16.1. Knowledge as a result of collective work

This contribution is the result of a research project I conducted between 2011 and 2014 at a university in a major city in western France. My approach was to study, through sociological inquiry, the knowledge that is taught and learned at university. The idea was the following: knowledge at university is often considered as subjects that already exist, as things with an intrinsic existence, independent of what researchers or students do. On the contrary, I proposed to start from the following idea: knowledge is first and foremost the result of the work of several categories of people in universities, those who produce it through their research, those who teach it (it is sometimes the same people) and those who learn it. I rely on a “trick” by Howard Becker (1998):

“Things are just people acting together. Physical objects, while real enough physically, don’t have ‘objective’ properties. Neither do more intangible social objects. We give them those properties, for social purposes, by recognizing that they have them” (p. 69).

If knowledge, like everything else, is only “people acting together”, then it is necessary to investigate who these people are (i.e. what categories are involved) and what concrete work these categories produce.

16.2. The survey on the knowledge taught and learned at university

This is what I realized during a field survey, in which I attended the courses of two training and research units (UFR): Science and Sociology. In Science, I took physics and chemistry courses. I focused on groups of first-year undergraduate students (called L1), and I went with them to class for a semester. I took the opportunity to observe not only interactions in class, but also outside: relationships with professors, with other students, work in university libraries, etc. I then conducted interviews with the students surveyed and with their teachers.

The focus of my research, the knowledge taught and learned at university, and my investigation therefore have no a priori connection with the digitalization of society. Only a priori, because one of the interests of inductive approaches (analyzed by Becker 1970, Glaser and Strauss 1967, or, in France, by Chapoulie 2000) is precisely not to decide in advance what we will find in the fieldwork.

16.3. The discovery of digital student practices

However, during the investigation, I noticed that L1 students in Science and Social Studies used certain digital tools such as social networks (such as Facebook) and collaborative storage spaces (such as Dropbox) to circulate information and documents between them¹. It was a surprise for me to discover that L1 students were using these tools to exchange their course notes and other information. I understood this quite late in the survey year at the UFR of Science, because this use was not a practice that I had observed directly until this time (students do not go on Facebook during classes or to the university library). If this was a surprise, it is also because research on digital education does not address these uses. Although scientific studies of the use of digital technology by pupils and students have been increasing since the 2010s, they focus on showing the diversity of uses (Mercklé and October 2012) or their effect on test success (Burban, Cottier and Michaut 2013; Roche 2015). The issue of working between students via digital technology is not yet a specific subject under study.

It was during the interviews with Science students that I realized that this was a very common, banal practice: even though regular students meet each other every day at the university, they exchange information via digital tools.

Students use social networks, such as Facebook, and sharing platforms a little differently. The platforms (Dropbox in the survey) are used to deposit the note-taking that students have done in class. Digital social networks are used to exchange information. But which ones?

Exchanges within L1 students’ Facebook groups can be grouped into three main themes: exchanges of course notes (transcripts written by the students of the teacher’s course); information about the organization of courses and exams; and practical and festive information. Messages about exams also multiply one month before each exam period. But what difference does it make, from the point of view of knowledge, that students use these digital tools?

16.4. Digital uses and collective work of knowledge

The first effect noted from the use of these tools is the modification of student note-taking. The surveyed students know that they can obtain from others, via digital tools, the written record of all courses. However, in interviews, they say that they have difficulty taking notes in amphitheater classes (obviously in different ways depending on the students). Sharing allows the most anxious to reassure themselves (they can reread the lesson even though they themselves have not managed to write everything down) and allows the others to carry out parallel activities in progress. The “written trace” object live of the course, which one might think is an individual student’s objective, thus becomes a collective objective, for all those who refer to the notes deposited on the platform, whether or not the written traces in question are faithful to what the teacher said.

This question of note-taking is not an incidental one: it is an important element in the definition of knowledge taken in by students. They do not learn directly what teachers say (even though they retain some of it): to prepare their exams, they work mainly from their course notes. If these are modified, it is the knowledge they learn that is also modified.

The sharing of digital tools also modifies the relationship to attendance. One does not have to be present to obtain the written content. Why do students still attend class? On the one hand, those who are diligent say that they attach great importance to their presence, because they think they will not be able to understand the contents simply by reading them in someone else’s notes. In a way, this circulation of courses rehabilitates the professorial discourse: it is presented as essential to the understanding of knowledge. On the other hand, some students admit to skipping certain courses, those that are placed at a bad time for them (too early in the morning, for example), or those with “bad teachers” (see below).

