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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
Universities continue to struggle in their efforts to fully integrate information and communications technology within their activities. Based on examination of current practices in technology integration at 25 universities worldwide, this book argues for a radical approach to the management of technology in higher education. It offers recommendations for improving governance, strategic planning, integration of administrative and teaching services, management of digital resources, and training of technology managers and administrators. The book is written for anyone wanting to ensure technology is integrated as effectively and efficiently as possible.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011
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Table of Contents
Cover
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Figures and Tables
Preface
Executive Summary
Chapter One: The Challenge of Change
Creating Higher Education Institutions Fit for the Twenty-First Century
Rationales for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Teaching and Learning
Conclusion
Chapter Two: Recent Developments in Technology and Education
Introduction
Using Information and Communications Technologies to Improve Administrative Functions
Technologies for Teaching
The Implications of New Technology Developments for Teaching and Learning
Conclusion
Chapter Three: Tracking Existing Strategies for Technology Integration
Introduction
Where the Evidence Comes From
The Web-Based Survey of Institutional Strategic Plans for Technology
The Institutional Case Studies
Criteria for Assessing the Success or Otherwise of Technology Integration
Conclusion
Chapter Four: Leadership and Strategy
Introduction
Leadership
Strategic Planning
Conclusion
Chapter Five: Organizational Structures and Initiatives to Support Technology Integration
Technology Projects
Committee Structures
Permanent Organizational Units
Governance of Technology
Conclusion
Chapter Six: Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance Processes
Quality Assurance in the Case Studies
Summary
How Useful Is Quality Assurance?
Conclusion
Chapter Seven: Resources, Money, and Decision Making
Introduction
Experience from the Case Studies
Methodological Issues in Assessing the True Cost of E-Learning
A Business Model for an Online Learning Program
Conclusion
Chapter Eight: Barriers to Change and Two Ways to Remove Them
Introduction
Systemic Barriers to Change
What Is Organizational Culture and Why Is It Important?
Training in Technology and Teaching
The Training of Senior and Middle Managers
Will Training Be Enough to Change the Culture?
Conclusion
Chapter Nine: Building a Twenty-First-Century University or College
Taking Control of Change
Roles for Government
Building Better Universities and Colleges
Conclusion
References
About the Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter One: The Challenge of Change
1.1 Technology as a Balancing Factor for the Forces Impacting on Higher Education
Chapter Two: Recent Developments in Technology and Education
2.1 Different Modes of E-Learning
2.2 Analysis of Web 2.0 Tools from an Educational Perspective
Chapter Seven: Resources, Money, and Decision Making
7.1 Projected Revenues and Expenditures for an Online Master’s Program
7.2 Breakdown of Different Kinds of Expenditure over Time
Chapter Nine: Building a Twenty - First - Century University or College
9.1 Areas of Decision Making Regarding Academic Technologies
9.2 An Integrated Academic, Learning Technology, and Budget Planning Process
9.3 The TOPs Model
List of Tables
Chapter Three: Tracking Existing Strategies for Technology Integration
3.1 Case Study Institutions
Chapter Seven: Resources, Money, and Decision Making
7.1 A Business Model for an Online Program
7.2 Summary of Business Plan by Activity, over Seven Years
7.3 Costs of Instructors ($)
7.4 Work Estimates for Various Activities for an Online Course
7.5 Breakdown of Activities for a Senior Professor During One Year with a Teaching Load of Four Three-Credit Courses per Annum
Chapter Nine: Building a Twenty - First - Century University or College
9.1 Examples of Goals, Strategies, and Performance Indicators for Learning Technologies
Guide
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Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series
MANAGING TECHNOLOGY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning
A. W. (Tony) Bates and Albert Sangrà
Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
A Wiley Imprint
989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741—www.josseybass.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002.
Jossey-Bass also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
Tierney and Hentschke quotes on pages 195 and 232 from Tierney, William G., and Guilbert C. Hentschke, New Players, Different Game, pp. 13–14, 135. Copyright © 2007 The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bates, Tony, date.
Managing technology in higher education : strategies for transforming teaching and learning / A. W. (Tony) Bates, Albert Sangrà.
p. cm. – (The Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-58472-9 (hardback); ISBN 978-1-118-03854-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-03855-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-03856-7 (ebk)
1. Education, Higher–Effect of technological innovations on. 2. Information technology–Management. I. Sangrà, Albert, date. II. Title.
