ABSTRACT
The arrival of the “big data” revolution has presented social scientists with new challenges as to how best to understand it as a phenomenon, and which conceptual and methodological approaches we might use to research it. This chapter aims to extend our descriptions and theorizations of data and platforms with a particular emphasis on what can be revealed through comparing platforms. I introduce the platform as a new kind of organizational form, show the ubiquity of platforms in the higher education sector, and the ways in which they mediate a range of new forms of knowledge creation, their circulation, and their consumption in the higher education sector.
