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The Web will dismember universities, just like newspapers.
Posted Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 4:09am
Students starting school this year may be part of the last generation for which “going to college” means packing up, getting a dorm room, and listening to tenured professors. Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet. The business model that sustained private U.S. colleges can’t survive.
The real force for change is the market: Online classes are just cheaper to produce. Community colleges and for-profit “education” entrepreneurs are already experimenting with dorm-free, commute-free options. Distance-learning technology has just hit its stride after years of glitchy videoconferences—and will keep improving. Innovators have yet to tap the potential of the aggregator to change the way students earn a degree—much like the news business in 1999. And as major universities offer some core courses online, we’ll see a cultural shift toward acceptance of what is still, in some circles, a “Phoenix U” joke.
It is hard to predict the precise pace of change—but it’s possible that within 15 years most college credits will come from classes taken online. In 2007, nearly 4 million students took at least one online course, and the numbers are growing. Within a generation, college will be a mostly virtual experience for the average student. The Ivies will be much less affected than the mid-tier and local schools. But colleges that depend on tuition, and have no special brand, will be hit hard. The recession will accelerate this trend, as students become warier of taking on loans, and state schools experiment after fund cuts. This doesn’t just mean a different way of learning: The funding of academic research, the culture of the academy, and the institution of tenure are all threatened.
Both newspapers and universities have traditionally relied on selling hard-to-come-by information. Newspapers touted advertising space next to breaking news, but now that advertisers find their customers on Craigslist and Cars.com, the main source of reporters’ pay is vanishing. Colleges also sell information, with a slightly different promise—a degree, a better job, access to brilliant minds and training in the art of thinking. As with newspapers, some of these features are now available elsewhere. You don’t need to be in the classroom to see a slide or find links to books about the controversy around “Le Dejeuner sur L’herbe,” and you don’t need to be in the room to ask questions about the classifications of staff in the basics of hotel management. A student can already access videotaped lectures, full courses, free articles, and openly available syllabi online—plus books that can be searched and borrowed from libraries around the world. The amount of structured information is already astounding, and in five or 10 years, the curious 18- (or 54)-year-old will be able to find dozens of quality online History of the Chinese Revolution classes, complete with video lectures, syllabi, take-it-yourself tests, a bulletin board populated by other “students,” and links to free academic literature.
But the demand for college isn’t just about the yearning to learn—it’s also motivated by the hope of getting a degree. Online qualifications cost a college less to provide. Schools don’t need to rent the space, and the glut of Ph.D. students means they can pay instructors a fraction of the salary for a tenured professor, ask the instructors to work from home, and assume that they will rely on shared syllabi instead of always developing their own. Those savings translate into cheaper tuition, and even before the recession, there was substantial evidence of unmet demand for cheaper college degrees. Of the students who drop out—and bear in mind that half of all students never graduate—many cite money as a major reason. Online degrees are relatively inexpensive. (The in-state online “undergraduate completion” degree offered by the University of East Carolina costs only $99 per credit hour.* That’s a base of $1,200/year). And the price will only dive in coming decades, as more universities compete, and entrepreneurial colleges remix online material and match it with online instruction by poorly paid graduate students and part-time instructors. Cost drives choice: A recent survey suggests that college cost is one of the top factors determining which schools students choose to attend.
You can already see significant innovation in online education in some community colleges and for-profit institutions. The community colleges are working with limited resources to maximize their offerings through internet aggregation. For-profit institutions appear to be capitalizing on the high demand for low-cost degrees and the fact that few public schools do much traditional marketing. (In researching this essay I signed up for a handful of online degree programs, and have been hounded for the past three months by college marketers trying to persuade me that I really want that engineering degree at Devry University. Monroe College, meanwhile, is well-known to New York City commuters thanks to glossy ads plastered to many subway cars.) These entrepreneurs are a little like the early online news-sharers—a blend of bloggers and listserv members, profit-seekers, tinkerers. Just like the new model of news separated “the article” from “the newspaper,” the new model of college also will separate “the class” from “the college.” Already, many degrees allow you to pay for each credit as you take it. Classes are increasingly taken credit-by-credit, instead of in bulk—just as news, once read in one sitting, is now read article-by-article.