LB2395.7.B376 2011
378.1′01–dc22
2011002090
To students everywhere
Figures and Tables
FIGURES
1.1 Technology as a Balancing Factor for the Forces Impacting on Higher Education
2.1 Different Modes of E-Learning
2.2 Analysis of Web 2.0 Tools from an Educational Perspective
7.1 Projected Revenues and Expenditures for an Online Master’s Program
7.2 Breakdown of Different Kinds of Expenditure over Time
9.1 Areas of Decision Making Regarding Academic Technologies
9.2 An Integrated Academic, Learning Technology, and Budget Planning Process
9.3 The TOPs Model
TABLES
3.1 Case Study Institutions
7.1 A Business Model for an Online Program
7.2 Summary of Business Plan by Activity, over Seven Years
7.3 Costs of Instructors ($)
7.4 Work Estimates for Various Activities for an Online Course
7.5 Breakdown of Activities for a Senior Professor During One Year with a Teaching Load of Four Three-Credit Courses per Annum
9.1 Examples of Goals, Strategies, and Performance Indicators for Learning Technologies
Preface
The Origin of the Book
Albert Sangrà and I worked closely together for five years (2002–2007) while I was a part-time chair of research in e-learning at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) in Barcelona.
During that time, he was collecting data for his thesis on the integration of technology in the university based on six case studies from Southern Europe. When I read the thesis, I was struck by the similarities of the results from his study and my own experience working with North American universities and colleges, despite the large differences in language, culture, and history between the two continents. In particular, we shared a common interest in using technology to improve the quality of teaching, to increase access to learners, and to improve the cost-effectiveness of universities and colleges. We decided therefore to join forces, and look in an international context at the issue of managing technology for transforming teaching and learning, based on actual practices from different institutions.
The Purpose of the Book
It is 20 years since the development of the World Wide Web and 15 years since the first uses of the Web for teaching and learning. In North America, over 90% of postsecondary institutions are using a learning management system such as Blackboard or Moodle. Over the same period, most postsecondary institutions have made massive (in a few cases, financially crippling) investments in administrative software systems for student, financial, and human resource services. In recent years, there has been an increasing move to Web-based student self-service, such as online admission and registration, payment of fees, and student portals, and to integration of services, through the use of enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs) and business intelligence. Information technologies are now a core resource for nearly all postsecondary educational institutions, not only for administrative purposes, but also to support teaching and learning.
Nor does the rate of technological change show any signs of abating. The emergence of Web 2.0 tools provide learners with as much control over the technology as the instructors. Cloud computing allows individual administrators and faculty to bypass centralized IT services, with implications for strategic priorities, network load, quality, security, and privacy.
However, evidence that will be reported in this book indicates that universities and colleges are still struggling to fully integrate information and communications technology (ICTs) within their activities. Particular issues are the lack of clear vision for the academy in a technologically rich environment, setting clear and measurable goals for IT investment and applications, the governance and management of information and communications technology within the academy, poor returns on ICT investment, educational program design, strategies for coping with the pace of technological change and development, security and privacy, and measurement of performance. This book will examine the causes of these difficulties, and will make concrete and practical recommendations to improve performance in all these areas.
Who Is the Book For?
This book is aimed first of all at senior academic university and college administrators, such as presidents, vice presidents, and deans. However, because of the critical role of faculty in university and college decision making, we also hope to reach a substantial number of professors and instructors. Their understanding of the issues, and their willingness to address them, will be critical if the changes needed to make institutions fit for the twenty-first century are to be implemented. We also hope that the book will be of particular value to government officials in ministries or departments of education, and to postgraduate education students studying or researching the role of technology in postsecondary education.
What Issues Does the Book Address?
The book examines the rationales for the use of technology in universities and colleges. A major feature of the book is the relationship between the use of information and communications technologies for teaching and learning, and the needs of learners in a knowledge-based society. In particular, it focuses on how the planning and management of technology can be used to transform teaching and learning within the institution.
The book examines current practice in managing technology in postsecondary education, based on empirical studies of practice in over twenty universities worldwide, and in-depth study of 11 universities and colleges (six in Europe and five in North America). These studies identify a range of issues that inhibit the effective integration of technology in universities and colleges. The book also argues that to manage technology effectively, all instructors and senior administrators need professional development specifically directed at using technology for teaching and for the management of technology. This book provides some of the knowledge base for such training. It also examines the barriers to change and makes recommendations for overcoming these barriers.
