Lessons from the Failure of the Virtual University

Abstract

Sense-making is informed through the use of retrospection as a tool for understanding the current state of a system. The virtual university panic of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries provides the context for an examination of the way that sense-making can fail in the face of technocratic determinism and transformational thinking. A selection of failed and successful initiatives is examined to create an analysis framework that can be used to engage with the wicked problem of university change, identifying myths that mislead leaders.