Institutional Governance of Dingtalk and Students’ Management of Their Independent Study in an Economics and Business University in China

JUNHUI ZHAO

Institutional Governance of Dingtalk and Students’ Management of Their Independent Study in an Economics and Business University in China

Author(s)	Dr. JUNHUI ZHAO
Country	Philippines
Abstract	In the context of rapidly digitalized higher education in China, enterprise platforms such as Alibaba’s Ding Talk have transitioned from emergency remote-teaching tools into core infrastructures for institutional governance. While centralized digital governance aims to standardize workflows and ensure quality assurance, its pervasive datafication—exemplified by automated check-ins, read-receipts, and continuous monitoring—often collides with the pedagogical requirements of student autonomy in self-regulated, independent study. Grounded in the Critical Platform Gaze in Education framework, this study investigates the tension between top-down platform governance and student agency within a Chinese economics and business university. Employing a descriptive-comparative-correlational design, the study surveyed teacher-respondents from Hebei University of Economics and Business to assess (1) the institutional governance of Ding Talk across six dimensions—administrative approval workflows, organizational communication hierarchy, read-receipt accountability, data-driven decision making, workplace surveillance, and home-school boundaries; and (2) students’ management of independent study across five indicators—resource utilization metrics, asynchronous task consistency, proactive peer collaboration, time-management behaviors, and help-seeking patterns. Descriptive statistics, One-Way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation were used to analyze demographic variations and variable relationships, with hypotheses tested at p < 0.05. Findings are expected to reveal the extent to which rigid institutional configurations on Ding Talk either scaffold or constrain authentic self-regulated learning. The study culminates in a proposed Institutional Digital Literacy & Self-Regulation Program designed to help administrators balance accountability with learner autonomy. By transforming administrative data from an instrument of surveillance into a mirror for metacognitive reflection, the research offers evidence-based guidelines for configuring educational platforms that support deep, autonomous learning while maintaining institutional order. The results contribute localized empirical data to the broader discourse on digital education governance in East Asian higher education.
Keywords	Institutional Governance; Ding Talk; Independent Study; Self-Regulated Learning; Educational Platform Governance; Higher Education; Digital Surveillance; Teacher Perceptions; China
Field	Sociology > Education
Published In	Volume 17, Issue 3, July-September 2026
Published On	2026-08-30

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Institutional Governance of Dingtalk and Students’ Management of Their Independent Study in an Economics and Business University in China

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