An interview with the authors of a new book:

Knapp, J. and Siegel, D. (2009) The Business of Higher Education Santa Barbara CA: Praeger

The book appears to raise some important issues about cost-effectiveness and what lessons may (or may not) be learned from business. [...]]]> Lederman, D. (2009) The business of higher education Inside Higher Education, December 2

An interview with the authors of a new book:

Knapp, J. and Siegel, D. (2009) The Business of Higher Education Santa Barbara CA: Praeger

The book appears to raise some important issues about cost-effectiveness and what lessons may (or may not) be learned from business. However, be warned: it costs over $185, so maybe the publishers need a lesson on supply and demand.

This is an example of how IT can increase cost-effectiveness, this time mainly on the administrative side. Many two year colleges in the same state or province use Banner or a similar common system as their major student information management and [...]]]> Briggs, L. (2009) Massive IT overhaul helps Ivy Tech handle growth Campus Technology, October 29

This is an example of how IT can increase cost-effectiveness, this time mainly on the administrative side. Many two year colleges in the same state or province use Banner or a similar common system as their major student information management and financial system, yet every institution makes its own contract with the vendor and pays for its own installation and adaptation.

Ivy Tech is a collection of two year colleges in Indiana, and has the advantage of a centralised board of governors. This has enabled a complete overhaul of not just the software but more importantly, their business processes. Standardising the way the colleges do their administration has enabled the system to handle a 45 per cent increase in enrollments without having to increase tuition fees.

However, they still needed to spend $35 million on the overhaul. I wonder what the cost would have been if they had used an open source system such as Kuali.

This is the last in a series of ten blogs on the topic: ‘Is e-learning failing in higher education?’ My blogs on this topic were prompted by my dissatisfaction with the Canadian Council on Learning’s report on ‘The State of e-Learning in Canada.’ (Click here to see my review of their report.)

I suggested that in [...]]]> Background

This is the last in a series of ten blogs on the topic: ‘Is e-learning failing in higher education?’ My blogs on this topic were prompted by my dissatisfaction with the Canadian Council on Learning’s report on ‘The State of e-Learning in Canada.’ (Click here to see my review of their report.)

I suggested that in order to assess the success or otherwise of e-learning, we should lay out our expectations, then check the current status against each expectation. This resulted in the following previous blogs:

• Is e-learning failing in higher education? Posted June 16, 2009
• Expectations and goals for e-learning Posted June 18, 2009
• Has e-learning increased access to learning opportunities? Posted June 19, 2009
• Does technology really enhance the quality of learning? Posted June 22, 2009
• e-Learning and 21st century skills and competences Posted June 24, 2009
• It’s all about millennials – or is it? Posted on September 10, 2009
• Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 1 (the challenge for modern universities) Posted October 10, 2009
• Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 2 (a vision for the future) Posted October 14, 2009
• Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 3 (barriers to change) Posted October 26, 2009

In this last blog on this topic, I will try to summarise the main points of my argument, the gist of which is that e-learning has been successful in some ways, but not sufficiently to lead to the changes needed on the higher education system. Overall, it gets a fail grade.

The purpose of the exercise

Basically, I’ve been trying to do the job that the Canadian Council on Learning ducked in its report: to examine why, despite widespread adoption of information and communications technologies, there has been no systemic change in our post-secondary institutions, what could be done to encourage systemic innovation and change, and how to achieve measurable benefits from e-learning through systemic change.

Why are we doing it?

In the blogs, I set out a number of goals or rationales for using technology for teaching and learning in post-secondary education. I argued that although different stakeholders will have different goals and priorities, no-one should embark on e-learning without being clear about why they are doing it, and then being clear about what would count as success, and how they would know it was a success or otherwise. Far too often, though, instructors and institutions drift into e-learning without any clear goals or strategies for success. The up-front investment, in both money and time, is too great for this to be a casual exercise.

Priorities for e-learning

I ranked my priorities for e-learning as following:

1. to improve the cost-effectiveness of the post-secondary education system.

