KATE ORTON-JOHNSON - Affilliated Researcher

Kate completed her PhD research at INCITE, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in collaboration with Sage Publishing Ltd.

Kate's PhD researched the impact and use of digital resources in higher education exploring how students use technology in learning.

There is a proliferation of electronic resources and Internet courses and common to academic and popular debate is the notion that technology is radically reconfiguring the nature of universities and higher education. Yet, while academic literature and empirical research is engaged in exploring the perceived benefits and disadvantages of technological innovation, the perspective of students, as users of the technology, has largely been assumed; it is this focus on technology in practice which was at the heart of the project. The research aimed to gain a detailed insight into how digital resources are being used in higher education and to marry that empirical understanding with a consideration of the economic and pedagogical interests in the employment of new technologies in higher education.

Kate's other research interests include virtual methodology and ethnography, the ethical and analytical issues surrounding ICTs as research tools and fieldsites and classical and contemporary social theory.

This research follows on from her Masters thesis, which focused on identity and the presentation of self in computer mediated interaction.

In 2004/05 Kate lectured in the Department of Sociology at Surrey - 'Producing New Technologies' and 'Youth Culture and New Technologies'.

Kate now has a permanent lectureship at the University of Edinburgh, in the Graduate School of Social and Political Studies. Her central focus is on e-learning and social research methods.