Academic Identity during COVID-19

Abstract

The recent Coronavirus pandemic triggered a global shift in higher education to fully embrace online platforms. With such a significant shift of academic workload and focus, we explore potential issues arising about how this shapes academic identity. Our interest is on how the adoption of a flexible pedagogy shapes an academic's sense of work and place and whether this is for some a readjustment of what is believed to be a normative view of an academic as teacher, while for others it may be a challenge to their values. Through a sampling of academics at a UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) we determine that the rapid move to remote teaching has resulted in the establishment of a transient identity that has yet to be consolidated as the sector moves from crisis-respondent transactional delivery models, to one of permanency that reflects the skills, competencies, and values of the digitally literate academic 4.0.