I argued that the cost-effectiveness of the system must be improved. This is because the changing needs of a rapidly growing knowledge-based economy has required (or resulted in) a massive expansion of post-secondary education systems in economically advanced countries. Consequently, the conflicting pressures for increased access, higher quality, and controlling costs require us to consider radical changes to the way post-secondary education is provided.

The increased use of technology offers one possibility to improve cost-effectiveness, but not on its own. It must be accompanied by major structural changes in both the design and delivery of teaching, and the re-organization of the institution.

However, I also argued that currently, we are failing to use e-learning to improve the cost-effectiveness of the system. Currently we are merely adding cost to the system, without any clear, measurable benefits. This is because there are deeply embedded structural barriers, and a complete lack of incentive, to improving the cost-effectiveness of higher education. So it is not so much that e-learning has failed higher education on this rationale, but more that those within the system neither accept the need for radical change, nor see technology as an essential component of such change.

Thus the rationale for using e-learning to improve the cost-effectiveness of the post-secondary education system is unlikely to be successfully achieved until the system is nearing collapse, or until some remarkable leadership emerges at the highest political level. So it might be more accurate to say that on this rationale or goal, the higher education system is failing to use e-learning to its full potential, rather than e-learning is failing in higher education. So: an F grade on this goal.

2. To develop the skills and competencies needed in the 21st century

My second priority for e-learning focuses on ensuring that learners have the skills such as digital literacy, initiative, flexibility, problem solving and independent learning, needed in their discipline, profession or career in the 21st century. This is an easier ’sell’ to those working within the system than the first priority. Most academics are aware of the increasing importance of digital technology within their subject discipline. Information technology is no longer just a useful tool that supports university and college administration and to a lesser extent teaching and learning; rather it is now an integral and essential component of almost all core higher education activities, and as such needs to be used, managed and organised accordingly.

However, I also pointed out that using technology for teaching is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for developing the knowledge and skills needed in the 21st century. It has to be accompanied by curriculum reform (the content), by changes in teaching methods that facilitate the development of 21st century skills, and by changes in assessment that focuses on measuring such skills. More and more instructors are successfully working towards embedding digital literacy skills within their teaching, but there is still too little focus on the broader 21st century skills that teaching with technology can facilitate.

Thus while I would not say e-learning is entirely failing on this goal, many instructors and institutions still have a long way to go before we can start counting this goal as being universally achieved. So: a C- on this goal.

3. To increase access to learning opportunities/increase flexibility for students.

There is strong evidence that e-learning is partially succeeding in this goal. We have seen that enrolment in online courses is increasing far more rapidly than enrolment in campus-based courses, and there are indications that demand for online learning far exceeds the supply, at least in North America. There is also evidence that the trend towards more online learning will intensify over the next five years. (See Allen and Seaman, 2008; Ambient Insight Research, 2009)

The reason for this has as much to do with the changing nature of the student demographic in North America as it has to do with the greater effectiveness of online learning (although there is some evidence for this as well – see Means et al, 2009). Because of increases in tuition fees (inevitable given the increased access to higher education and reluctance to increase taxes to pay for this), more and more students are working at least part-time to pay for their initial undergraduate and graduate education. Furthermore, because of the demands of knowledge-based occupations such as health, telecommunications and computer software engineering, there is increasing demand from lifelong learners to return for post-graduate studies and continuing education. Thus more and more students are combining work, family and study. Online learning provides the flexibility that such students need.

Note though that this is primarily a phenomenon of economically advanced countries. E-learning does nothing to reduce the digital divide. If anything it exacerbates it. Thus e-learning may be increasing for on-campus  students who are already accepted for higher education within developing countries, and where the institution can cover the costs of on-campus access to computers and Internet infrastructure, but it is still difficult or impossible for the vast majority of those excluded from formal education to access online opportunities. Either the technology access is unavailable or prohibitively expensive, in such countries. Even where technology is available on campuses in many developing countries, the applications of e-learning are limited to supporting a transmissive model of classroom teaching.

