ABSTRACT
The task of the UK university teacher greatly increased in range and complexity over the last decade. Not only were additional administrative duties required, but new information, communication and technology (ICT) skills had to be learnt very quickly. Since higher education can no longer be seen as a sequestered academe, universities cannot remain isolated from social change, secure behind a brick cloister protecting intellectual exclusivity. Their physical and abstract walls have been breached, so that it is now impossible to draw the old borderlines between universities and other providers of learning. These changes are caused by social-economic shifts and by the new digital technologies, which have also opened many gateways. Higher education (HE) has become borderless in several ways:
Universities' formerly special knowledge is now provided by others.
Their activities are being made ever more transparent and accountable.
Students and teachers have access to one another without constraints of space or time.
