspectives opened up by the different types of data to inform
each other.
82                                                            Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


5. Interoperability and the Standardisation of Higher Edu-
cation: Trailing Performative Interconnections in the Digi-
tal Ecology of Athenaeum

     As mentioned, two interconnective software have been observed in
Athenaeum in order to explore the interweaving of interoperability and
its effects. I will now describe the analysis carried out.

  5.1 MOPG: the Digital Bureaucratic Governance of Academic
Teaching

    The HE evaluation system in Italy requires each HEi to produce ex-
tensive data on teaching activities. This information is periodically elabo-
rated by the central HE governance (ANVUR4 and MUR5) which deploys
set parameters to determine whether such HEi is fit to operate, and if so,
issues a formal authorisation.
    MOPG is the Athenaeum platform which transmits this data from the
local HEi to ANVUR and MUR via interoperability6. This ensures Athe-
naeum’s compliance with a complex set of (supra)national quality assur-
ance standards:

     Every year, the university must communicate its educational offer to
     MUR. The university staff must upload on MOPG some ‘structural con-
     tents’ that must comply with a set of constraints laid down by the MUR.
     (IT Specialist, G)

    Accordingly, such information is requested by MOPG from profes-
sors (Fig. 2). More specifically, professors must periodically enter on
MOPG data on the courses and degree courses for whose design they are
in charge. If this does not happen, teaching activities cannot take place.
Notably, the demand for interconnection between HEi and the systemic
governance of HE establishes it as an obligatory passage point in Athe-
naeum’s professional life and organisational practice. In other words,
MOPG is becoming a standard in Athenaeum. The potency of its mediat-
ing position in this interconnective texture is very much perceived by
practitioners, and it is not without consequences.
Piromalli                                                                          83




 Figure 2. The frontend interface of MOPG’s accountability reporting forms for
   professors. Image source: screenshot by the author. Last access: May 2022.


   Indeed, MOPG is often portrayed by professors as a powerful actor (a
“dominus”) that can effectively dictate and constrain teaching practices
and processes. Its interface seemingly exerts powerful effects on the gov-
ernance of teaching at Athenaeum. According to many professors, it is
only possible to do with MOPG what MOPG itself allows to do:

     When you want to experiment with innovations in the educational pro-
     cesses, you are forced to take into account not only the MUR frameworks,
     but also the actual platform, which constrains what you can and cannot do
     (…) MOPG is like the dominus that governs the architecture of the educa-
     tional offer, and limits possibilities for innovation. (Professor, M)

    The interface of MOPG is a rigid and fixed space that constrains the
design of courses and curricula based on what categories are visible and
usable. As a result, professors need to “fit circumstances to categories”, as
educational imaginaries rarely match with what is allowed by MOPG’s
interface. Users’ programmes are thereby circumscribed by the platform’s
affordance, and the agency for educational processes is redistributed
(Akrich and Latour 1992). What counts – and what does not – in aca-
demic teaching and evaluation is thus determined by the platform, while
everything else is pushed into invisibility (Bowker and Star 1999):

     Since MOPG is rigid and structured in a specific way, you end up adapt-
     ing procedures to the IT platform, rather than vice versa. Whatever it al-
     lows you to do, that will become the norm – just because it is not possible
     to do otherwise. (Professor, L)
84                                                              Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


     I have the feeling that in the development and customisation of digital
     platforms, professors are not consulted (…) Someone else makes the rules.
     (Governance staff, H)

    Thus, MOPG-mediated interoperability seemingly constrains local
educational practice through its interface, thereby potentially disciplining
or hindering innovation in teaching design.
    However, the effects of interconnectivity elude the local sphere of
Athenaeum, as MOPG’s interoperability apparently embeds and repro-
duces a specific cultural frame that pertains to the very governance of
HE. As emphasised by professors, the information requested by MOPG
often seems detached – in quality and quantity – from what is expectedly
helpful for assessing professors and universities:

     They ask for an infinite amount of information. The most mysterious thing
     is the reason why they ask for certain absurd things. (...) I wonder what
     precisely they do with them. (Professor, I)

     MOPG is an administrative nightmare. (...) You have to waste a lot of
     time. I hate using it. I only use it because I have to. (Professor, H)

