This book seeks to understand the effects of the current information revolution on universities by examining the effects of two previous information revolutions: Gutenberg's invention and proof of printing in 1450 and the Scientific Revolution from the mid- fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Moodie reviews significant changes since the early modern period in universities' students, libraries, curriculum, pedagogy, lectures, assessment, research, and the dissemination of these changes across the globe. He argues that significant changes in the transmission and dissemination of disciplinary knowledge are shaped by the interaction of three factors: financial, technological, and physical resources; the nature, structure and level of knowledge; and the methods available for managing knowledge.

This book explores new and distinctive forms of higher vocational education across the globe, and asks how the sector is changing in response to the demands of the 21st century. These new forms of education respond to two key policy concerns: an emphasis on high skills as a means to achieve economic competitiveness, and the promise of open access for adults hitherto excluded from higher education. Examining a range of geographic contexts, the editors and contributors aim to address these contexts and highlight various similarities and differences in developments. They locate their analyses within the various political and socio-economic contexts, which can make particular reforms possible and achievable in one context and almost unthinkable in another. Ultimately, the book promotes a critical understanding of evolving provisions of higher vocational education, refusing assumptions that policy borrowing from apparently 'successful' countries offers a straightforward model for others to adopt.