Yet e-learning is indeed essential for such countries if they are to develop better paying jobs, indigenous businesses, and to achieve the globalization benefits of the Internet. Only in this way can such countries break free of the tyranny of single crop economies, lowest cost labour, and dependency on foreign investment.

So I would give a B or B+ for most economically advanced countries on this goal, and a C- or worse for developing countries, although some institutions in countries such as South Africa, India, China and Mexico would definitely get a B for effort.

4. Enhancing the quality of learning

In a comment to my original blog, Ros Woodhouse defined quality as ‘teaching that facilitates deep and transformative learning.’ This is a definition I like very much.

These uses of technology to enhance quality include:

• course outlines, lecture notes, clickers, lecture capture, links to external resources
• e-mail contact with students, online discussions, assessment questions, collaborative project-work
• usually, but not always, learning management systems such as Blackboard or Moodle to organise the online learning materials
• no reduction in regular (face-to-face) class time.

My belief is that this is still the most prevalent use of information and communications technology in post-secondary education, although fully online courses continue to expand rapidly, and hybrid courses continue to expand more slowly.

However, I do not consider using technology to enhance classroom teaching as an appropriate goal for e-learning. You cannot justify the high investment in technology if it is merely added on as an enhancement to what we already do. We are merely increasing costs without any measurable benefits. This use of technology does not address the need to change a teaching model that poorly serves mass higher education. Nor does it make the best use of technology in terms of fully exploiting the educational ‘affordances’ that technology can offer. We are using a donkey to pull a rocket in this way. Where we use technology only for this purpose, I would give it a D: maybe some improvement in quality, but not easy to identify or measure, and maybe just as achievable without the extra cost of technology.

5. Serving the needs of millennials

This rationale or goal suggests that millennial students will learn better through e-learning because it fits their experience and ways of behaving. it is important for instructors to take into account the needs of all learners they are dealing with. Young people see technology much the same way they see air and water – part of everyday life. It is natural then that they will see technology as a ‘normal’ component of teaching and learning.

However, there is a danger in stereotyping. Not all ‘millennials’ behave the same way or have a total immersion in technology. Nor are all students these days millennials. An increasing number of students are ‘pre-millennial’, being older and returning to study or entering post-secondary education later in life. Lastly, there are some inherent requirements in education – such as a disciplined approach to study, critical thinking, evidence-based argumentation, for example – that cannot or should not be abandoned because they do not fit a particular student’s preferred learning style.

All our students should be engaged and challenged, stimulated by learning, and find the joy and excitement of discovery, not just millennials.  Intelligent use of technology can help, certainly, but it is not sufficient on its own; it needs to be harnessed to effective teaching strategies, such as collaborative learning, problem- and project-based teaching, and enabling students to take responsibility for their own learning.

However, in terms of using technology to engage our students, there is continuing evidence that students think instructors are not doing well with technology. For instance, a recent report (CDW-G, 2009) found that:

• Students rate faculty lack of tech knowledge as the biggest obstacle to classroom technology integration and see it as a growing problem
• Just 32% of students and 22% of faculty strongly agree that their college/university is preparing students to successfully use technology when they enter the workforce.

It is not so much a fact then that we are not serving millennials well in our use of technology – we are failing all our students.

Conclusions

This is not a good score card: out of five goals for e-learning, we have three fail grades, one C- (for developing 21st century skills and competences), and one B (for increasing flexible access). As they say, could do much better.

This is probably an overly pessimistic rating. There are many individual instructors and institutions doing  a much better job. We need much better data to be confident in any rating of the success of e-learning. What though is clearly lacking is ambition, imagination and a will for radical change across the system as a whole.

So some questions for the readers of this blog:

1. Do you agree with this overall rating? If not, why not?
2. Have I set the standard too high?
3. Do I have the right goals or criteria against which e-learning should be judged?
4. Lastly, if you do agree with the ratings, what should be done to improve them?

