In an increasingly digital world, what fate awaits higher education? Are we destined for a digital boon, or headed rapidly toward digital doom?
Ira Basen, 2012 CanWest Global Fellow in Media Studies, writes on the topic in advance of Digital Boon or Digital Doom?, a panel discussion scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 16 in North Campus Building, room 113. The event is sponsored by Basen and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies.
Basen, a longtime CBC Radio journalist, will moderate the panel comprised of professora Doug Mann, Western; Elizabeth Hanson, Queen’s University; Jonathan Schaeffer, University of Alberta; George Siemans, Athabasca University; and Luis von Ahn, Carnegie Mellon University.
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At the University of Wisconsin, where I attended graduate school in the late 1970s, there was a renowned professor of European history named Harvey Goldberg. He was a mesmerizing figure on a lecture hall stage, an explosion of passion and raw energy. He moved constantly, used no notes, showed no slides, hardly seemed to pause for a breath, but he never stumbled, never lost his way.
About 600 people would regularly attend Goldberg’s hour-long lecture. Few of them were actually registered for the course. The rest of us came for the performance, for the way he forced us to think, and for the thrill of watching a great mind in full flight.
For me, this was the essence of the university experience; to be inspired, provoked and challenged by remarkable teachers, and to be part of a community of scholars. For hundreds of years, this has been the magic at the core of the university’s appeal.
But fundamental change is now underway. In the words of Stanford University President John Hennessey, “There’s a tsunami coming in higher education.” The digital revolution that over the past few years has radically disrupted journalism, publishing, music and countless other industries is now setting its sights on higher education.
Will the future of the university lie in bricks or clicks?
The signs of change are everywhere. In Ontario, a recent report by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities called for a significant increase in the number of online courses offered by the province’s colleges and universities, in order to make Ontario a leader in “world-class, technology enabled flexible learning.”
At Western, and on campuses across North America, there is intense debate about whether courses that have traditionally been taught in classrooms should now be moved online. The Ontario government report argues online learning increases access to higher education by making courses available to people who, for reasons of work, family, money or location, don’t have the privilege of on-campus learning.
And it’s hard to argue with that.
But at what cost?
Critics like University of Alberta President Indira Samarasekera describe online learning as a useful “information-delivery system,” but that should not be confused with getting an education. The question we should be asking, she argues, is how do you create individuals with that global mindset, critical-thinking skills, creativity and language capabilities? She is skeptical whether that definition of education can be realized through online courses.
In the halls of academe there is also concern the push for more online courses is a thinly veiled effort at cost-cutting by governments and university administrations, and reflects an agenda designed to de-value the arts and humanities in favour of technology – and math-focused courses that are more in demand by industry.
But the disruption caused by the digital revolution in higher education involves more than just traditional universities choosing to move courses online. There’s a new game in town. The past year has seen an explosive growth in massive open online courses (MOOCs). Millions of people around the world have signed up to take these free courses offered by some of the leading universities in the world, including two Canadian schools, the University of Toronto and University of British Columbia.
They have become partners in Coursera, a company started by two Stanford professors offering more than 100 courses and attracting more than two million students worldwide. Enrollment is unlimited, meaning a typical course might have tens of thousands of students sign up, although the vast majority do not finish.
Anant Agarawal, the president of EdX, another MOOC start-up, modestly describes MOOCs as “the single biggest change in education since the printing press.”
The appeal of MOOCs is obvious – no tuition, no need to show up on campus and the flexibility to work at your own pace. The downside is if you complete the course you get nothing very useful in return – no degree, no diploma, nothing you can take to a prospective employer to prove that you have mastered the course material.
Not surprisingly, MOOCs are very controversial within the academy. The implicit assumption amongst many faculty and administrators has long been that there is something so special and unique about the on-campus experience that nothing can really take its place. And that is still probably true.
But for many students, faced with rapidly rising costs, over-crowded classes and more and more courses taught by under-paid contract instructors, life on campus is not the thrill it used to be.
There has also been an assumption that face-to-face contact between teacher and student, whether in a large lecture hall or a small discussion group, is the most effective way of learning. For many academics, the notion it would be possible to provide a meaningful educational experience for tens of thousands of students is absurd. Indeed, many believe that is true of all online learning.
In an op-ed published in the New York Times last summer, Mark Edmunson, an English professor at the University of Virginia, argued “in real courses the students and teachers come together and create an immediate and vital community of learning. A real course creates intellectual joy, at least in some. I don’t think an Internet course ever will.”
The one thing we know for sure is that the debate over online learning has only just begun. The ‘tsunami’ in higher education is only now hitting the shore. Most people agree that university education needs to become more accessible and affordable, which is why the number of courses offered online, the number of online-only universities and the number of people signing up for MOOCs will continue to grow.
But this will result in enormous pedagogical challenges.
Not all online learning is created equal. What do we really know about how students learn? More fundamentally, it will lead to some very important questions about the role universities play, and whose interests they serve?
