Using evaluation to create ‘provisional stabilities’: bridging innovation in Higher Education change processes

This paper will report on the evaluation experience in two SOCRATES (European Union funding mechanism designed to support innovation in teaching and learning) projects focused on change in Higher Education. The projects were international in scope involving 6 countries and 10 institutions within the last four years. The paper reflects on change in institutions specifically, especially those introduced by the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and it suggests the hypothesis that in such a phase of transition, new rules are not yet established and a state of anomie can occur at the level of courses, departments and institutions. What happens in educational institutions in which rules and practices are well established and validated and a new event radically changes or challenges the traditional practices? Instead of the psycho-social notion of 'resistance to change', we think that the theory of Durkheim and followers which analyses human responses in times of social change may be of use to interpret situations in which change or the will to change creates conflicting systems of rules and practices. The paper will argue for a crucial role for evaluation in negotiating such periods of change.