    The rationale thus seems to be the demand for information per se, as if
it possessed an inherent value rather than being a means to an end. Thus
emerges – that is, through the impersonal and ritualistic application of
procedures and norms – the bureaucratic legacy that still survives in the
hybrid set-up of the Italian HE governance mode.
    MOPG therefore appears as a powerful governance tool in Athenae-
um that interconnects HEi with the national HE system. Positioning itself
as an obligatory passage point, and affording an ineluctably rigid inter-
face, this interconnective standard platform circumscribes the field of
possibilities for local educational design in Athenaeum. Its interconnec-
tivity also has effects on the broader governance level, in that it reproduc-
es bureaucratic cultures in Italian HE that risk silencing the points of
view of the academic actors striving to co-construct and innovate educa-
tional practice. (Bowker and Star 1999)

  5.2 EYE: the Digital Entrepreneurial Governance of Academic
Research

   In order to participate in quantitative and evaluative title-based com-
petitions and selections, Italian researchers are required to provide data
on their scientific production to ANVUR and MUR via their HEi’s plat-
form7. In Athenaeum, the platform deployed for this purpose is EYE,
which is an institutional repository on which researchers upload data on
their scientific production.
Piromalli                                                                     85

    On the local level, EYE is used by Athenaeum researchers to inform
ANVUR and MUR about their scientific production. This data is trans-
mitted via interoperability from the scale of the institution to the systemic
scale for accountability and evaluation purposes. The research output up-
loaded by the researchers is also displayed on publicly accessible web
pages that provide full-text search functions within the institution’s data-
base.
    Most notably, an interconnection unfolds in this “public space” be-
tween the local scale of Athenaeum and the arena of global HE. The
metadata of any research output that is uploaded by Athenaeum’s staff
into EYE is mechanically transmitted to bibliometric databases such as
PubMed Central, Scopus, and Web of Science which return data on its
performance metrics. This data is displayed as citation counts and graph-
like visualisations on the EYE interface on its public web pages (Fig. 3).
HEis using EYE are thus constantly interconnected with the global
sphere of education and academic competition.




Figure 3. The frontend interface of an EYE public page: EYE and global citation
 databases are interconnecting. Image source: screenshot by the author. Last ac-
                                 cess: May 2022

    A particular affordance is thereby suggested to Athenaeum research-
ers through EYE, i.e., the self-monitoring of academic performance (Bur-
rows 2012; Lupton et al. 2017). The multi-scalar interoperability between
the local institution and these powerful actors in global education con-
structs a visualisation device that opens a space of comparison and com-
mensuration which might configure academic subjectivities (Espeland
and Stevens 1998). Evidence-based interoperable indicators may lure
Athenaeum’s researchers into measuring the “quality” of their scientific
publication according to quantitative standard metrics (Espeland and
Stevens 2008). What “works” and what does not can thus be determined
86                                                                Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


through commensurative quantification processes (Decuypere and Landri
2021):

     This is also a “control” mechanism. Every morning I must check the “sta-
     tus” of my publications. That is, what that graph “is doing” – whether
     someone has cited me, or if I am visible on Scopus... (Professor, U; italics
     for emphasis)

    Alongside its effects on the local subjectivities of Athenaeum re-
searchers, EYE’s interconnectivity encapsulates values that entail the
broader field of Italian HE governance. Whilst the academic engines of
anxiety are fed (Espeland and Sauder 2016), neomanagerial discourses –
calculability, efficiency, excellence, etc. – are reproduced through metrics
and visualisations. “Performative” scholarship and the pursuit of immedi-
ate research impact is fostered through quantitative measurement at the
expense of fundamental or curiosity-driven research. New uncertainties
insinuate in academic subjectivities:

     We are forced to respect what EYE wants, or else we do not exist. If we
     don’t upload our research output to EYE, EYE does not deliver it to
     ANVUR, and we end up being invisible. (Professor, H)

    Across this constant interconnection between local institutions and
the global sphere of competition in HE, standardising processes are en-
acted that shape academic research and the production of knowledge.
Specific and “legitimate” ways of knowing are tacitly privileged, while
others are made invisible. Entrepreneurial logics are reproduced in HE as
the space of quantitative research evaluation becomes a neomanagerial
field for institutions and professionals that are expected to strive for ex-
cellence. The world and its constitutive relationships are constructed
simultaneously with the tools for its measuring (Desrosières 1998).