Exchanges of information, questions and answers on digital social networks are intensified as the academic year progresses. They include the work requested by professors and that which students must produce. Part of the digital discussions is about defining the work to be produced. Indeed, the academic instructions always involve an element of uncertainty² that students must resolve: what is the precise length of the essay to be written? Is it absolutely mandatory to solve all exercises, or can we just do one part of them? Will the teacher agree to correct a work that was returned a few days late? What tools and sources can be used to facilitate the work?

Through the exchange of messages on Facebook, students adjust to each other and develop a form of non-binding collective response; non-binding, because no one is obliged to follow it. Even though there is no obligation on the teacher’s part to accept the answer prepared by the students, he/she is all the more constrained because a large number of the students have reached an agreement. In other words, what digital exchanges between students change is their ability to agree, to limit uncertainty in the work to be done, to impose their definition of the work to be done, and in the way they must work with knowledge³.

It should also be noted that the use of Facebook and Dropbox platforms displaces the knowledge circulation initiative. In a classic scheme, knowledge is held by the teacher, who transmits it to the students. In my observations, the professor does transmit knowledge to students, who take it in via note-taking and then circulate it outside of any professorial control. It is then a new knowledge that circulates, partly transformed by note-taking, which can be selective or distorted, and which teachers no longer have any control over.

The joint work of knowledge by students through digital tools represents a form of autonomy, since students take charge of the conservation and circulation of knowledge alone, without the intervention of professors. However, student self-nomination is often promoted as a condition for success in unity, but it is only rarely approached from this angle (David 2016).

In addition, the documents provided by teachers are circulated without their knowledge. These include documents that they choose to provide to one group of students, but not to others, or one year, but not the next.

“For example, the thermodynamics handout – normally the teacher, he doesn’t give it to us. It’s only those who are at Polytech⁴ who have the courses here, who have it. As a result, there is a friend who got it from a friend and put it on the Facebook group so that everyone can have the handout” (L1 Science student).

So, the professor of thermodynamics gave a handout containing his entire course written, but only to some students whom he considered more autonomous. However, this handout was made available by the students themselves to all the teacher’s other groups, and even students with other teachers.

The digital tools they use allow surveyed students to compare their professors, by comparing the content they teach (or rather by comparing the student transcript of these courses). They say that comparing the content taught by different teachers allows them to better understand the course, but they also say that if they have a teacher who “explains poorly”, they have an additional chance to understand. These comparisons feed into students’ moral judgment of their teachers: the “good” and the “bad”. By paralleling the notes taken in the courses of the different professors, the students develop a collective judgment on them. The most requested course notes are those of teachers designated as “good”.

“Above all, we can have interpretations other than that was taught in our class because we don’t have the same teacher, for example, and then you say, ‘Oh well, I understand better now’. As a result, it’s easier. And so, right, we can get more details if my teacher doesn’t explain something very well – there are students who have other teachers; they explain it to us so that we can understand. And inversely, me, the teacher I have in thermodynamics, they have her in point mechanics, so they don’t really understand point mechanics” (L1 Science student).

These comparisons also have an effect on the knowledge learned, because it is no longer only the knowledge transmitted by their teacher that students learn, but also that transmitted by other teachers.

The circulation of courses and the exchange of information take place outside the control of the faculty. It should be noted that the student networks I am talking about are deployed in parallel with the institutional networks made available by the university: their main characteristic is to precisely escape professorial control. Professors know that their students discuss among themselves on digital social networks, but they do not know what about. The teachers use it too, to convey messages: for example, they instruct a student to transmit information to others (such as a change of class or room time).

However, they generally ignore that the re-transcription of almost all their teaching by students is circulated. I note a paradox on this subject: when they talk about it among themselves, the surveyed professors (more those in Sociology than Science) say that they prefer not to give written courses⁵ to their students; they prefer that they come to class and take notes. However, we have seen that these courses still circulate regardless of the decision by teachers themselves, or a version transcribed by students.

Finally, the student practices very quickly described here make it obsolete to reserve information, or documents, for only a selection of the students. Yet teachers continue to do so. Another possible solution would be to acknowledge and adapt to this change.