Over to you!

References

Allen, I. E. and Seaman, J. (2008) Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008 Needham MA: Sloan Consortium

Ambient Insight Research (2009) US Self-paced e-Learning Market Monroe WA: Ambient Insight Research

CDW-G (2009) The 2009 21st-Century Campus Report: Defining the Vision Vernon Hills IL: CDW-G

Means, B. et al. (2009) Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies Washington, DC: US Department of Education

In an earlier post (Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 1), I argued that higher education institutions were suffering systemic problems trying to deal with the challenge of increasing access, increasing or even maintaining quality, and lowering costs, despite extensive use of ICTs.

In the second post in this [...]]]> The story so far

In an earlier post (Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 1), I argued that higher education institutions were suffering systemic problems trying to deal with the challenge of increasing access, increasing or even maintaining quality, and lowering costs, despite extensive use of ICTs.

In the second post in this series (A vision for the future: Using technology to improve the cost-effectiveness of the academy: Part 2) , I argued that we needed new visions for the university that tried to deal with the challenge by making more cost-effective use of ICTs, but also, more importantly, requiring major cultural and organizational changes, and I offered my own alternative vision for the university in the future. At the end of this post, I suggested that these changes are nevertheless unlikely to occur, despite the challenge. In this post, I will explore the systemic barriers to change.

Satisfaction with the basic traditional university model

Despite lots of usually justified grumbling by faculty about overwork, too large classes, and increasing amounts of time spent on bureaucratic form-filling for accountability exercises, the basic model of teaching through classrooms on campuses with fixed schedules and timetables is generally accepted as the ‘best’ one. All that is needed is more resources for more professors and smaller classes. However, for most post-secondary institutions in even the most economically advanced countries, we have seen that this is not going to happen.

The status of the Ivy league universities

The closest to the ideal model for the majority of academics, students and the public are the traditional Ivy league universities: Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, etc. Of course, these offer in the main first class university education. Students have relatively close contact with the ‘best minds’, have small classes and excellent facilities. More importantly access to these universities opens doors to top quality jobs and influential social and cultural networks. It would be madness for these institutions to change radically. They have a largely unassailable competitive advantage. They are well funded, have enormous student demand for places, and great prestige with governments and the public alike.

The problem though is that too many other institutions wish to aspire to this model. The importance paid to university rankings and mission statements such as ‘to be one of the 100 top universities in the world’ are symptoms of this aspiration. The Ivy League institutions are by definition elite institutions. It is not a model that can be economically reproduced in very large numbers, and certainly is not a model that can be reproduced with the kind of resources most public institutions are likely to access. It is with these less well-funded public institutions where the real problem lies. They cannot serve large numbers well by using a watered down version of traditional teaching. As a result, many students are getting a poor deal.

The solution then is not to abolish the still valuable if elite and socially divisive Ivy League universities, but to find models that better serve the vast majority of university and college students. This though is a challenge if such institutions try to ape – and ape badly – the Ivy League institutions.

Governance

Coming more specifically to using information and communications technologies to improve the cost-effectiveness of universities. the governance system of universities militates against major change. For good reasons, in most economically advanced countries, universities are relatively independent of government. Basically the attitude of universities to government is ‘Throw the money over the wall and go away.’ Governments in some countries have responded to this by demanding greater accountability (e.g. the Spellings Commission in the USA, the Quality Assurance Agency in the UK, and Degree Quality Assurance committees in Canada.) However, these agencies or commissions do not have the mandate to challenge the basic model – they just want to be sure that the existing model is running as well as possible.

Also, in the last 10-20 years, governments have by and large retreated from creating alternative models such as the open universities established in the 1970s and 80s. Where they have attempted to establish new models – such as the UK’s e-University – they have often been disasters. The policy in recent years, especially with regard to ICTs, is to hope that the integration of ICTs will lead to change within existing institutions. As we have seen, by and large this hope has largely been disappointed, in terms of major structural changes.