Comments
It's only a matter of time
Good post. I totally agree that colleges and universities -- and maybe even college prep schools at some point -- will be more geared towards online learning than in-class sessions. I'm working with Pearson these days and they are doing some pretty cool stuff when it comes to online learning solutions. You and the folks in thread here might want to check out their webinar later this month. http://pearsonecollege.com/powering_online_learning/ At the end of the day, is there more value in being in the classroom and digesting content than there is being at home, watching a presentation on YouTube for example? It's all about the content. And regardless, students have to be motivated to want to digest that content. With the tech-focused group of kids in school these days, you'd imagine that there would be a high adoption of online learning. Then again, our society has been drilled with the perception that the college "experience" brings -- dorm life, parties, fun groups to join, athletics, etc. There will always be a need for the curb appeal and on-campus experience. However, I do think that online learning will revolutionize how colleges and universities deliver content to students. As the article pointed out, it's just a matter of time.
Online Teaching
I teach at a community college, and one of the reasons our admins support online classes is because space is limited. Some of our faculty and students like the flexibility. Indeed, I can see online teaching becoming a bigger presence in the educational market. For example, I can imagine a day when students will be able to take online classes offered by any public community college in their state as long as they are enrolled at a community college.
But I disagree with Mr. Teachout's basic premise, that the product of both newspapers and colleges/universities is information and thus online sources will kill the physical institution. The product of a college/university should be a well- rounded student well-versed in his or her major. Online classes are already a part of that, but they will never be the whole of it.
The new, new educational paradigm
By Patrick Aievoli, BS, MALS,
There is a change coming in the world of academic structure. With the current article in U.S. News and World Report (http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/k-12/2009/08/25/a-kindle-for-every-student.html) the world of textbook publishing and its usage in the classroom is going to change for good. The report goes on to say that the experience of learning will also be different and it should be because the user base (student) has changed. Now students of this new Generation-i are looking for a greater experience. The New York Times recently ran an article on a study that found that students learn greater with the advantage of the online experience (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-education-beats-the-classroom/).
I have been trying to say this for the last ten years. So instead of trying to convince my colleagues I went ahead and developed my own company and product line.
DigiEd Incorporated is an educational technology company that is focused on developing seven Web 2.0 products for the educational/literary community. The first in development is http://www.theCampusCenter.com
theCampusCenter.com is a multi-dimensional SaaS/Web delivered environment. It is a no cost, safe, customizable academic student portal that features eight different streams of revenue sharing for academic institutions; Content appropriate advertising revenue, Online viewbooks, Affiliate sales, Affinity sections, Content distribution, In text advertising, Micro site sponsorships and Market research.
Today we need to fund academia at all levels. Tuition has topped out, endowments have been hurt by the current fiscal crisis and fundraising is at a standstill. Educational institutions are in desperate need of new alternative revenue streams. We provide those streams at no cost to these institutions and alleviate some IT and LMS demands.
theCampusCenter.com affords those revenue streams through a simple model based on open source code and non-proprietary backend.
It has numerous uses. It acts as a social network that is major centric for students around the world. It has a research center that contains validated, peer-reviewed links that aid students in doing their research while also diminishing the time it takes to find relevant, qualified research. Students and faculty can also contribute research links by sending them to us.
There are class forums and study forums that can be customized for each class. We have portal capabilities that can also be customized to look and feel like any school.
You can do your research in our Research Center, add to MyLinks and then add to MyNotes. You can add audio and video clips to MyMedia. Once you’re finished collecting your data you can then create your paper in MyPapers – research notes, citations, links, audio, images, video, whatever you need and save it to your profile and send it via email to your professor.
We provide up to the minute news, sports, games, entertainment and RSS feeds. You can also chat with friends in MyChat or just check your Weather. We have a section for you to post your Resume and a Job Search area for you to find or post a job.
Also we have a full Amazon powered College Store for all your needs. Anything Amazon.com carries we have as well. And every time you order from our store it helps your school create donations, scholarships and much needed revenue to help keep costs in line with these tough economic times.
We reward students for using the site with a point system that is redeemable at many vendors and retailers. All this and it helps in revenue generation for the institutions that use it.
Please use the site and see how it can be customized it for your school or institution so they can start benefiting from the revenue sharing.
Everything is here for your daily needs as a student or faculty. It is just finding the right source that is usually tough. We make it easier, quicker and more reliable.
