A critical study of technology is not only cyclic but also fundamentally materialist in nature: “The ecology of the distributed high-tech workplace, home or school is profoundly impacted by the relatively unstudied infrastructure that permeates all its functions” (Star 17). As we demonstrate, Critel’s research follows in Star’s tradition and also offers groundbreaking insights about participation that have now become directly relevant to our analysis of teaching and technology in large-scale MOOCs. In this study, part of the more insidious “invisible” informational infrastructure is enacted in the user-agreement statements of each provider. The user-agreement/honor-code statements for each provider supercede individual course statements about participation because they construct an overarching institutional infrastructure. Their brick walls of protection, when exposed, become obstacles for students, and now they have become our own object of demolition.

[Go to Introduction to select another node]