Preparing for the Revolution Information Technology and the Future of the Research University (2002) / Chapter Skim
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3. Implications for the Research University
3. Implications for the Research University
Pages 21-44
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From page 21... ...
The reasoning behind such an extreme prediction is that although the university has survived earlier periods of technology-driven social change with its basic role and structure more or less intact, the changes being induced by information technology are different because they alter the funclamental relationship IMPLICATIONS FOR THE RESEARCH UNIVERSITY social fabric, disappear in a few Decades because of technology? Of course.
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From page 22... ...
Universities are also working together and with industry in the area of technology standards to enable the broader changes advocated in this report. However, experts within and outside academia observe that there is still a great deal of complacency in the research university, and that more intensive and structured communication at the national and campus levels is necessary.
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From page 23... ...
Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions, aims to stimulate an informed debate on the role of higher education in the new global society. It is particularly interested in the opportunities and dangers of a global market for higher education, and in the development of policies that ensure a skilled use of market forces to enhance opportunities while minimizing the associated risks.
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From page 24... ...
· ~ · · · ~ ~ ~ · · · · · ~ universities may be obliged to place a far greater emphasis on forming alliances that allow individual institutions not to try to be all things to all people but to focus instead on their unique strengths. Universities will have to function in a highly digital environment along with other organizations as almost every academic function will be affected, and sometimes displaced, by modern technology.
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From page 25... ...
Just because learning and teaching environments utilize information tech.nology does not mean that pedagogy and the substance of what is being taught are any less important. While many of today's "digital generation" of media-savvy students are open to new approaches, they will still need to think critically when engaging the materials they encounter, whether surfing the Web or scanning the library stacks.~3 Other students are less comfortable with information technology; indeed, some would see a threat in any challenge to the deeply engrained notion that "true learning" must occur in a traditional classroom environment.
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From page 26... ...
In other words, consistent with its early applications of other technologies, higher education tencled to use digital networks simply to repurpose the traditional lecture course for online access (Newman ant! Scurry, 2000~.
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From page 27... ...
Little wonder that there has been explosive activity in the commercial sector to create both the content and technology that support this enterprise. While the report points out that corporate and specialized professional training present the greatest growth prospects, it also notes the opportunities for companies that help universities expanc!
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From page 28... ...
Given the buying power of the target audience, 18to 25-year-olds with high income potential, the development could be underwritten by commercial sponsors. In a scenario that seems extreme today, large parts of the general undergraduate curriculum could join college football and basketball as commercialized edutainment, facing university leadership with challenges similar to those now being encountered with regard to sports (Duderstadt, 2000b)
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From page 29... ...
But even as the number of students, institutions, and commercia:l organizations participating In distance education grows, it is not clear which business models or structures will ultimately succeed. During the time that the panel was completing this study, several for-profit distance-eclucation subsidiaries launched by universities either went under or shower!
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From page 30... ...
. Clearly, the notion that distance education through the Internet would generate substantial revenues quickly and easily has been dispelled.
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From page 31... ...
. Recognizing that information technology is a crucial enabler of advances across a wide range of scientific and engineering fields, both new and established, the National Science Foundation is developing a Cyberinfrastructure Initiative to better integrate instruments, sensors, supercomputers, and high-speed communications networks (Trimble, 2001~.
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From page 32... ...
other issues have global implications. Given the intensely international nature of today's research, with growing collaboration across distance enabled by information technology, the way that the U.S.
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From page 33... ...
As with learning, new electronic media allow the formation of spontaneous communities of unacquainted users, linked together in the many-to-many topology of computer networks. Researchers can now follow the work in their specialization on a day-by-clay basis through web sites.
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From page 34... ...
are available online, and the need for universities to carefully manage heightened demand for access to some paper collections stimulatecl by electronic access. Scholarship is still characterized and constrained by the .` publication of research findings, though this system is fast getting competition as a result of new information technologies (Odlyzko, 20001.
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From page 35... ...
The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) , a contractlaw statute for software ctevelopec!
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From page 36... ...
He-es a new Some would argue that faculty members should be free to technology of the contract with outside organizations in developing instructional ~~ g~~i~uge Ho learningware; such activity is deemed analogous to scholars we re discussing authoring textbooks and retaining the royalties. Others maintain - discon~inui :~ puts that institutions have an ownership interest in such intellectual aUclitional stresses on property Could policies to restrict such activity be acceptable, the institutions or enforceable, in the highly competitive marketplace that exists —Marye Anne Fox, for leading faculty?
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From page 37... ...
This is a particular risk in the research university, where such activities are not currently an advantage in gaining tenure. The university faces a particular challenge not only in rewarding the creation of new learning environments but also in ensuring a technology-literate faculty in the first place.
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From page 38... ...
· ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 3u _ ~ · ~ ~ ~ e ~ ~ ~ ~ 0 ~ ~ e e ~ ~ ~ e ~ ~ ~ ~ e e e ~ ~ ~ IMPACT ON THE HIGHEREDUCATION ENTERPRISE Coupled with new societal needs ubiquitous adult education, for example—and economic realities such as erosion of public support (Hebel, 2001; Healy, 1999; Hebel, Schmidt and Selingo, 2001) , information technology is likely not only to PREPARING FOR THE REVOLUTION
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From page 39... ...
But they also have more expansive goals in mind. Having invested heavily in sophisticated instructional content, pedagogy, and assessment tools, these providers are well positioned to offer broader educational programs, both at the undergraduate level and in professional areas such as engineering and law.
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From page 40... ...
This could be a politically explosive issue for some of the state universities a~ they try to maintain and increase public support from state legislatures. Further, as a knowleclge-clriven economy becomes ever more dependent on new ideas and innovation, there will be growing pressures to commercialize the university's intellectual assetsits faculty and students, its capacity for basic and applied research, and the knowledge generated through its scholarship and instruction—which become ever more valuable (OIcott and Schmidt, 20001.
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From page 41... ...
a clesirable social environment that contributes substantially to student maturation and to growth into participative citizenship. Thus even though we must be mindful of market forces and willing to respond to them as creatively and substantially as possible, the panel believes that they should not be allowed to dominate and reshape the higher-e(lucation enterprise all by themselves.
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From page 42... ...
But a number of themes will almost certainly factor into the higher-eclucation enterprise. In a series of reports prepared Luring the latter half of the 1990s, the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and LandGrant Universities charted a future course for an important subset of America's research universities (Kellogg Commission, 20011.
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From page 43... ...
This may involve increased cooperation with other components of the higher-education system such as state universities ant! community colleges, which have long been accomplished providers of affordable education.
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