Abstract
Previous scholarship on the use of digital tools in higher education contexts has focused on student success and how instructors use digital tools in the classroom. This case study examines the English department’s job search committee at Sacramento State as a workplace study. The two research questions that drive this search are: How does the search committee use digital tools and how do the texts used in the hiring process transform the committee and the committee transform the texts? This study uses Activity Theory to examine how the individuals and the tasks they perform transform over time to help them accomplish their tasks. I found three areas of tension. The first area of tension is seen in the constitution of the committee and how it impacted how digital tools were chosen. The second area of tension is the use of the file-sharing system in Microsoft OneDrive.
The third area of tension was found between the hiring experts and the job search committee as they customized the job ad template. Based on the findings, some recommendations have been suggested to be taken up at the individual and committee levels for all collaborators to share information better during the recruitment process.