But the real hope for change has to come from within the more traditional, state-funded public universities, simply because that’s where he majority of university students will be found. Here again, though, internal governance is a major barrier to systemic change. Sangra (2008) found in an in-depth study of the governance of ICTs in five European universities that in general, the universities had weak governance structures for decision-making and implementation, and in particular lacked well-defined strategic directions or rationales, with regard to using ICTs for teaching.

One reason for this is that decision-making is deliberately dispersed in universities. The autonomy of the individual faculty member, and the view that senior academic administrators are there to serve the needs as much of the faculty as the students, means that it is difficult to make decisions for radical change. The demand has to come from the professors themselves, and we have seen that what they want is the traditional, elite model. There are then no real incentives for change, either internally or externally, and few power levers to bring about such change.

What can be done?

The success of open universities in the 1970s and 80s does suggest that governments acting with wisdom (don’t laugh) and determination can bring about significant change in the higher education system, and it is probably time to see some more experimentation with new ICT-based models at least sponsored or encouraged by government (although calling them ‘virtual’ universities is probably not going to be helpful.) What is really needed are some models deliberately designed around hybrid learning, to cater for lifelong learners, up-grading of workers in vocational, health and other knowledge based industries, and minority groups not well served by the existing system (such as First Nations in Canada), possibly on a private/public partnership funding model.

Governments do provide guidance and some incentives for change, mainly through increased funding to enable student numbers to increase, and on rare occasions, will direct that money be spent on innovation and change. One example was the government of British Columbia, which between 1994 and 1995, withheld a total of 3.5% of operating budgets over two years, which the institutions then had to bid for through projects that supported innovation and change. One outcome of this policy was the development of WebCT (later bought by Blackboard) at UBC. This development was directly funded from the innovation fund, and had a major impact on the uptake of online learning worldwide. Another example is the Open University of Portugal, which was given clear instructions by the Portuguese Minister of Education in 2006 to modernise or close down. As a result it moved all its print-based correspondence courses online within 18 months, after training all faculty members not only in technology but also in a constructivist pedagogical approach.

Also, it should be recognised that the for-profit sector in the USA and Malaysia especially has been successful in developing online universities, such as Wawasa Open University in Malaysia and Kaplan University, University of Phoenix Online, and Full Sail University in the the USA.

But the challenge is whether traditional, public universities can make radical changes internally. Without strong incentives, and more clearly defined governance structures, change is likely to be slow and piece-meal. The danger is that change never reaches a critical mass, and the system is locked into an inefficient traditional model of public mass higher education for ever, or at least until the public gives up, and turns it over to the private sector.

Conclusion

I believe that it will be possible for some state-funded public universities radically to innovate and change their structures and teaching methods, and become more efficient and effective, through the use of ICTs. This will happen though only if there are strong incentives, both externally, and internally. This will also require strong leadership committed to fundamental change. Above all, for universities to use ICTs more efficently and effectively, an overhaul of traditional governance structures will be required, to ensure faculty engage and buy into the need for change, and to provide the means for ensuring implementation and maintenance of change.

Because the issue of governance is so critical for improving the cost-effectiveness of universities through the use of ICTs, Albert Sangra and I are co-authoring a book on the governance of ICTs in the university, which is to be published by Jossey-Bass in 2010.

Reference

Sangra, A. (2008) The Integration of Information and Communication Technologies in the University: Models, Problems and Challenges (La Integració de les TICs a la Universitat: Models, Problemes i Reptes) Unpublished Ph.D., Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain (Original in Catalan: for an extensive English summary, click here).

In previous blogs, I have discussed whether e-learning is failing in higher education. To answer the question, I have examined the expectations or goals for e-learning, and whether they are being achieved.

Finally, I come to the last goal or expectation: that e-learning will increase the cost-effectiveness of higher education.  I [...]]]> Is e-learning failing in higher education?

In previous blogs, I have discussed whether e-learning is failing in higher education. To answer the question, I have examined the expectations or goals for e-learning, and whether they are being achieved.