6. Interoperability, Standardisation, and the Making of
Higher Education through Interconnections
    This paper aimed at contributing to literature by investigating the un-
folding of interoperability and its effects across the digital ecology of an
Italian HEi. To this end, two empirical cases of interconnective platforms
have been interrogated through an ecological sensitivity and a repertoire
of qualitative research techniques. After a brief overview of the empirical
exploration empirical cases, I shall discuss the main points of interest that
emerged in the research.
    The first platform examined, called MOPG, is used in Athenaeum for
the management of administrative activities related to teaching. MOPG
Piromalli                                                                 87

establishes interoperability processes in order to communicate teaching-
related information from Athenaeum to ANVUR and MUR. It thus posi-
tions as an obligatory passage point for Athenaeum’s professors who must
however adapt their teaching design instances to the affordances of
MOPG’s rigid interface. Local educational practice is thus circumscribed
by the constraints inscribed in the platform. However, the standardisa-
tion effects exerted by the interconnectivity processes mediated by
MOPG elude the level of local practice in that they entail the governance
of Italian HE as well. Indeed, MOPG seemingly embeds and performs
the bureaucratic logic that constitutes one of the poles of the hybrid ar-
rangement of the governance of Italian HE. The demand for data for its
own sake is favoured over the objective of obtaining relevant information.
    The second interconnective platform analysed, called EYE, is the re-
pository into which Athenaeum researchers upload their research out-
puts. In this case, interoperability processes are aimed at the production
of a complex interconnective texture between local actors (academic re-
searchers) and big players in the bibliometric area of global education.
EYE’s multiscalar interconnectivity activates a self-monitoring compara-
tive device for researchers’ performance that draws on specific values to
shape their understandings of what should be researched, and how.
While interoperability processes have an effect on the local field of re-
search in Athenaeum, they also affect the broader arena of HE govern-
ance in Italy. The engineering of a commensurable and comparable space
through multiscalar interoperability reproduces the neomanagerial agen-
da that fosters efficiency, surveillance, and competition, that is, the pole
towards which the governance of Italian HE is currently converging.
    An intimate relationship between interoperability and standardisation
processes in HE can thence be distinguished. In particular, the empirical
research carried out allows to single out three ways in which digital inter-
connectivity can relate to standardisation processes in HE. First, inter-
connective textures can embed standards. They in fact encapsulate specific
values and ethics that result from exogenous standardising forces. In the
case of MOPG, (supra)national criteria and standards are inscribed in the
design of interconnectivity which then materialise in its interface by
means of spaces (filled/fixed), categories (present/absent), criteria (speci-
fied/glossed), choices (fixed/open). In the case of EYE, narratives are
imported from the managerial world to the field of HE concerning visibil-
ity and comparability as basic foundations for academic life. Secondly,
interconnectivity can exert standardising effects. The empirical cases have
shown this kind of relationship on a twofold level. On the one hand, in-
teroperability processes produce standardisation effects on the local Ath-
enaeum practice, determining what is possible for teaching design
(MOPG) or selecting what is proper for academic research (EYE). On
the other hand, interconnectivity exert standardisation effects that entail
the governance level of Italian HE by conveying bureaucratic (in the case
88                                                          Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


of MOPG) or neomanagerial (in the case of EYE) logics. Finally, inter-
connective textures may become standards themselves. MOPG has indeed
become a stable and obligatory passage point both for compliance inter-
connectivity in Athenaeum, and for everyday academic professional life of
professors. Likewise, EYE represents a crucial and irreplaceable tool for
many academics who use it for everyday self-monitoring of their academic
performance. Realities are thus uniformed through these standardised in-
terconnective textures according to agreed-upon-rules that are supposed
to articulate work across spaces, times, and metrics.
    Being based on classifications and standards, this threefold relation-
ship between interoperability and standardisation in HE is not neutral
(Bowker and Star 1999). It entails the power to determine who is “in”
and “out” of relational arrangements (i.e., which entities to include or ex-
clude), and what status or knowledges are required to “stay within” rela-
tions (i.e., to negotiate the criteria for inclusion; Gorur et al. 2019). The
link between interoperability and the standardisation of forms of (higher)
education thus seems generative of social consequences. A transcalar, in-
terconnected and standardised governance space emerges in HE in which
research, governance, and administration, as well as (nonhuman and hu-
man) actors and discourses, are entwined and entangled. In this arena,
visibility and invisibility, inclusion and exclusion, and all sorts of bounda-
ries are continuously at stake (Star 1995). Hence, the challenge now con-
cerns what academia, academics, and HE overall should be, do, and –
most of all – become.