Most important, the book argues that because the application of technology is now a core activity in teaching, research, and administration, institutions need to look at investment in technology from a strategic perspective. This means integrating technology planning as a major component of the overall vision and strategy for the academy.
What’s in the Book?
First, because administrators like to cut to the chase, we provide a very brief executive summary of the main recommendations coming from the book. However, we strongly recommend that readers follow up on the reasons for these recommendations, and the evidence behind them, that are contained in the book, as some recommendations are strongly based on data, and others are more speculation on our part.
Most of the chapters start with a scenario of a particular individual—a student, faculty member, or administrator—facing a typical situation regarding the use of technology for teaching and learning. The characters and institutions in the scenarios are fictional, but provide concrete contexts for many of the issues covered in this book (not all necessarily discussed in the chapter where the scenario appears). Nor have we provided our own solutions or recommendations for the scenarios. We do not believe there are simple, “off-the shelf” solutions for many of the management decisions required to transform teaching and learning through technology. The scenarios then are mainly a heuristic device, to encourage analysis and discussion of the findings and recommendations in the book, and could be used to encourage participants in workshops or courses on educational management to find their own solutions or determine their own positions regarding the use of technology for teaching and learning.
Chapter One provides an analysis of the changes in society, and their impact on postsecondary educational institutions. There is a particular emphasis on the development of a knowledge-based society, and the skills and knowledge associated with this. Another related factor is the rapid growth of postsecondary education (massification), and the implications for teaching.
Chapter Two looks at developments in technology over the last twenty years that have relevance to the operations of universities and colleges. On the administrative side, the chapter discusses the impact of data-based services, technology integration, and the move to student and academic self-service. It also discusses the impact of the Web and the Internet on teaching and learning, such as blended, online, and mobile learning; the implications for student access; and the development of skills and competencies. It discusses particularly the development of Web 2.0 technologies, and their implications for teaching and learning. Then it discusses issues of security, privacy, and the potential impact of cloud computing.
Chapter Three describes how we collected data and analyzed it. This includes a review of relevant literature, an international survey of strategies for managing technology in 25 universities worldwide, 11 in-depth case studies, and the personal experience of the authors. We provide brief thumbnail sketches of each of the case study institutions’ strategies for technology integration over a period of years. We also developed a set of questions that allowed us to rank the case studies in terms of the extent of technology integration.
Chapter Four examines leadership and strategic planning. How did the case study institutions do technology planning? What is the best way for leaders to work to support technology integration? How are goals and priorities set for the use of technology? Who should decide on what technologies are used for teaching? How useful is strategic planning?
Chapter Five looks at organizational structures and projects that were implemented in the case studies, including attempts to build administrative and teaching software systems in some institutions; the roles, mandate, structures, and effectiveness of technology committees; what permanent organizational units were established to support technology integration; and finally the need for a comprehensive governance structure for technology.
Chapter Six discusses quality assurance for technology-based teaching and looks at how the case study institutions went about this, and we discuss the effectiveness of quality assurance processes for technology-based teaching.
Chapter Seven takes a hard look at how technology is financed and the costs of technology-based learning. Because of a lack of information about the relative costs of different kinds of teaching in the institutions, and a concern over the unintended consequences of funding technology-based teaching, we recommend a methodology for tracking costs of different forms of technology-based and face-to-face teaching.
Chapter Eight seeks to explain why institutional strategies are generally so conservative regarding the goals for technology, and so slow in changing. It suggests that substantial change will not happen without much more extensive and comprehensive training of instructors and administrators. This chapter also suggests some roles for government in stimulating change.
Chapter Nine, the final chapter, pulls together the main conclusions and recommendations, and discusses the implications for institutions.
Although the focus of the book is the strategic management of information and communication technologies, it inevitably raises fundamental questions about the role of postsecondary educational institutions in the twenty-first century, the culture and management of institutions, and the implications for faculty and administrators of an increasingly technological environment. Above all, we argue that new visions for the organization and management of universities and colleges are needed, built around the potential of technology, if we are to properly serve the needs of society in the twenty-first century.
Acknowledgments
It is hard to know where to begin, as so many people have contributed to this book. First we must thank the staff and senior administrators of the eleven case study institutions. Some may not be aware that their institutions were the subject of a case study for this book, because we have used already published secondary sources for some of the studies. Others were approached and allowed us completely open access and total cooperation. We have drawn heavily on the work and ideas of professional colleagues, administrators, faculty, and distance education/learning technology support staff, at the University of British Columbia and the Open University of Catalonia. Most of the good suggestions and recommendations have come from colleagues with whom we worked in several of the case study institutions. The bad suggestions are ours entirely.
