Friday, November 8, 2002

Technology Will Reshape Research Universities Dramatically, Science-Academy Report Predicts By VINCENT KIERNAN Washington Information technology is likely to reshape research universities dramatically -- changing how they are organized, financed, and governed -- and will also prod the institutions to emphasize instruction more heavily, a new report from the National Academy of Sciences predicts. The report, issued here Thursday, warns academe against "complacency" in the face of fast-paced technological developments and new competition from online universities and for-profit institutions. The report cautions that research universities should respond "with carefully considered strategies backed by prudent developments -- not just to avoid extinction but to actively cultivate opportunity." The document, titled "Preparing for the Revolution: Information Technology and the Future of the Research University," was written by a committee that included current and former college administrators, leaders of higher-education groups, foundation officials, and industry officials -- but no representatives from faculty groups. The report says the changes will be driven by expanded computer-network bandwidth and dramatic improvements in both hardware and software, such as notebook computers vastly more powerful than today's models and programs called "software agents" that will autonomously collect information requested by a user. In light of those developments, the report suggests a possible future for higher education that may not sit well with many faculty members: an academe dominated by freelance instructors selling their services to many institutions, which in turn compete for students who buy courses a la carte from many different colleges. "Although the university has survived earlier periods of technology-driven social change with its basic role and structure more or less intact, the changes being induced by information technology are different because they alter the fundamental relationship between people and knowledge," the report states. For example, the report predicts that information technology, by allowing students to learn both at a distance and at their own pace, will undercut two commonplace features of undergraduate instruction: lectures and a common reading list. Rather, students will collaborate online with one another and their instructor, the report says. "The faculty member of the twenty-first century university could thus become more of a consultant or a coach than a teacher, less concerned with transmitting intellectual content directly than with inspiring, motivating, and managing an active learning process," the report states. "That is, faculty may come to interact with undergraduates in ways that resemble how they interact with their doctoral students today." "Higher education as a cottage industry, in which individual courses are made to order by individual faculty, may not be able to compete much longer in either cost or quality with commodity educational products," says the report. Mark F. Smith, director of government relations at the American Association of University Professors, said that he has grave concerns about the role of the professor devolving into little more that of an educational consultant. A college education, he said, will continue to rely upon faculty members who are deeply enmeshed in students' learning, through activities such as guiding discussions and presenting their expertise to students. "There still is an important role for human interaction in a controlled sense," Mr. Smith said. "Information technology can enhance that experience, but it can't totally substitute." James J. Duderstadt, the president emeritus of the University of Michigan, was chairman of the academy committee that wrote the report. He said that individual universities will have to conduct "grass-roots conversations" with faculty members about the need to respond to technological change. "Conversation is the key at this point," he said during a seminar at the academy's headquarters, where the report was released. The report also warns about the potential impact of competition from for-profit institutions, such as the University of Phoenix and Jones International University. The report says that research universities subsidize their research and graduate training with profits made from large lecture courses and from professional training -- areas into which for-profit universities are likely to expand. "Their success in the higher-education marketplace could therefore undermine the current business model of the research university and imperil its core activities." Meanwhile, educational institutions have not developed instructional technologies that take advantage of recent developments in information technology, the report argues. "One indicator of this gap is the reality that more space on the typical undergraduate's hard drive is likely to be devoted to MP3 music-audio files than to material related to classes." Among other recommendations, the report says that research universities must go to greater lengths to train faculty members to use technology. "They are unprepared for the new plug-and-play generation of students." Douglas E. Van Houweling, the president of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, which oversees the Internet2 project, was a member of the academy committee. He said that researchers have already embraced advanced computing. "What we have not seen yet is a similar impact on the learning environment," he said at the seminar. Students, who generally are more comfortable with information technology than are faculty members, already are demanding more and more-sophisticated use of information technology in instruction, and those demands are likely to increase, he said. Academe also must adapt its approaches to governance to react more nimbly to technological changes, the report says. "It must begin to do so by reconsidering the academic culture that sometimes allows the demand for consensus to thwart action and in which consultation is often defined as consent." Mr. Smith, of the American Association of University Professors, said it would be unwise to short-circuit campus discussions about the impact of information technology. Consultation and consensus-building are important in shared governance, in part to make sure that decisions are made thoughtfully, he said. "It's important that all members of the community are involved." Most studies by the academy are conducted with financing by the government or other groups. By contrast, the academy itself underwrote the information-technology study, Mr. Duderstadt said. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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