Finally, I come to the last goal or expectation: that e-learning will increase the cost-effectiveness of higher education.  I will argue that this is the most important and valuable of all the goals for e-learning, but is the one that is furthest from being achieved.

Using e-learning to increase cost-effectiveness

To understand the rationale for this goal, it is necessary to look at the recent history of post-secondary education. It will be argued in this posting that universities and colleges have not changed their organizations and structures sufficiently to accommodate to the new realities facing higher education.

Information and communications technologies provide opportunities and potential for both improving the effectiveness, in terms of better qualified graduates and higher completion rates, and also for reducing unit costs, i.e. the cost of each graduating student. However, this cannot be done without major changes to post-secondary educational institutions.

In this posting, I will make the argument for radical change in the academy, in order to increase the cost-effectiveness of post-secondary education. In a second posting (Part 2), I will suggest some concrete ways in which cost-effectiveness could be improved.

The problem

Why do universities need to change? I think there are several compelling reasons.

From elite to mass higher education

Up until the middle of the 20th century, entrance to university in many countries was limited by and large to a small, elite minority of upper class or rich middle class students. As late as 1969, less than 8 per cent of 18 years olds (children born in 1951) were admitted to university in Britain (Perry, 1976). As a result, teaching methods in particular were suited to what today would be considered small classes, even at the undergraduate level, with seminar classes of 20 or less and even small group tutorials of three or four students with a senior research professor for students in their last year of an undergraduate program. This remains today the ‘ideal’ paradigm of university teaching for many professors and instructors.

In the USA and Canada, the move to a mass system of higher education began earlier, following the Second World War, when returning servicemen were given scholarships to attend university, and for the last half of the twentieth century, access to university and colleges was expanded rapidly. For a mix of social and economic reasons, from the 1960s onwards, governments in Europe also started again to expand rapidly the number of university places, so that by the end of the century, in many Western countries more than half the 19 year old cohort were admitted to some form of post-secondary education. (In 2006, 55% of Canadians between the ages of 25 and 34 had completed a post-secondary program of study – OECD, 2008.)

This represents a massive increase in numbers, and not surprisingly, governments, although spending ever more each year on post-secondary education, have not been able or willing to fund the staffing of universities and colleges at a level that would maintain the low class sizes common when access was limited. Thus in many North American universities, there are first and second year undergraduate courses with more than 1,000 students, taught mainly in large lecture classes, often by non-tenured instructors or even graduate students.  However, at the same time, undergraduate completion rates (that is, the proportion of students who enter a four-year degree program who go on to complete the degree program within six years) remain below 60 per cent in the USA for many public universities (Bowen, McPherson, and Chingos, 2009). In other words, universities are failing a significant number of students each year.

With this widening of access to post-secondary education, the diversity of students has increased immensely. The biggest change is in the number of older and part-time students (including students who are technically classified as full-time, but who are in fact also holding down part-time jobs to pay for tuition fees, books, and living expenses). The mean age of students in North American post-secondary education institutions now stands at 24 years old, but the spread of ages is much wider, with many students taking longer than the minimum time to graduate, or returning to study after graduation for further qualifications. Many are married with young families. For such students, academic study is a relatively small component of an extremely busy life style. By definition, many of the students who now attend university or college are not in the top ten per cent of academic achievers, and therefore are likely to need more support and assistance with learning. With the growth of international students, and increasing numbers of students who are either recent immigrants themselves, or children of immigrants, there are now wider differences in language and culture, which also influence the context of teaching and learning.

Lastly, in most economically advanced countries, the unit costs of higher education have steadily increased year over year, without any sign of abating. Between 1995 to 2005, average tuition and fees rose 51 percent at public four-year institutions and 30 percent at community colleges in the USA (Wellman, 2009; Johnson, 2009). The average cost per student per year in tertiary education (excluding R&D costs) in the USA in 2006 was just over $22,000 per student (OECD, 2009, p. 202). Thus although there are now many more post-secondary students, the average cost per student continues to increase, putting excessive pressure on government funding, tuition fees, and hence costs to parents and students. More disturbingly, these increases in overall costs have not been matched by similar proportions of spending on direct teaching and learning activities (such as increasing the number of faculty). Most of the increased costs have gone into other areas, such as administration, fund raising, and campus facilities (Wellman, 2009). Thus post-secondary education has become larger, more costly, but less efficient.