Publishers have been generous in allowing us permission to quote from other works. We would like to thank Springer and IGI Global particularly for permission to reproduce material previously published in U-D. Ehlers and D. Schneckenberg (eds.) (2010) Changing Cultures in Higher Education: Moving Ahead to Future Learning, Heidelberg/London/New York: Springer; and M. Lee and C. McLoughlin (eds.) (2010) Web 2.0-Based E-Learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching, Hershey, PA: IGI Global. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation kindly allowed us to adapt for the scenario at the start of Chapter Two the summary from the report by M. Ito et al. (2008) Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, Chicago, IL: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
We would also like to thank Andrew Higgins, Tom Prebble, and the New Zealand Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence for allowing us to use the full list of questions that administrators need to ask when making decisions about e-learning that Andrew and Tom developed from their research.
We drew heavily from a study by the U.S. State Higher Education Executive Officers and the American Center for Quality and Productivity on best practices in faculty development for teaching with technology, that also provided a host of data about other important elements for good management of learning technologies. Barbara Truman at the University of Central Florida, and Jeff Miller at UBC, provided the most recent statistics on their universities’ use of technology.
Mercé Gisbert of Universitat Rovira i Virgili and Gabriel Ferraté of the Open University of Catalonia provided critical advice on research in general and specifically on the design and interpretation of the Spanish and Italian cases. Finally, we both owe profound thanks to our families, who have had to put up with distracted and inattentive writers for long periods.
We hope you find this book both stimulating and helpful.
March 2011
Tony BatesVancouver, BC, Canada
Executive Summary
This executive summary pulls together the main recommendations from the book and provides some of the context for these recommendations. However, it is also important to assess the evidence and reasoning behind these recommendations because their value will vary depending on the context of the reader, and this will require more detailed reading of the book.
Purpose of the Book
This book examines strategies and actions that support the integration of technology into the core activities of universities and colleges. In particular, it explores ways to transform teaching and learning through the use of technology.
Context for the Book
Technology is an essential component of any modern postsecondary educational institution, not only for supporting administrative activities, but also increasingly for the core activities of teaching and learning.
Although the core missions of universities and colleges are even more relevant today, radical change is needed in their organization and in their design and delivery of teaching, if they are to respond adequately to the challenges they are facing. The integration of technology and its use to transform teaching and learning are key strategies for such change.
Methodology
The book draws heavily on information collected from case studies of 11 public sector postsecondary educational institutions, six in southern Europe and five in North America, including seven campus-based universities, two community colleges, and two open universities. All the cases were chosen because of the stated intention of the senior administration in the institutions to make technology integration an important goal.
We examined a number of indicators of technology integration and, on this basis, we ranked the 11 case studies by the extent to which technology had been integrated within the organization. This enabled us to look for strategies and activities in the top-ranked institutions and compare them with the strategies and policies used in the lower-ranked institutions. We also compared strategies across the 11 institutions with our analysis of the challenges facing higher education institutions, and in the final chapter we make a number of recommendations for change in the institutional management of technology, to support a more radical transformation of teaching and learning to meet twenty-first-century needs.
Main Findings and Recommendations
Institutional Planning and Strategy (Chapters Four and Nine)
In general, institutions were too cautious in their goals for technology. In particular, most seemed content to use technology to enhance traditional classroom teaching, rather than to use technology to transform the way teaching is designed and delivered. Using technology to enhance classroom teaching merely adds cost to the system, with no measurable learning benefits. Most of our case study institutions had no institutional plan for learning technologies. Institutions were not usually clear enough about the different goals for learning technologies. When defined, they were not usually stated in measurable terms.
Recommendations
1. Set “innovation in teaching” as a priority goal in the Academic Plan. Fund, evaluate, and reward it.
2. A high-level technology committee (see the Organizational Structures section) should be mandated to develop long-term goals and strategies for learning technologies. In addition to supporting innovation in teaching, we suggest the following as possible long-term goals for learning technologies:
Increasing flexible access for a more diverse student body
Increasing interaction between instructors and students, and allowing for more individualization of learning
Developing student skills in identifying, collecting, analyzing, and applying knowledge
Teaching students how information technology can be used within a particular professional or subject domain
Using technology to support the development of twenty-first-century skills of independent learning, initiative, communication, teamwork, adaptability, collaboration, networking, and thinking skills within a particular professional or subject domain
Greater cost-effectiveness: more students at a higher quality and less cost through the use of technology
Institutions should track and measure their performance on such goals.
