Technology experts believe market factors will push universities to
expand online courses, create hybrid learning spaces, and move towards
lifelong learning models and different credential structures by 2020,
according to a new report. “But they disagree about how these whirlwind
forces will influence education, for the better or the worse.”
The views of experts were outlined in a 27 July survey titled The Future Impact of the Internet on Higher ducation, authored by Janna Quitney Anderson of Elon University, and Jan Lauren Boyles and Lee Rainie of the Pew Research Center.
The US-based Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon conducted a non-random,
opt-in online sample of 1,021 internet experts, technology researchers,
university directors, venture capitalists and Ivy League professors
recruited via e-mail invitation, Twitter or Facebook.
The report says a major driver of the debate about the future of the
university is its “beleaguered business model”, the ballooning cost of
higher education and student debt that is now upwards of US$1 trillion.
Some believe the sector is as susceptible to technological disruption as
other information-centric industries like the media, music and movies.
Future higher education scenarios
The survey results indicated a 60-40 split on the future of higher education, as described by two scenarios.
About 60% of experts agreed with a scenario of higher education that by 2020 will be “quite different from the way it is today.
“There will be mass adoption of teleconferencing and distance learning
to leverage expert resources. Significant numbers of learning activities
will move to individualised, just-in-time learning approaches. There
will be a transition to ‘hybrid’ classes that combine online learning
components with less frequent on-campus, in-person class meetings.
Most universities’ assessment of learning will take into account more
individually-oriented outcomes and capacities that are relevant to
subject mastery. Requirements for graduation will be significantly
shifted to customised outcomes.”
On the other hand, about 39% of experts agreed with a scenario that in
2020 higher education “will not be much different from the way it is
today.
“While people will be accessing more resources in classrooms through the
use of large screens, teleconferencing and personal wireless smart
devices, most universities will mostly require in-person, on-campus
attendance of students most of the time at courses featuring a lot of
traditional lectures. Most universities’ assessment of learning and
their requirements for graduation will be about the same as they are
now.”
Impact of future technology-mediated approaches
Some survey participants thought that the future educational structure
would tackle economic stress and educational divides. Online learning
and institutions are beginning to disrupt the higher education space,
hopefully making education more accessible and affordable in the long
run.
“Under current and foreseeable economic conditions, traditional
classroom instruction will become decreasingly viable financially,” Mike
Liebhold, senior researcher and distinguished fellow at the Institute
for the Future, wrote in the report.
“As high-speed networks become more widely accessible tele-education and hybrid instruction will become more widely employed.”
Experts also believe out-of-the-classroom learning will inspire
innovation that is lacking on campuses now. However, among the majority
of experts expecting much more dependence on online learning in higher
education in the future, many bemoaned it.
“They are worried over the adoption of technology-mediated approaches
that they fear will lack the personal, face-to-face touch they feel is
necessary for effective education,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew
Internet & American Life Project.
Predicted future trends and approaches
The report also pointed out some major themes and arguments that the
experts indicated about trends and approaches in higher education in the
future. These include the following:
- Higher education will vigorously adopt new teaching approaches,
propelled by opportunity and efficiency as well as student and parent
demands.
- Economic realities will drive technological innovation forward by 2020, creating less uniformity in higher education.
- ‘Distance learning’ is a divisive issue. It is viewed with
disdain by many who don’t see it as effective, while others anticipate
great advances in knowledge-sharing tools by 2020.
- ‘Bricks’ replaced by ‘clicks’? Some experts say universities’
influence could be altered as new technology options emerge; others say
‘locatedness’ is still vital for an optimal outcome.
- Frustration and doubt mark the prospect of change within the academy.
- Change is happening incrementally, but these adjustments will not be universal in most institutions by 2020.
- Universities will adopt new pedagogical approaches while retaining the core of traditional methods.
- Collaborative education with peer-to-peer learning will become
a bigger reality and will challenge the lecture format and focus on
‘learning how to learn’.
- Competency credentialing and certification are likely. Yet institutional barriers may prevent widespread degree customisation.
- Higher education lags in preparing young people for new kinds of futures in which they will have to learn how to learn.