The predominant teaching model

Yet despite the larger classes, and the increasing heterogeneity of the student body, the predominant organizational model of teaching is the same today as in the nineteenth century.  It is no wonder then that unit costs are increasing. Modern universities and colleges still have many features of industrial organizations (Gilbert, 2005). For instance:

• Classes are organized at scheduled times in a fixed location on the assumption of full-time attendance.
• Students receive (at least within the same course) a ’standard’ or common product, in terms of curriculum (same lectures, same reading lists, etc. for each student in the course), delivered at the same time and place, irrespective of the needs of different kinds of students (full-time, part-time, working, following Henry Ford’s classic model-T car strategy: ‘you can have any colour you want, so long as it’s black’).
• To deal with large classes, another classic industrial strategy is used: hiring low-paid and less ‘qualified’ workers – adjuncts and graduate students – to take up the extra load.
• The institution is divided into departmental silos, with a hierarchical management structure of heads or directors of departments, deans and vice-presidents. Academic staff are also organized hierarchically: research student, post-doc, associate professor, full professor, departmental chair.
• The Spellings Commission in the USA (US Department of Education, 2006) even pushed (unsuccessfully) for standardized measurements of output, to allow comparison in ‘performance’ between institutions, reflecting a classic industrial mentality of ‘standardized’ products.

Program delivery

The ‘old’ university is built around the delivery of programs through campus ‘residence’, i.e. the physical attendance of students at lectures, seminars, libraries and labs. ICTs now though enable students to access information and services, including interaction with instructors and other students, at any time and any place. Programs can now be delivered in a variety of ways to an increasing wide variety of students, through face-to-face, blended or fully online learning.

Furthermore, instructors no longer have to create all their teaching material from scratch, and duplicate the process every year. They can increasing select ‘ready-made’ modules of free, open access online teaching materials, and organise teaching and learning around the vast resources now available over the Internet. Even better, as we shall see in the next section, they can give learners the freedom and responsibility to select the learning materials that they feel to be of interest and relevance.

Given the potential and benefits of digital learning, a radical re-thinking of the benefits and limitations of physical presence, related to the nature of the subject matter and the type of learner being targeted (e.g., high school leavers or lifelong learners, full-time or part-time students) is needed.

Teacher-centered teaching

The recent development of web 2.0 and mobile technology tools, such as blogs, YouTube, mobile phones and cameras, virtual worlds, and e-portfolios now enable learners to collect, create, transform, and adapt their own learning materials (Lee and McCoughlin, 2009). These tools can be used for collaborative learning, group work, projects, problem-solving, and creative thinking, all skills needed in a knowledge-based society.

These tools enable the role of the instructor to change from that of a provider and controller of knowledge, to one of facilitator and guide. Increased time spent by learners on active online tasks and peer collaboration is one way to deal with the massification of higher education, allowing for greater personalization of learning and increased motivation, while at the same time controlling the workload of the teacher. These tools allow work to be shifted from the teacher to the learner. Learners can spend more time on task, interacting both with digital content and with fellow students. However, for this approach to succeed, radical changes are needed to the standard mode of teaching.

Managing, administering and organizing the institution.

Universities and colleges are organized around the benefits and constraints of a physical campus. However information and communications technologies enable the institution to be managed, administered and organized quite differently. There are increasing moves to student self-service, through online admission, course registration, fee payment, and ordering and delivery of learning materials, not just to save money, but to provide more flexible and better service. Student, faculty and staff digital identities allow for single log-in and secure access to appropriate programs, services, and resources. New business intelligence tools allow for the distribution of information to faculty, staff and managers at all levels to better inform decision-making (Katz, 2008). Many universities and colleges are making moves in these directions, but they are more often piecemeal and uncoordinated, and are not driven by any new vision of the academy and how it should provide services.

