Page - 99 - in Radical Solutions and Open Science - An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education

Chapter7 ProsumerisminHigherEducation—Does ItMeet theDisability Test? Joe Cullen 7.1 Introduction:The Contribution of Prosumerism toHigher Education ‘Prosumerism’was first coined byAlvin Toffler in his book ‘The ThirdWave’ to denote people who produce some of the goods and services they then consume themselves—for example by making their own clothes, building their own cars, or cultivating vegetables for their kitchen (Toffler, 1980). Toffler envisaged a time when consumerswould increasingly play a role as co-collaborators in production andsupplychains,withthecapacitytoalter thedesignandtheattributesofaproduct theywanted.Agoodcontemporaryexample is recent trends in the fashion industry towardspromotingmoresustainableproducerandconsumerbehavioursthroughnew processes like‘masscustomisation’—combiningpersonalizationwithmassproduc- tion;‘crowddesign’—usingcrowdsourcingtocreatedesignsthatcanbecustomized intoproducts; ‘closet sharing’—the setupof aprivateor community-powered ‘infi- nitewardrobe’sothatcustomersdon’townaclothingitembutrent it for thetimeit’s needed, and‘DIYfashion’—digital clothingmodelsusedby independentdesigners produceddirectlybycustomersusing3Dprinters.1 In theHigherEducation sector, prosumerismhas been associatedwith the shift towards ‘learner-centred’ teachingand learningactivities,with theemphasisonstu- dent engagement and theco-productionofknowledge.Theargument is thatgreater student engagement in the teachingand learningprocess, andgreater co-ownership of learning content, has a beneficial effect on learning outcomes (Bryson&Han, 2007;Barklay,2010).Atypical approachappliedacrossaspectrumof learningset- tings,includinghighereducation,istheapplicationofa‘blendedlearning’pedagogy, 1https://issuu.com/tcbl/docs/sustainable_fashion_market. J.Cullen (B) ArcolaResearchandTavistock Institute,London,UK e-mail: jcullen@arcola-research.co.uk ©TheAuthor(s)2020 D.Burgos (ed.),RadicalSolutionsandOpenScience,LectureNotes inEducationalTechnology,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4276-3_7 105