- Some predict significant redefinition within higher education in a future packed with choices for knowledge acquisition
Responses to the report
University World News collected the thoughts of experts around the world on the trends and findings identified by the survey.
John Daly, a science and technology consultant and former director of
the office of research at USAID, pointed out that the study would
naturally have a pro-technology bias.
“The huge global system of higher education has a great deal of inertia
and the utilisation of e-learning actually taking place in the next
eight years will probably be less than predicted.”
Daly's opinion was echoed by Richard Gold, an expert in innovation,
patent law and policy, a law professor at Canada-based McGill University
and director of The Innovation Partnership.
“The participants all work on technology and internet issues and
therefore are both more aware of the potential of new technologies and
believe more strongly in their transformative capability than most
professors and university leaders."
A more representative sample from higher education might have produced
“quite interesting” results, he said. However, as a means of generating
discussion the survey was useful. “As I believe that this was the
primary purpose of the authors, they have done us a service.”
Asked for his views on higher education’s future, Daly said “There is a
trend towards standardisation that is making it easier to evaluate the
meaning of degrees and grades. There is a related trend towards greater
mobility of undergraduate and graduate students.”
Institutions “are being challenged to keep costs down, to keep higher
education relevant to changes in the job market, to keep faculties up to
date, and to adopt new technologies. While the best-managed of these
institutions will rise to the challenge, many will not. Students should
be wary.”
Also, the situation will be very different in different countries. “Rich
countries with established educational systems and declining youth
populations will have a different set of challenges to those faced by
China and India, and the poorest nations of the world will face still
different challenges with fewer resources,” Daly pointed out.
Gold was skeptical that universities would significantly change their
approach to teaching in the coming years, as they “are very slow to
change and do not respond to economic pressures in the same way or at
the same speed as industry.
“Most universities are somewhat or significantly decentralised, with
decision-making over course content and teaching made at the
departmental or faculty level.” Given this, Gold would expect some
departments – such as communications and media studies – “to experiment
more with new media while others do not.
“In particular, science, medicine and engineering faculties are unlikely
to be great adopters of these technologies – as they currently exist –
simply because access to equipment and laboratories is an essential
component of their core teaching. Even in the social sciences,
interpersonal interaction is a significant part of the educational
process and thus I would expect slow change.”
Where change is most likely to occur, Gold said, will be in outreach by
universities to the public. Already, universities offer courses online
for free, not as a substitute for traditional programmes but as a means
of educating the public and allowing people to participate in important
social and scientific discussions.
“While there will likely be some private, for-profit programmes
generated, my expectation is that online materials will be largely free
of charge and will be consumed on the basis of the reputation of the
institutions involved.”
Developing countries should be particularly careful before adopting
long-distance learning, said Gold, which is not a substitute for
on-campus learning. Networks of researchers and trust among them would
be key to building a critical mass of researchers.
“This is best accomplished through working together and learning with
one another in person. I would thus concentrate resources on building
campuses and shared facilities until at least there exists a critical
mass of researchers in the region.”
Kenyan scientist Calestous Juma, director of the science, technology and
globalisation project at Harvard University, said: “The future of
higher education is going to dominated by debates over the balance
between private and public sector support.
“Issues such as the privatisation of higher education and increases in
tuition [fees] are already being debated across the globe. Students
protests have taken place in countries such as the UK, Canada and Chile,
some of which have been violent.”
But two important trends are likely to exert an even bigger influence, Juma said.
The first is the pressure on universities to serve social and economic
needs more directly. The rise of the idea of the ‘entrepreneurial
university’ is an example. The second is uncertainty over impact of ICTs
on learning in general and universities in particular.
“The entry of Harvard and MIT into the open learning space is not an
episode but most likely an epochal adaptation to changing times.”
For the first time since the founding of Bologna University, higher
education institutions are being forced by external factors to become
fast learners. They will not thrive simply by migrating their offspring
to new regions; they will need new mutations that recombine DNA from
other institutional species such corporations and civic organisations.
“The good news is that universities are repositories of the social genes
needed for their own speculation. Many will innovate while others will
stagnate or founder. Others may go extinct as corporations start to
father their own universities.
“We will see a new age of the rebirth of the university with more direct social and economic missions,” Juma concluded.
