Making Higher Education Market Through Open Data Platform: Digital Educational Governance and Struggling Universities

Abstract Data openness has become imperative as the oversupply of university provision and a plummeting birth rate have severely impacted university systems. With public accessibility, open data platforms are transforming the higher education governance, which enables students to understand the true level of risk faced by financially struggling universities and make informed decisions about their choices. While extensive literature has examined the shift towards data-driven universities, the interplay between governance and data transparency remains relatively underexplored. Utilising the conceptual tools of market making and digital panopticon, this paper investigates Taiwan’s University and College Information Disclosure Platform that aims to facilitate student choice by revealing universities at risk of closure. Focussing on platform building and its impact on universities, the paper first highlights how datafication requires universities to submit their annual enrolment statistics to the digital platform, resulting in increased control over universities and departments. The study then examines the shift in governance driven by the launch of open data, where universities are quantified into calculable entities and students’ choices are informed through comparison functions and visual tools. Finally, this paper reveals how universities can develop their own strategies to compete by projecting the performance of their competitors via the platform, thereby preserving their reputations.