Leadership (Chapter Four)
Leadership is critical for technology integration, but rather than a strongly directive leadership from an individual, it needs to be of a style that facilitates a collective approach to the setting and implementation of goals. In particular, all members of the executive team need to be on the same page regarding the need for change in teaching, and the importance of technology for transforming teaching and learning. They also need to understand the financial implications when making this commitment. The key role for the executive team is to ensure that there is a comprehensive governance strategy in place for technology, which includes its use for teaching and learning.
Recommendations
3. All the executives should actively promote the importance of technology for transforming teaching and learning, through public announcements, the strategic plan, and personal example in decision making about resources.
4. The senior executive team should guide, facilitate, and be responsive to the wide range of technology decision makers within the organization.
5. The senior executive team should develop a clear, coherent, and comprehensive governance structure for technology decision making and policies. The design and maintenance of this governance structure should be a direct responsibility of the senior executive team. (For more detail, see Chapter Nine.)
Planning at the Program Level (Chapters Four and Nine)
Generally, there was a lack of imagination on the part of both instructors and administrators about the potential of technology for teaching and learning. A critical area for developing vision for the use of technology is at the academic program planning stage, when programs are being planned or renewed following review. Choice and use of technology is best made at the program planning level. This means integrating decisions about technology with other academic decisions, such as content, method of teaching, and how the program will be delivered (the mix of face-to-face, hybrid, and distance learning).
Recommendation
6. There should be in place an annual program planning process that is integrated with the allocation of resources and financial plan. As part of this process, program proposals should contain a clear vision of how the program will be designed and delivered, including the use of technology.
Organizational Structures (Chapter Five)
Organizational structures to support the use of learning technologies have evolved over time in a somewhat ad hoc way in many institutions. The main development has been the growth of learning technology support units, either central or located within large faculties, with professional staff to support the design and delivery of technology-based teaching and learning. These units are increasingly being integrated with faculty development and distance education activities and units.
A single technology project (such as the development or adaptation of software for teaching) was sometimes the main strategy for learning technologies in some of the case study institutions. Technology projects work best when they are part of a more general strategy for technology implementation that includes training of instructors, and a focus on teaching and learning. In our case studies, these single technology projects were not successful in bringing about sustainable e-learning.
Technology for teaching and learning is now used throughout the institution. This has led to a range of committees and decision-making bodies for the management of learning technologies, but rarely in a comprehensive or coordinated way. Because of the dynamic nature of technology, a governance structure needs to be designed that enables decisions about technology to be made on an ongoing basis. The structure should ensure that the right decisions are made by the right people at the right level.
Recommendations
7. The senior executive should put in place a comprehensive committee structure to support technology integration, and give the committees power to establish priorities and policies for technology integration. In particular, a high-level technology committee should be established with a mandate to set strategic goals and strategies for technology (including learning technologies), allocate resources, approve projects, and evaluate the effectiveness of technology strategies. (See Chapter Nine for more details.)
8. Institutions should create a unit combining faculty development, learning technology support, and distance education management, under a single director reporting to the VP of academic affairs, with an annual service contract to locate specialist staff in academic departments based on their annual academic plans. (The establishment and management of units located within large faculties may be more decentralized in very large research universities.)
Quality Assurance and Evaluation (Chapter Six)
Quality assurance methods are valuable for accreditation agencies concerned about institutions using e-learning to cut corners or reduce costs without maintaining standards. They can be useful for providing instructors new to teaching with technology, or struggling with its use, with models of best practice to follow.
However, the best guarantees of quality in e-learning are a commitment by the leadership to supporting innovation in teaching, instructors well trained in both pedagogy and the use of technology for teaching, highly qualified and professional learning technology support staff, adequate resources (especially regarding instructor-student ratios), appropriate methods of working (teamwork, project management), and systematic evaluation. Generally, the same standards that apply to online learning should also apply to face-to-face teaching.
Recommendation
9. Use standard methods of program approval, review, and evaluation, slightly adapted for the special circumstances of online learning. Ensure that learner support is provided in suitable ways for off-campus students. Use a team approach, with instructional designers and Web support staff, and best practice in online course design, for hybrid and distance courses. Ensure that the course design is adapted to meet the needs of off-campus learners. Begin applying some of these techniques to the redesign of large face-to-face classes.
Financial Management (Chapter Seven)
Because technology has mainly been added to conventional face-to-face teaching rather than replacing activities or generating new revenues, because new categories of staff have been hired to support learning technologies, and because instructors have not been comprehensively trained in using technologies for teaching and are therefore spending more time on teaching, costs have almost certainly increased substantially. No institution had a handle on the true costs of teaching with technology. One problem is that postsecondary institutions do not usually track the costs of activities, such as programs. Activity-based costing is essential to understand the true costs of learning technologies. Another way to control costs is to set standard workloads for instructors that apply to all forms of teaching.
Recommendations
10. The design of teaching needs to be changed to control costs and obtain the benefits when technology is introduced; merely adding technology on to old processes will not produce the desired benefits.
11. Traditional department-based financial reporting systems need to be combined with activity-based costing methods to enable the costs of different teaching models to be accurately analyzed. Details are provided in Chapter Seven.
Organizational Culture and Barriers to Change (Chapter Eight)
Senior administrators are often aware of the need to change, and would like to introduce some of the recommendations we are making, but are constrained by the barriers of organizational culture, and, in particular, by faculty’s strongly held beliefs about traditional teaching methods, the privileging of research over teaching, and the mistrust of formal training in teaching. These barriers will not easily be overcome by short-term financial incentives, and may need strong external pressure, as well as strong internal leadership.
Nevertheless, formal training in modern teaching methods is an essential requirement for the effective use of technology in teaching, as well as for ensuring the development of the kind of graduates needed in the twenty-first century.
Also, senior academic administrators rarely have any formal training in the management issues around technology decision making, and indeed sometimes have little familiarity with the technology itself.
Recommendations
12. All instructors who have regular teaching commitments should receive comprehensive training in teaching at a post-secondary level before appointment (even or especially in research universities), and continuous professional development that includes regular learning activities around new developments in teaching and technology.
13. All middle and senior managers and administrators should be provided with an individually adapted orientation program about technology issues and technology expertise available in the institution that could assist them with technology decisions within their area of responsibility.
14. Institutions need to find stronger incentives to encourage instructors to innovate in teaching, otherwise the investment in technology will be wasted.
Roles for Government (Chapter Nine)
In general, we support a hands-off approach by government in postsecondary education, but there are some key roles for government that could immensely help the introduction of necessary changes that will support the effective use of technology for teaching in postsecondary education.
Recommendations
15. In consultation with institutions and other key stakeholders, governments should develop a strategic plan setting priorities and strategies for information and communications technologies for their postsecondary education system.
16. Governments should use funding to drive innovation in teaching and the use of technology within their postsecondary education systems. In particular, they should require all instructors with regular teaching loads to be qualified through a government-approved postsecondary teacher training program.
17. Governments should create new postsecondary institutions based on hybrid delivery models with a footprint centered on but wider than the local community, with a focus on the development and support of local high-tech industries.
Conclusion
This is a very brief summary of the book. Each chapter provides a full discussion of the findings from our case studies, a discussion of the issues, and detailed recommendations.
Chapter OneThe Challenge of Change
Today, everyone, if they are to have a job, needs the kind of higher order thinking skills that only those in managerial or professional positions formerly needed. We can only achieve this through major structural reform of our education system.
—Jane Gilbert, 2005, p. 67
Meet Samantha, a Twenty-First-Century Student
Samantha is 25 years old, with a one-year-old baby, and lives with her boyfriend, Shaun, who works as a trainer in a fitness center. She works part-time at a local day care center. She has an old Honda Civic, a “smart” mobile phone, and her own laptop computer with broadband Internet access. She regularly uses Twitter, Skype, Google Search, Google Mail, Facebook, Flickr, iTunes, and YouTube, as well as standard PC software such as Word and Excel.
She is taking the fourth year of a bachelor of commerce degree from her local college, which is a 35- to 45-minute drive from her home. This is her fifth year in the program. She was unable to complete all her courses in her third and fourth years, because her classes often clashed with her day-care hours, and she kept getting behind with her studies. She is taking almost all her classes on campus, but she managed to find one course in her program that was offered online, which she is enjoying.
In her first year, there were around a hundred students in most of her classes, but this year there are about thirty per class. The college prides itself on its high-technology classrooms, with Smartboards, wireless access, clickers, and three screens in most classrooms. Some of her instructors have started to record their lectures, so she can download them, but others refuse to do so, because if they do, they fear students won’t come to the classes (and she agrees with them).