7. Final Remarks

    A complex relationship between interoperability and standardisation
processes in HE thus emerges from the empirical research carried out
that may manifest as the encapsulation of standards, the enactment of
standards, or the very standardisation of interconnectivity. Either way,
the processes of standardisation appear inherent to interconnectivity in
HE.
    The texture of interoperability that ties Italian HE together ought
thus not to be understood as a purely technical matter of data transmis-
sion across information systems. Beyond the imagery of digital entities
chatting with each other, it might be worth considering the role of stand-
ardisation processes that exert influence on how these entities talk, what
they say, and whether these conversations might risk hindering the poten-
tial for innovation and change in HE, i.e., whether dominant points of
view may be advantaged to the detriment of residual and marginal forms
of subjectivity and knowledge (Bowker and Star 1999).
    By all means, the effects of these processes are – as always – situated
and contingent. As reminded by STS scholarship, everything might have
Piromalli                                                                 89

been otherwise (Star 1990) – and might still be otherwise (Gorur et al.,
2019). The relationship between interoperability and standardisation con-
structs a contested field which is the object of ongoing negotiation, local
adaptation, (re)adjustment, and rejection. As shown with the empirical
cases, academic actors do practice non-compliant and divergent conduct
in order to express alternative visions and resist the ethics and values that
are inscribed and performed throughout these processes. Indeed, all
standards are bound to transform over time along with the impermanence
of social life.
    A space for reflection can thus be set in which to consider interopera-
bility in HE as a tool for collaboration rather than bureaucratic or neo-
managerial control. Interoperability can in fact prompt renewed engage-
ment with connectedness as a key to understanding and cohabiting a
complex, emergent, and troubled world. In this sense, it might be worth-
while to move the perspective from control to cooperation, and from clo-
sure to plasticity. That is, to focus on the power of boundary objects ra-
ther than standardisation as a means of achieving necessary alignment and
articulation across the multiple worlds of technoscience (Star and
Griesemer 1989). The challenge, then, is to envision practices and tools
that, while maintaining their own specific identity, could be elastic
enough to be engaging for diverse communities of practice, thereby be-
coming a means of collaboration and translation across heterogeneous
social worlds in HE. This might counterbalance the controlling effects
that often arise with the stabilisation of standards and the closure of their
flexibility (Star and Bowker 1999).
    Some practices are already underway that pursue such a vision of in-
terconnectivity in HE. For example, open-access international Current
Research Information Systems such as OpenAire and Zenodo have been
launched for sharing research across disciplinary and national bounda-
ries; alternative bibliometric forms (e.g., Snowball Metrics) are used in
international universities that consider the social impact and uncited re-
search output rather than just the citation count on peer-reviewed jour-
nals; an Higher Education Interoperable Data Initiative (HEIDI) is being
developed that would interlink European HE datasets and publish them
in open-access.
    Other avenues to unlock the potential of interoperability processes
towards participation could be explored through the analysis and con-
structive critique of existing processes in local and global HEIs. Ultimate-
ly, this is about practising interoperability as a medium for knowing and
doing things together in organization – that is, as connectedness-in-action
(Gherardi 2005) – rather than a device for distributed surveillance.
90                                                                   Tecnoscienza – 13 (1)


Notes
     1
       Pseudonymisation has been applied on the university, software, and research
partners names in order to mitigate the possibility that contextual information provid-
ed could lead to “deductive disclosure” of their identities (Kaiser 2009).
     2
       In particular, APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are used by developers
as packages of procedures that software make available to outside programmes to draw
on some of its functionality.
     3
       The difference between the number of interviews carried out and the total num-
ber of consultants interviewed is due to the fact that two technical consultants have
been interviewed for two rounds, and therefore counted as two separate interviews. As
a side note, five consultants have been interviewed in a double guise, i.e., both as pro-
fessors and members of the Athenaeum governance.
     4
       ANVUR is the Italian national agency for university and research evaluation.
     5
       MUR is the Italian Ministry of University and Research.
     6
       Italian regulations stipulate that this information must be transmitted from HEIs
to central infrastructure via interoperable processes and shared technical standards
(Digital Administration Code, Art. 12(2)).
     7
       Alternatively, it is possible for researchers to use the LoginMIUR platform by
MUR. LoginMIUR is also accessible to independent researchers.


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