Search Less. Find More. – theCampusCenter.com
Patrick Aievoli, Founder – patrick@theCampuscenter.com
Additional Biblioraphy
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-education-beats-the-classroom/?ref=education
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/rethinking-how-colleges-present-themselves-on-the-web/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10301611-1.html?tag=mncol;mlt_related
http://www.nytimes.com/external/venturebeat/2009/08/20/20venturebeat-open-source-textbook-co-flat-world-goes-back-65624.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125055132349838441.html
http://infosherpas.com/ojs/index.php/openandlibraries/article/view/9/17
http://chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Faculty-Adopts/40447
http://www.keepmemaryland.umd.edu/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html?em
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/education/02college.html?ref=education
Bio
Patrick J. Aievoli
Prof. Aievoli is a full time faculty member at Long Island University, C. W. Post Campus and has been the Director of the Interactive Multimedia Arts graduate program since 1999. The program is constructed to be interdisciplinary in nature but focuses on the development of all new media art & design and technology. The IMA program (http://www.liu.edu/svpa) is entering its sixth year in Fall 2004. It's faculty boasts some of the NYC areas leading new media talent as well as in the digital video, audio and conceptual art domain.
Patrick has been a full time academic since 1989 when he left his position as Senior Designer, Print Promotion at the McGraw-Hill Book Company. In this capacity Patrick helped in the creation of McGraw-Hill's first CD-ROM "Encyclopedia of Science and Technology" in 1987.
Although a dedicated academic he is still involved in the new media arena and has consulted for some of the metro areas largest new media companies. Listed below is an abbreviated list of Prof. Aievoli’s educational vita, previous clients, speaking engagements, awards and new media affiliations.
Degrees
• Master of Arts in Liberal Studies – SUNY – Empire State College
Thesis - Use of New Media in Higher Education
Presentations
• Seybold Conferences 1996 - 2002,
• Society of Applied Learning Technologies
• CD-ROM Expo since 1994.
• Judge for KIP Top 100 Multimedia Producer Awards
• Acxiom Direct Media 1999
Awards
• HOW magazine award
• Long Island Advertising Club/Student Best On Long Island Award 2002,2003,2004,2006,2008,2009
Over 50 – Gold, Silver and Bronze awards
Professional Clients
• Tommy HilfigerUSA, NYNEX, McGraw-Hill, Olympus USA and American Express
Publications:
“on enterFrame”, Aievoli, Patrick, Whittier Publications, Oceanside, NY, 2008
“Supporting the Aesthetic through Metaphorical Thinking”, Aievoli, Patrick, Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, Lincoln, Nebraska, 2004
Chapter “Collision of Forces”, Aievoli, Patrick pg. 242 “Collide”, McNabb and Kremer, Kendall-Hunt, 2004
Blog
http://patrickaievoli.wordpress.com
Missing the Mark
Thank you to Al Kammerer, mike_in_new_mexico, lankywass and others. When I first read this article, I immediately knew that I disagreed with Mr. Teachout's assessment. The value of education is not so much in the facts that are learned as in the habits that are established, the dialogue that is engaged, the nurturing that occurs, the etiquette that is learned, the questions that are raised, the collaboration that develops. As a mother of five young adults, with only two left in college, I highly value the contributions that their professors made to my children's imaginations, thinking, dreams, questioning, character development and confidence.
I didn't send my children to college to learn a bunch of facts. I sent them to college to learn to think, question, discover, challenge. There is nothing in the learning process that can substitute for relationship. You can't teach creative problem solving in a virtual setting.
Yahoo U
Thank you to Al Kammerer, mike_in_new_mexico, lankywass and others. When I first read this article, I immediately knew that I disagreed with Mr. Teachout's assessment. The value of education is not so much in the facts that are learned as in the habits that are established, the dialogue that is engaged, the nurturing that occurs, the etiquette that is learned, the questions that are raised, the collaboration that develops. As a mother of five young adults, with only two left in college, I highly value the contributions that their professors made to my children's imaginations, thinking, dreams, questioning, character development and confidence.
I didn't send my children to college to learn a bunch of facts. I sent them to college to learn to think, question, discover, challenge. There is nothing in the learning process that can substitute for relationship. You can't teach creative problem solving in a virtual setting.
Prophecies of doom
I teach several online courses, and I think I can get through to the students, but the work it takes online versus just meeting with students face to face is daunting. It's easier to just give assignments and mark a few perfunctory comments (nice job, nice structure, interesting concept) than to deal with the students' thoughts extensively. Even the on-line discussion boards routinely fail to engage the kind of give and take that can evolve in a classroom.