Samantha often uses Facebook to discuss her courses with friends who are in the same class, but most of the instructors don’t use anything more than e-mail outside class for communication with students, although one of her instructors has organized online discussion forums. On the whole, she likes being on campus, especially meeting the other students, but the lectures are often boring, so she sometimes joins in the class Tweets about the instructors while they are lecturing, which she finds amusing, if distracting.
She worries about the stress her studies are causing in her relationship with Shaun. She is always studying, driving, working, or looking after the baby. She particularly resents the eight hours a week she spends driving to and from the college, which she would rather spend studying. Shaun has a friend who has moved out of state who wants Shaun to join him as a partner in running a fitness center, but this would mean giving up her studies at her local college, and she doesn’t want to do that, as she may have problems getting credit for her courses at a college in another state. The thought of having to start her studies all over again fills her with dread. If that happens, she will enroll with either the University of Phoenix Online, or another of the fully online for-profit universities. They seem to understand her needs better than her local college.
This student is unique, but nor is she atypical of today’s students, the majority of whom are 24 or older, working at least part-time, and commuting on a regular basis to college. With new course designs and the proper use of technology, we could do much better for students like Samantha.
Creating Higher Education Institutions Fit for the Twenty-First Century
Universities are resilient. The concept of the university has remained largely unchanged for over 800 years. Universities have always had to balance an uneasy tension between cloistered independence and relevance to society at large, but they have successfully thrown off or resisted control by church, princes, state, and commerce to remain on the whole fully autonomous, at least in Western society. In eight centuries, they have undergone massive expansion, the introduction of fundamentally new areas of scholarship, and radical restructuring, while protecting their core mission. As a result, universities appear to be more strongly established today and certainly more numerous than at any other time in history. Yet often when institutions appear to be all-powerful, they can be extremely vulnerable to changes in the external environment.
Indeed, today universities and colleges are facing strong pressures for further change. For cultural and historical reasons change is likely to be slow, at least for most public institutions. Nevertheless, economic development has been and will continue to be strongly linked to the ability of education systems to adapt to the demands of a knowledge-based society. Thus those postsecondary educational institutions that do change appropriately are likely to gain a strong competitive advantage, both for themselves and for the societies in which they operate. In other words, we need strong universities and colleges that are adapted to the needs of the twenty-first century.
Universities: Failing in Technology
Technology is a key factor for bringing about such relevant and necessary change in higher education institutions, but we will produce evidence that suggests universities and colleges still don’t really “get it” as far as technology is concerned. In particular, universities and colleges in general are underexploiting the potential of technology to change the way that teaching and learning could be designed and delivered, so as to increase flexible access to learning, improve quality, and control or reduce costs, all core challenges faced by higher education institutions today.
Although managing technology in a way that leads to the transformation of teaching and learning is the primary focus of this book, any discussion of information and communications technologies must be placed within the overall context of the role and mission of postsecondary educational institutions. We start then by examining the issues and challenges facing universities and colleges today, and suggest that although their core mission and values should remain largely unchanged, radical change is needed in their organization and in particular in the design and delivery of their teaching, if they are to be “fit for purpose” for the twenty-first century.
We will also argue that information and communications technologies have a crucial role to play in such changes, but for technology to be used fully and effectively, major changes are needed in the prevailing culture of the academy and the way in which it is managed. The aim of this book, therefore, is to examine how best to manage information and communications technologies, so that universities and colleges can appropriately address their main challenges and goals, can provide the kind of teaching and learning needed in the twenty-first century, and thus better serve students like Samantha.
Universities and Colleges in an Industrial Society
The organization and structure of the modern university began to form in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. The forces leading to these changes were complex and interrelated. The growth of the nation state and the extension of empire required a large increase in government bureaucrats, who tended to be taught the classics (philosophy, history, Greek, and Latin). The rise of science, and the recognition of its importance for economic development through the Industrial Revolution, was another factor. Thomas Huxley in Britain and Wilhelm von Humboldt in Germany were two key figures who promoted the growth of science and engineering in the university. Indeed, Huxley had to start his own program for teaching biology at the Royal School of Mines—which later became Imperial College—because neither Oxford nor Cambridge University was willing to teach scientific biology at the time (Desmond, 1997).
