Day, Michael James ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9612-2595 (2024) Digital piracy in Higher Education: exploring social media users and Chinese postgraduate students motivations for supporting ‘Academic Cybercrime’ by shelving eBooks from Z-Library. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (JUTLP). ISSN 1449-9789 (doi:10.53761/90p10x24)

Preview

PDF (Open Access Article) 48848 DAY_Digital_Piracy_In_Higher_Education_Exploring_Social_Media_Users_And_Chinese_Postgraduate_Students_Motivations_(OA)_2024.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives. Download (320kB) | Preview

Abstract

Z-library, an electronic book (ebook) website, was shut down in November 2022 for cybercriminal activity. This created a milieu to investigate its educational significance in higher educational institutes. Adopting social representation theory, this article explores 134 comments in r/Z-Library a Reddit subforum populated across social media during the takedown. These users’ views are contextualised against opinions from 103 Higher Education (HE) postgraduate students in China, who were engaged in a qualitative study including a survey, focus group and ethnographic observation of a classroom debate. Analysis found an overlap between both groups and suggests that universities need to re-consider digital divides faced by socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Academic poverty, caused by the cost of academic literature and journals, was found to drive students and social media users towards piracy. The article concludes by recommending that universities must consider how to reduce piracy, as institutional libraries move into post-digital futures. These recommendations highlight, then, that if learners must resort to ‘academic cybercrime’ a rethink is needed about how universities enable a culture of lifelong learning.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright © by the authors, in its year of first publication. This publication is an open access publication under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY-ND 4.0 license.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	piracy, digital divide, Higher Education, equity
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) L Education > L Education (General) L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Educational Development Unit Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences Information & Library Services
Last Modified:	10 Dec 2024 16:19
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/48848

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads