Power BI and the datafication of Danish higher education.
Power BI is a Microsoft data visualization and business intelligence platform currently being used for higher education governance at a range of institutions. This study contributes to critical scholarship on the normative dimensions and politics of data visualizations, with particular attention to...
| Published in: | Big Data & Society Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 1 - 14 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Sage Publications Inc.
Jul-Sep2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=188645842&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 188645842 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 20539517 KG5N jtl: Big Data & Society issn: 20539517 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jul-Sep2025 vid: 12 iid: 3 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 188645842 10.1177/20539517251365230 ppf: 1 ppct: 13 formats: tig: atl: Power BI and the datafication of Danish higher education. aug: au: Weinberg, Lindsay affil: Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark su: Higher education Education policy Organizational governance Danes Microsoft Corp. Data visualization School enrollment Data visualization software Denmark sug: subj: Denmark Higher education Education policy Organizational governance Danes Microsoft Corp. Data visualization School enrollment Data visualization software keyword: dashboards data democratization higher education Microsoft neoliberalism New public management ab: Power BI is a Microsoft data visualization and business intelligence platform currently being used for higher education governance at a range of institutions. This study contributes to critical scholarship on the normative dimensions and politics of data visualizations, with particular attention to how dashboards co-shape user subjectivities and are intertwined with educational policies that use time as a means of enacting higher education governance. Drawing on 11 interviews with administrative advisors and faculty connected to humanities programs that are particularly vulnerable to de-funding and enrollment challenges at a large public research university in Denmark, this paper investigates how the design, use, and marketing of Power BI are entangled with top-down higher education policy agendas. It emphasizes how students are constructed as discursive objects whose demographic information, academic progress, and workforce participation can be sorted, aggregated, and tracked in "real-time" for meeting performance metrics as well as regulatory compliance. However, this article also demonstrates how Power BI is a site where unanticipated frictions emerge. While the software is designed to render program administrators and faculty increasingly responsible for hedging against the vagaries of the post-graduation job market, in practice, participants report ambivalence and disengagement, navigate issues of transparency and accuracy, and attempt to leverage the platform to creatively resist threats to program defunding. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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