From echoes of the ocean to portable homes, seashells hold great importance for (non)humans after their original creators have moved on (Scales 2015). Conversely, the afterlives of digital learning objects — like course shells found within the virtual learning environment (VLE) — have been routinely overlooked. While postdigital scholarship has extensively researched the design and facilitation of digital education, there remains a notable gap regarding the materiality of a course after it ends. This contribution argues that a course shell, which refers to the space for a single course within a VLE and the materials and activity contained within it, embarks on as messy and complex a journey as teachers and learners themselves after course end (Bissell et al. 2025).

Accordingly, this contribution maps the processes, policies, and actors surrounding a course shell’s afterlife through a qualitative analysis of 40 university policy documents and interviews with six VLE administrators. By ‘following the actors,’ it identifies three environments and seven stages through which course shells pass on their afterlife journeys (Adams & Thompson 2016). It discusses the intermediary actors that influence decisions related to course retention and how current practices intersect with students’ and teachers’ learning journeys. It finds that intermediary interests, which prioritize the collection and storage of student data over continuity and community, complicate efforts to innovate within these platforms (Weller 2020).

Drawing inspiration from hermit crabs (Scales 2015) and rusted robots (Okorafor 2025), this contribution explores possibilities to reimagine the afterlife of digital course shells beyond informatics engineering (Macgilchrist 2023). To view course shells as ‘miniature, mobile ecosystems’ may shed light on alternatives that support learning communities in developing belonging and nurturing their own educational narratives (Gravett & Ajjawi 2022; Han 2024). The study concludes that the material end of a course is a worthwhile starting place for reconceptualizing how we design and orchestrate digital learning experiences in the VLE.

References

Adams, C., & Thompson, T.L. (2016). Researching a Posthuman World: Interviews with Digital Objects. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bissell, L., Lamb, J., & Overend, D. (2025). Postdigital Learning Journeys. Postdigital Science and Education 7, 327–335. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00539-y.

Gravett, K., & Ajjawi, R. (2022). Belonging as Situated Practice. Studies in Higher Education, 47(7), 1386-1396. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2021.1894118.

Han, B.-C. (2024). The Crisis of Narration. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Macgilchrist, F., Allert, H., Cerratto Pargman, T. et al. (2023). Designing Postdigital Futures: Which Designs? Whose Futures?. Postdigital Science and Education 6, 13–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00389-y

Okorafor, N. (2025). Death of the Author: A Novel. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Scales, H. (2015). Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells. Bloomsbury Sigma.

Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of Ed Tech. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.