The need for experimentation, innovation and vision

The challenge then is to square three competing factors: increasing access, increasing quality or improving outcomes, and reducing costs. Can technology provide the fourth side of the square?

Many universities and colleges will argue that they are experimenting, innovating and have vision with regard to the use of technology for teaching and administration, but what they are mainly doing is accommodating technology to the traditional model. Many professors and instructors are incorporating technology into their on-campus classroom teaching, and enrolments in fully online courses are growing rapidly. Nevertheless, both of these are a perpetuation of older models of teaching and learning.

Tierney and Hentschke (2007, pp. 13-14) argue that:

‘innovation in higher education has remained within a socially constructed framework where the innovators have tended to accept the parameters of traditional higher education and have worked within them…..As with all social constructions, deviations from these norms are relatively minor, in large part because those who participate in the construction have difficulties imagining ways much beyond the status quo….’

They argue that traditional universities and colleges seek ways to integrate new technology within the parameters of the traditional model, and look for changes at the margins, in a slow and incremental manner, that sustain the existing goals and values of the organization. Thus technology is being ‘accommodated’ to the prevailing model, not changing it.

What is lacking is a systematic, pedagogically-based approach that attempts to fit the design and delivery of courses and programs to the needs of an increasingly large and diverse student population. For instance, older, part-time workers are increasingly making up a large proportion of students, and this trend will increase further over the next ten years (see Hussar and Bailey, 2009). Many will not want to come on campus at all. But many professors see distance or adult students as ‘extra’ to normal teaching load. They already feel they have too many students to teach, and adding lifelong learners just makes matters worse.

I need not go into the argument made recently by Margaret Wente, a columnist in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, that professors have too light a teaching load (averaging around six hours a week). I happen to believe that the majority of university and college instructors (tenured or contracted) work very hard at teaching, when course and lesson preparation, student assessment, hiring and supervising adjunct faculty, and counselling students are all included. In research universities, teaching is supposed to count for no more than 40 per cent of their activities, and there are strong arguments to be made that good teaching and research reinforce each other in higher education. Time must be found for both. Thus professors are caught in a vicious cycle, and it is time to break out of that cycle. They do not need to work harder at teaching, but they do need to work smarter.

However, this cannot be done without major changes, without experimentation on a much larger scale than we have seen up to now – in other words, it cannot be done without disruption. Furthermore, these changes are needed, whether or not technology is the answer. So technology alone cannot improve cost-effectiveness; it needs to be linked to new visions for the university, to leadership, and to change management.

But I do believe technology can help, so in part 2 of this blog, to be posted in the next week or so, I will put forward some suggestions as to how technology could be used to increase the cost-effectiveness of universities and colleges. In the meantime, please use the comment box for your responses – or challenges – to this initial analysis.

References

Bowen, G., McPherson, M., and Chingos, M. (2009) Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities Princeton: Princeton University Press

Gilbert, J. (2005) Catching the Knowledge Wave: the Knowledge Society and the Future of Education Wellington, NZ: New Zealand Council for Educational Research

Hussar, W. and Bailey, T. (2009) Projections of education statistics to 2018 US Department of Education National Center for Educational Statistics: Washington DC

Johnson, N. (2009) What Does a College Degree Cost? Washington DC: Delta Cost Project

Katz, R. et al. (2008) The Tower and the Cloud: Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing Boulder CO: EDUCAUSE

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators 2008 (Paris: 2008).

Perry, W. (1976) Open University Milton Keynes, UK: The Open University Press

Spellings, M. (2006) A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education Washington DC: US Department of Education

Tierney, W. and Hentschke, G. (2007) New Players, Different Game: Understanding the Rise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press

Wellman, J. et al. (2009) Trends in College Spending Washington DC: Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability