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We offer a review of recent research and opinions. We include more formal research-based and "grey" literature around transformation in education - at a watershed moment of challenge, change and turmoil - for the UK Higher Education sector and its relationship with Europe. Juxtaposed on the changes in the UK and European political and educational ecologies, is the turbulence of the morphing of Open and Distance Learning into the much higher profile Online and Digital Education, and its place and contribution to achieving preferred and viable futures in the world. We explore the wicked problem of defence and stasis in the university sector despite the huge drivers for change. We explore ways in which learning with and from the future can be encouraged. We anticipate opportunities for universities to reimagine and adopt their roles in changing environments and to make challenging, developing and disruptive contributions to the online world and to offer advantage, benefit and foresight to their students and staff.

Computer technologies and computer-mediated information and communication are increasingly parts of curriculum-making practices in education. These technologies are often taken to be simply tools to be used to enhance teaching and learning. However, in recent years, a range of cross-disciplinary studies have started to point to the work of code, algorithms and standards in selecting and shaping the information, forms of knowledge and modes of interaction available to teachers and students. Concerns have been raised about how data is selected, shaped and represented by software in ways which are not always apparent to those using computer technologies. In this sense, software can be considered as part of the hidden curriculum of education. Drawing upon the increasing research in software studies, this article explores theoretically some of the issues raised in relation to curriculum-making practices and possible lines of empirical research to be pursued.