The Sufis have been educating people for thousands of years with a system of critical thinking mixed with intuitive thinking exercises that develop higher capacities in those who are capable of learning. One of their key concepts is called "baraka." Baraka builds up in buildings such as libraries, university rooms, churches, and like public places such as tombs where inspirational learning has taken place over the years. It's a mystical concept, but there is some research that backs up the idea that such places can facilitate the transfer of knowlege. People, for instance, who study for a test in the place the test will be given often score higher.
The way in which students sometimes pick up on a professor's worldview with a sweeping, intuitive grasp is hard to quantify, but I know that my writing had to benefit as much from some mystical process as the overly structured composition courses given by well-meaning, rationally driven teachers.
I think such physical places will continue to inspire and advance mankind, and I'm pretty sure that the fancy corespondence courses thought to supplant courses with embodied teachers and students will prove to be inadequate absent real universities, brick and mortar or whatever.
The Academic Earth website
The Academic Earth website has been a very helpful supplement to my community college chemistry courses. I pay something like $22 a unit, and have few technical or tutoring resources available to me at school. I can get a Berkeley chem prof lecture for free. Thanks, Al Gore and your Internet!
No quite
Essay misses two points: 1. Nothing is cheaper, instruction-wise, than sticking 300 students in one room with an instructor and three graduate students. Online education is expensive.
2. College is about building social capital--the networks and connections that students make--these will carry them through their careers and have real economic value.
Higher education faces the same problems for a generation: State legislatures no longer see it as a public good, and have shifted the cost to students.
Universities don't sell students hard to get knowledge
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I am a tenure track professor at a traditional 4-year university. Universities do not sell students hard to get knowledge. Most of us use textbooks for our classes. Students are free to purchase those textbooks on their own and learn the material. Most schools even offer students the opportunity to take a challenge exam for a course when they think they know the material well enough to skip the lectures.
What we sell is instruction, the verification that the students have learned the knowledge, and certification that we provide a quality education. The certification comes from outside evaluation of universities by accrediting organizations.
So, the question is really, can online universities do all of these things? In my opinion, online schools suffer in all three areas. Online instruction might be OK for introductory classes. But, how does one teach a chemistry laboratory course online? Most science and engineering programs now require a capstone project of their degree-seeking students. How do you do cutting edge science and engineering research at home? In addition, online lectures must be a terrible way to teach things in an interactive, hands on, or in a Socratic way.
Verification is a real problem with an online course. Students hate in class tests, but its one of the few ways we have of assessing the students with confidence that they haven't cheated. How do you do this online? Papers can be bought. Take home exams are tricky to write in way that someone with the entire internet at his or her fingertips can't just cut and paste their way through.
Certification or accreditation is also a problem for these schools. You might be able to get an engineering degree at Devry, but is it worth anything? Will any accreditation agency ever view an online engineering program seriously? Recently, for profit online and trade schools have come under a lot of fire for their aggressive recruitment and misleading claims about the value of their degrees.
Finally, it is currently possible for even very poor students to get a college education. Federal financial aid is based on need and includes not only tuition, but also living expenses such a room and board. In fact, the poorest students often get the best financial aid awards. (The middle class students have the worst time paying for college.) What holds poor students back is the lousy education they often get in their home community’s public elementary and secondary schools. The idea that online schools represent a new opportunity for the poor is completely ridiculous.
Newspapers and higher
Newspapers and higher education are very different things. For a newspaper, information flows in one direction, which lends itself to aggregation of sources. For higher education, instructors must impart information to students, but the students need to be able to question and probe the instructor. While it is conceivable that this can be done on-line, as a previous poster mentioned, it does not necessarily mean that it can be done well (or more efficiently) on line. My students don't just take notes in my lectures, but they ask questions and have me clarify particularly difficult concepts. This back and forth is essential for a quality education. It would be no easier to do this, per student, on-line, and in fact would be much more difficult, since I would have no access to inflection, tone, facial expressions, body language, etc. It sounds silly but these things are actually important.
Furthermore, the interaction between students, outside of class, is another vital aspect of the college experience that is not easily replicated on-line. At a school that is half commuter, I notice a significant difference between those student housed in dorms, who can interact after class, discuss the material, and work out problem sets together, and those students who must commute to campus. It is unfortunate, but true, that on-campus, traditional-lecture-attending students get far more out of their education than either on-line or commuter students. It may well be that schools will move towards this new paradigm, but that says nothing about the quality of students these schools will be producing.