THE ROLE OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN ACADEMIC CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The paper examines the potentials of emerging technologies (ETs) in academic career development. Technology has become an important tool for education and career advancement. With the advancement of technology, digital tools and platforms have become increasingly prevalent in education, offering various opportunities for academic professionals to enhance their careers. The emergence of digital technologies such as Artificial intelligence, social networks, Machine learning, videoconferencing tools and electronic databases have broadened the opportunities for teachers and students to advance their career prospects and research activities. Data were sourced from systematic review of publications from various notable databases that relates to use of emerging technologies in academic career advancement including; Scopus, Web of science, Google scholar, and Researchgate. Our findings from the reviews  indicates that emerging technologies have broken distance or physical presence barriers that often limit access to training and other career development activities. Thus, there are now limitless access to instructional materials, academic resources and platforms that can be leveraged upon to advance academic career development at any time and place. The evidence from the reviews also shows that emerging technologies have the potential to greatly impact academic career development in various ways such as: research publication, electronic/distance learning, virtual training, collaborations, meetings, mentoring, and other professional development programmes. However, digital gap, poor digital literacy, ethical issues, and lack of supportive infrastructures such as quality internet and constant power supply remains a challenge to the use of emerging technologies for academic career development in Nigeria especially in rural areas. The paper concludes that emerging technologies has become a Catalyst for Academic Career Progression.