[ Here's the NYTimes article referred to in the Steve Gilbert posting ]
May 27, 1998
By PAMELA MENDELS
Report Examines How Technology
May Change Higher Education
Curse them or love them, health maintenance organizations have become a
way of life in medicine over the last decade. Introduced as a way of
controlling costs for insurance companies, HMO's have dramatically
transformed the way doctors deliver health care and patients receive it --
all in the name of market efficiency.
Now, according to a new report, college and university officials should
begin bracing for a similar trend in higher education, as business people,
spurred in part by the availability of new online teaching technologies,
start eyeing a potential market in learning.
Critics say this is largely corporate-sponsored hype that could encourage
acceptance of what they consider a misguided notion: that virtual classes
are just as good as the real thing.
But college and university officials are clearly concerned that there may
be changes on the horizon -- and that they need to respond. Exhibit "A"
is a recently released report, "The Transformation of Higher Education in
the Digital Age," prepared by Coopers & Lybrand, the accounting and
consulting firm that has a large practice advising college and university
administrators.
The report is a white paper based on a discussion that occurred among
about 35 people assembled by the firm for a frank, two-day conversation
last summer. Jillinda J. Kidwell, a partner in the firm's higher-education
consulting practice, said most of the participants, among them university
presidents and chancellors, were representatives of what she described as
major research institutions, both public and private. Kidwell declined to
name them, because she said participants had been promised anonymity in
order to keep the discussion open.
What they had in common was their concern about three trends.
* The first is a predicted boom in the number of students seeking higher
education, both the traditional 18-to-24-year-old campus crowd as well as
an emerging population of older adults. The first group is expected to
grow about 16 percent between 1995 and 2007, according to the U.S.
Department of Education, as the "echo boomers," a large contingent of the
children of baby boomers, hit college age. The second group -- about 50
million strong in 1995 -- is made up in large part of those who believe
"lifelong learning" has become a necessity to keep up with the swift pace
of change in the job market. And both groups, the report says, are made up
of "technologically sophisticated consumers who expect services that are
as user-friendly, accessible, and convenient as Automatic Teller
Machines."
* The second trend is the rise of for-profit educational institutions,
such as the University of Phoenix, a certificate- and degree-granting
program for working adults that has about 48,000 students. Although most
of the enterprises are aimed at the non-campus crowd, university officials
believe they are already competing with community college programs, could
eventually compete with university extension programs and, somewhere down
the road, could use what they have learned to compete in the traditional,
four-year undergraduate arena, Kidwell said.
* Finally, there is the development of technology. The Internet and good
software could make it possible -- for the for-profits and the traditional
universities, if they wish -- to distribute courses widely, replacing the
need for "bricks and mortar" classrooms and, indeed, some professors.
"The very structure of higher education is poised for change," the report
asserts, noting that academia could follow the path of restructuring that
has taken place in health care. Among the roundtable's recommendations are
that university officials collaborate with other academic institutions as
well as businesses to develop online and other new types of instruction.
For some in the university community, however, the trends are not as
earth-shattering as they appear, and hardly point to a need for more
virtual instruction on campus.
David F. Noble, a history professor at York University in Toronto, author
of an article called "Digital Diploma Mills," and the organizer of a
recent conference critiquing efforts to inject more technology into
traditional higher education, has little objection to "distance learning"
for those who really have problems travelling to a campus -- mothers of
young children, say, or the disabled. But, he says, this type of learning
is still a second-best option. Good teaching, he says, involves more than
the distribution of information. It also requires a human touch, a knack,
possible only in live interaction, to do such things as inspire, spark
thought, sense confusion and find a new way to explain complex matters.
Furthermore, Noble discounts what he calls "the myth of the cyber-happy
student" who would be just as contented to type in a chat room as converse
around a seminar table. And, he says, fears about competition from
for-profit institutions are overblown, explaining that commercial
institutions appeal to a niche clientele, not to parents and students who
consider campus life an essential rite of passage.
Perhaps most important, Noble fears that much of the talk of transforming
higher education comes from those with a vested interest in change, namely
software and other companies that sense a lucrative market in online
instruction. Noble believes too much university commingling with
commercial interests could lead to education becoming just another
product, one governed by profit motives -- not how best to form a mind.
"If a course is being developed for sale, what we have is the content
being determined by the market, rather than the principles of pedagogy,"
he says. "What forces will shape the content of education: scholars or
some actor playing me?"
Kidwell grants that Noble has a "valid point" in saying that education is
not just another commodity, but says Noble could also be "putting his head
in the sand" if he ignores the sorts of forces that have dramatically
altered the shape of airlines, health care and numerous other enterprises
in recent years.
Few college and university administrators believe that the electronic
classroom will replace the real thing altogether, she adds. But, Kidwell
says, sometimes the real thing isn't so hot either.
"If you could substitute an online system with great teaching for some of
the mediocre teaching out there, maybe that's a great way to go," she
says.
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Coopers & Lybrand White Paper
-> http://consulting.us.coopers.com/clcsite/clcpress.nsf/ef404ae1aac513e7802564db007a9625/e8acd47cb83278cf852566010069af13?OpenDocument
University of Phoenix
-> http://www.uophx.edu/
York University
-> http://www.yorku.ca/
David Noble's "Digital Diploma Mills"
-> http://firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_1/noble/
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