Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the Gig Economy

The model of “platform-university”, where gig workers play the role of academics, teachers and researchers, stands in direct opposition to the idea of scholarship of teaching and learning. It is a model that is stifling intellectual life, student engagement and – most importantly – the advancement and production of new knowledge. The gig university cannot be responsive to public demands, addressing social and political challenges fortuitously, mostly at the rhetorical level, in mission statements or as a part of ‘university goals’, which usually are not comprehensively assessed. Gig academia narrowed down the function of higher education to budgets and profits, making most universities in the Western Anglo-speaking countries a corporate entity with a maze of contradictory goals, unclear identity, an atrophied sense of public responsibilities and a structural incapacity to address the most important problems confronting us all. This study aims to stimulate new research and scholarship to create alternative models for Academia, based on the courage of thinking and the possibility of heresies, genuine creativity, and exploratory practices and ideas in teaching and academic life.