Consequently the number of universities and colleges in Europe and North America expanded considerably toward the end of the nineteenth century. The land-grant universities in the United States in particular were developed to support agricultural expansion, and “red brick” universities were opened in the industrial cities of Britain to meet the increasing demand for engineers and scientists for local industries. Despite this expansion, though, entrance to university in many countries was limited largely to a small, elite minority of upper-class or rich middle-class students. As late as 1969, less than 8% 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 smaller 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 United States 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 rapidly expand 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 are now admitted to some form of postsecondary education. The figure for Canada in 2004 was 52% (Statistics Canada, 2009), and currently there are over 18 million students in postsecondary education in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau, 2009).
This represents a massive increase in numbers, and not surprisingly, governments, although spending ever more each year on postsecondary 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 nontenured instructors or even graduate students. However, at the same time, completion rates (that is, the proportion of students who enter a degree program who go on to complete the degree program within six years) in undergraduate four-year degree programs remain below 60% in the United States for many public universities (Bowen, Chingus, & McPherson, 2009). In other words, universities are failing a significant number of students each year.
The widening of access has resulted in a much more diverse student population. 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 and other costs, like Samantha). The mean age of students in North American postsecondary 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 lifestyle.
By definition, many of the students who now attend university or college are not in the top 10% of academic achievers, and therefore are likely to need more support and assistance with learning. With the growth of international students, and increased immigration, there are now wider differences in language and culture, which also influence the context of teaching and learning. Yet the modes of teaching have changed little to accommodate these massive changes in the nature of the student body, with lectures, wet labs, and pen and paper examinations being the norm rather than the exception.
Finally, in most economically advanced countries, the unit costs of higher education have steadily increased year after year, without any sign of abating. Between 1995 and 2005, average tuition and fees rose 51% at public four-year institutions and 30% at community colleges in the United States (The College Board, 2005; Johnson, 2009). The average cost per student per year in tertiary education (excluding R&D costs) in the United States in 2006 was just over $22,000 per student, compared with an average of $7,500 per student for European countries (OECD, 2009, p. 202). Thus although there are now many more postsecondary 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 expenditure has gone into other areas, such as administration, fund raising, and campus facilities (Wellman, Desrochers, Lenihan, Kirshstein, Hurlburt, & Honegger, 2009). Thus postsecondary education has become larger, more costly, but less efficient.
Despite these challenges, modern universities and colleges still have many features of industrial organizations (Carlton & Perloff, 2000; Gilbert, 2005). 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, regarding the curriculum (same lectures, same reading lists, and so on, for each student in the course). The institution is divided into departmental silos, with a hierarchical management structure. The Spellings Commission in the United States (U.S. 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.
The Growth of the Knowledge-Based Economy
It is debatable whether the expansion of postsecondary education led to the growth of a knowledge-based economy or vice versa, but the two are inextricably linked. Peter Drucker (1969) is credited with coining the term “knowledge-based economy.” He made the simple but powerful distinction between people who work with their hands and those who work with their heads. Typical knowledge-based occupations can be found in biotechnology, telecommunications, banking and insurance, computing and electronics, health, entertainment, and education. These enterprises depend heavily on information and communications technologies for the creation, storage, transmission, analysis, and application of information in ways that create knowledge.
Labor is a major cost in industrial organizations. Cheaper labor means lower costs and hence competitive prices. In a globalized market, factories move to the lowest cost labor market. Thus we have seen to a large extent the deindustrialization of former industrial economies. (The shift is not quite that simple. Manufacturing remains important in advanced economies, but manufacturing itself is becoming increasingly dependent on innovation and knowledge-based components. For instance, Volkswagen estimates that over 70% of the cost of their cars comes from research, design, digital technology, and marketing, all knowledge-based activities. As a result, manufacturing in advanced economies is becoming increasingly focused on high-end manufacturing with a strong knowledge-based component.)
It is probably no coincidence however that as the numbers of graduates from universities and colleges increased year by year, so did the expansion of the knowledge-based economy, thus balancing to some extent the jobs lost in the industrial sector. Knowledge-based jobs of course require large numbers of people with higher levels of education, and this to some extent compensates more economically advanced economies for their lost of industrial jobs. Knowledge-based work is generally classified as service industries. The Canadian Services Coalition and the Canadian Chambers of Commerce (2006, p. 3) report:
The amount of employment represented by the services sector as a percentage of total employment, in comparison to the agriculture and industry sectors, has been steadily increasing over the last 25 years. In fact, according to Statistics Canada, 80 percent of all new jobs within Canada between 1992 and 2005 were in the services industry.