16.5. Digital exchanges, one dimension among others of students’ collective activity

The scope of the changes related to the digital uses of students that I have just presented must be qualified. Exchanges related to learned knowledge and the ways it is worked are more generalized with digital social networks and collaborative platforms than without them: they involve more students. They are done almost instantaneously or in a very short time. They take place at a distance, outside the university premises. However, they do not constitute radical transformations in the way students work with knowledge.

These exchanges remain part of the general framework of interactions between students and their teachers. In particular, digital exchanges remain strongly embedded in the relationships established directly in the face-to-face interactions between students (even though this may seem paradoxical for exchanges that can take place remotely and anonymously).

Indeed, if we look at which students submit their notes to share them, or who answers the questions of others, we see that these are a small number of students. These are the ones who are very diligent in class (they are present almost all the time). They know each other directly and have direct exchanges with the teachers (and I know them too, since it is them who I see all the time during the investigation). They are, for example, the ones who will send emails to teachers to ask them questions or to negotiate (the date of submission of a job, for example). It is therefore the most assiduous students involved in university activities who are responsible for the circulation of knowledge and the digital exchange of information. Digital tools thus do not upset the relationship to knowledge or studies.

Students in the same group, who know each other, carry out a division of the work of learning knowledge among themselves, i.e. they divide up the different tasks to be done, which are not all considered as interesting or important. For example, I have observed in the classrooms the division of oral participation work. Note-taking is one of the tasks to be carried out in knowledge work, which can be assigned to a few members of the group, which is facilitated by digital tools. This is what these students are saying:

“[…] so we have groups on Facebook, and there are several of them that distribute the work, and there are groups, whether it’s the whole promotion or group 3 in particular, and we manage to stay organized, especially for the lecture courses” (L1 Sociology student).

“We have a group on Facebook to put handouts or, for example, the courses that some… There are some courses where some [students] have not taken too many notes […]. We help each other. There is one who prints out the assignments from previous years and corrects them; […] so we really work with each other. So we really do a group work, we really help each other. By giving the handouts, by giving everyone’s notes, for example, if I took notes on a class, but I’m not sure it’s super complete, other people can add their notes, to see, to complete each other, etc. Some people scan their notes to help others” (L1 Science student).

Some Sociology students also tell me how they distributed the presence in class during a period of strike by university students, by instructing some of them to go to class while the others were on strike and then sharing classes via digital networks.

The division of labor between the members of a profession, or here of an activity such as learning knowledge, always has a moral component (Hughes (1971) refers to the moral division of labor). Not all tasks are as noble and are not assigned equally to all participants. For example, it is more often girls who are entrusted with note-taking work, as they are considered more reliable in this respect. In addition, not all participants are included in the same way, because they are not judged (morally) in the same way.

As a result, not all documents and information are systematically disseminated to everyone. Students report that they reserve them for students whose moral behavior they approve of. They build moral judgments about other students. There are two categories of people to whom all courses and information can be given: first, those who are usually diligent, who obviously work and who are likely to contribute themselves to the exchanges (e.g. those who will provide their own note-taking); second, those who have good reasons (reasons considered acceptable) for not coming to class, mainly those who are sick or have a job, but who are present whenever they can be.

Paradoxically, therefore, distance and dematerialized exchanges of knowledge are closely linked to being present in class (we have seen that they do not replace its importance), and because this presence allows the construction of relationships between students and the determination of “good” partners with whom it is possible to exchange.

The use – for the circulation of knowledge and the definition of what to learn – of digital tools is ultimately one element among others that contributes to the student perspective. This student “perspective” refers to how students define what they should do, in what order, in what way. As Howard Becker, Geer, Hughes and Strauss (1961) have shown regarding the work of medical students, students collectively define what is useful to learn or not and how they should use it⁶. It can be said that socio-digital networks or digital platforms contribute to the creation of the student perspective.

16.6. Conclusion

In conclusion, this chapter aimed to show, through a specific case, how the widespread digitalization of society could transform knowledge at university. By looking concretely at how students work with university knowledge, i.e. what they write, what they seek to learn, the exercises they do or do not do, we can see how they define, concretely, the knowledge they will learn. We then note that certain digital practices modify the conceptions of this work of knowledge. The knowledge worked is therefore not the same, because the conditions of this work have changed. This approach can be extended to the study of other areas of university knowledge: for example, how do professors work with knowledge to teach it? How do researchers produce knowledge in laboratories? (David 2017).